Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to include disabled people in policy making in (1) the Department for Transport, and (2) Active Travel England.

The Department is committed to delivering a transport network which puts passengers and their needs at its heart. A key facet to this is seeing disabled passengers able to make the journeys they want and need – doing this easily, confidently, with dignity and without extra cost.

The Department has created the People and Equalities Centre of Excellence to further drive the Department’s focus on delivering for every passenger, including those with protected characteristics, and utilises the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, as its statutory adviser on transport accessibility, to support and review transport policies.

We are committed to discharging our responsibility to give due regard to protected characteristics, set out in the Public Sector Equality Duty and the Equality Act more widely, when developing and delivering transport policy.

We regularly engage with disabled people’s organisation and other representatives covering visible and less visible disabilities. For example, in the development of the Department's Integrated Transport Strategy, the team have run ‘people’s panels’ for disabled people and neurodivergent people to allow their views to be heard, reviewed and included, as we prepare this key strategy. Similarly, in producing an Accessibility Roadmap for Rail (due to be published later this year), we have built on recent years research and engagement to ensure that it is focused on the right actions, and are engaging with accessibility organisations on the draft itself.

Active Travel England (ATE) does not set policy. ATE routinely works with Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee and disabled representative organisations to improve its output.