Women and Equalities Committee
Oral evidence: Disability and the built environment, HC 631
Wednesday 1 February 2017
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 1 February 2017.
Members present: Mrs Maria Miller (Chair); Tracy Brabin; Angela Crawley; Philip Davies; Mrs Flick Drummond
Questions 191–251
Witnesses
Gavin Barwell MP, Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, Bob Ledsome, Deputy Director, Building Regulations and Standards, Department for Communities and Local Government, and Andrew Jones MP, Parliamentary Under‑Secretary of State, Department for Transport.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)
Witnesses: Gavin Barwell MP, Bob Ledsome, and Andrew Jones MP.
Chair: Welcome to the panel of witnesses this morning. We are incredibly grateful to you for the time you have taken to be here. We know how much preparation will have gone into all of this. We are very keen to get the most benefit from our session.
Can members of the public make sure that, during the evidence session, all mobile devices are switched off? Can I remind people who are watching this that it is prohibited to take photographs during an evidence session? Just to repeat that: it is prohibited to take photographs or to display any sort of campaigning material during evidence sessions. Thank you for your attention on that.
You know the form, colleagues. We all have a lot of questions to ask and Flick Drummond is going to start our questioning.
Q191 Mrs Drummond: Just setting the scene really, I wanted to know what strategy you have for disability and the built environment, and how you co‑ordinate it between the Government Departments.
Gavin Barwell: Thank you for that initial question. I hope we have a very clear approach on how we can improve accessibility in the built environment. First, we continue to ensure the minimum standards for accessibility in buildings are maintained through the requirements in the building regulations. As you know, those requirements apply both to dwellings and to buildings other than dwellings. We undertook a major review of the building regulations for housing as part of the housing standards review, as you will know, which took place at the end of the last Parliament and came into force in October 2015. This included introducing a national wheelchair‑accessible housing standard for the first time and amending the way building regulations worked, to integrate them better with the planning system.
We have taken a big step forward in relation to the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. That is something that we have done subsequent to the evidence that my officials provided to your Committee, to try to make sure that the policies in the National Planning Policy Framework that apply, particularly in relation to elderly people and people with disabilities, are given a greater priority by local authorities when they are drawing up their local plans. We will be providing guidance both on specialist housing and on how we make sure that a higher proportion of general-needs housing is accessible. We have commissioned research to look at how the requirements in part M of the building regulations are working for buildings other than dwellings—so offices, retail, leisure facilities, entertainment—and are awaiting the work on that. It is 13 years since they were last reviewed, so that is definitely an area that we need to look at.
The planning system also allows us to look at a much wider range of development than just buildings: public spaces, landscape and public realm between buildings, so that mixture between building regulations and the planning system is key there. I will not read out the relevant paragraphs, but there are key elements of the NPPF that seek to address that.
There is also work that we need to do to change best practice and attitudes. The British Standards Institution is currently developing a standard for accessibility in the public realm. My Department has sponsored the Design Council and CABE to develop an Inclusive Environments Hub, incorporating probably the world’s largest free, online collection of guidance on design for inclusive buildings in the public realm. There are a number of other things that we are doing in that respect, which I might talk about in response to further questions.
I am not sure if there is anything Andrew wants to add in relation to the areas he is responsible for.
Andrew Jones: Thank you. We are committed to making sure that disabled people have the same access and opportunities to public transport as everybody else. That is a key requirement. They have the same requirement to access transport to get to work, get to education and just simply live their lives. We are in the process of drafting an accessibility action plan, which is to address the barriers faced by disabled people accessing public transport.
Q192 Chair: Minister, I realise you are a Transport Minister. We are really focused, in this inquiry, on non‑transport issues, if I could just gently urge you to focus on those. We absolutely understand your passion about transport, but the non‑transport elements would be most useful.
Andrew Jones: Okay. Well, to put it into a degree of context, within that plan there will be focuses on the built environment too. We have a Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee—DPTAC—within the Department, which advises us on these matters. I intend to publish this plan in draft form, probably within the next few weeks, for consultation, and to finalise the plan later this year.
Q193 Mrs Drummond: I am a bit confused about which Department is leading on this. Is there one that is looking at the overall strategy? Who is monitoring it? Who is looking after it as it goes through and making sure that it is all integrated?
Gavin Barwell: My Department obviously has the lead in relation to planning policy as a whole and responsibility for building regulations, so we clearly have the lead, but the Department for Transport has some specific responsibilities.
Andrew Jones: Exactly right.
Q194 Mrs Drummond: They are feeding into you, and you are monitoring the progress and how it is working.
Gavin Barwell: Yes, we have responsibility overall for both housing policy and for the planning system as a whole.
Q195 Mrs Drummond: One of the issues that has come up is that it is always individuals asking for things all the time, rather than Government setting strategy in advance. How do you see that rolling out? Rather than having individuals saying, “I have found this problem” and then reacting to it, are you being proactive about it?
Gavin Barwell: I would hope in this area of policy, as in most areas of policy, things proceed with a mixture of those two things. It is partly about the Government being proactive and looking at what it can do to take this agenda forward. It is also the case—and I am sure you see this in your own role as a constituency MP—that sometimes people come to us with their individual experiences and that prompts you to look at an area of policy and see if we have the detail right.
We might come on to talk about this in more detail during your questions, but I had the privilege a few weeks ago to respond to an adjournment debate about accessible toilets and about changing some of the specific provision in that area. That individual debate prompts your thinking, as a Minister, and gets you to go away and look at those issues in more detail. I certainly would not like to think that people feel that we are just being prodded into action, but that we proactively want to change things and improve things, and the housing standards review is an example of that, but nor would I want to deny the ability of individual people to go to their MP or to come to us directly, as Ministers, and raise their experiences, and that does lead into policy formation and development.
Andrew Jones: I support that point. Nobody has told us to produce an accessibility action plan and deliver progress in this area. We want to do it because it is the right thing to do, so the Government are leading in the area, but every policy area has people who urge you to go further and go faster, and that generally is a good thing. Ideas are not entirely going to come from people in this building or in a Department; you are going to get ideas from all over the place and that is a positive way to progress.
Q196 Mrs Drummond: My last question is about the local authority mechanism. How do you use that to improve access—for instance, the Licensing Act 2003, environmental health or health and safety functions?
Gavin Barwell: Local authorities have an absolutely critical role in this space. First, in terms of the planning system, obviously my role, as the Planning Minister, is limited to setting national planning policy and, in certain, very limited, circumstances, intervening. Members of the Committee will be aware that occasionally planning applications will be called in or recovered from the Planning Inspectorate for ministerial decision and, occasionally, Ministers will choose to intervene to direct a local authority in terms of the production of its local plan. However, most responsibility for the operation of the planning system in this country, whether that is in the drawing up of local plans, in the determining of individual planning applications or in enforcement where issues have not been dealt with correctly, sits with local authorities. They have an absolutely critical role to play in relation to the planning system, but you also referred to some other areas, which we might come on to, where there are also opportunities for local authorities to drive improvement, licensing being a good example.
Q197 Mrs Drummond: Bob, I know we are going to question you more on regulations, but is there any overarching thing that you want to talk about in this particular questioning?
Bob Ledsome: The Minister has explained the very important work that was done in the last Parliament in terms of the housing standards review and the introduction of the new wheelchair housing standard, for the first time, and bringing an equivalent to the lifetime homes standard into the suite of building regulations as an optional requirement for local authorities to apply. As the Minister has described, local authorities play a key role in that, because they will determine the circumstances in which it makes sense to apply the higher standards, to look to apply an access standard above the minimum standard. Through the housing standards review and through the new approach that was adopted, we place that responsibility on local authorities. Local authorities also have a critical role as building control bodies, looking at compliance and, if necessary, taking enforcement action.
Gavin Barwell: It may just be worth adding one very quick point, if I may, Chair. One of the real challenges of my job, both in relation to housing policy and planning policy, is that I am trying to set national policy for a country where the situation varies a huge amount around the country. If you look at the demographic mix of our different constituencies, there is a lot of variability, and that is one of the reasons why placing local authorities at the forefront, so that they can properly assess the need that they have in their local community and make the right decisions, is the right way forward.
Q198 Chair: There is a lot of activity there and it is really very impressive, but are you working on something that will bring it all together, an overall strategy? I got a hint of it from Andrew, but is there anything you are doing particularly, in your Department, to make sure that there is a cohesive overall plan that people can look at and judge you against?
Gavin Barwell: That is a very interesting question, and it may be something that we want to reflect on when we see the Committee’s report. Clearly, this work does cross a number of Government Departments and different ministerial responsibilities and certainly, in terms of the ability of members of the public to see that work drawn together in one place, there may well be a case for that. There is certainly a lot of work going on.
More generally, in housing policy, at the moment, as you will see, we are trying to draw together the Government strategy to get this country building the homes we need in a White Paper that will be published very shortly. Whether there is a case for trying to publish this work in one document so people can see it in one place is something we will are happy to reflect on.
Q199 Chair: Can I just ask specifically: you mentioned some new work that has been developed since you had given us evidence.
Gavin Barwell: Yes.
Chair: Are you going to forward that to us?
Gavin Barwell: I can provide some details now and certainly we can write with further information. Essentially, during the Committee stage of the Neighbourhood Planning Bill on the Floor of the House of Commons, Heidi Allen put forward an amendment that probed the Government on whether more needed to be done to get local authorities to focus on the particular housing needs of elderly and disabled people and whether the National Planning Policy Framework was working well enough in that area. Listening to the debate during report stage, I felt that there was quite a lot of support across the House for that idea. This is a big challenge for the country, given the demographic changes that we are looking at, and I undertook to bring forward an amendment in the other place that would address the concern she has raised. We have tabled that though I do not think it was reached for debate yesterday, in the end, but it is due to be debated very shortly in the Lords, and we can write with details.
Q200 Chair: That would be incredibly helpful to keep us up to date on that. Andrew, you mentioned a draft plan being published soon. Could you give us three sentences on how that might be of interest to us?
Andrew Jones: It sets an overall framework for making our public transport system, built and moving, a more friendly place for people with disabilities and, for the first time, we are including cognitive impairment within that. I think that will be of interest to everybody around the House and it will be of interest specifically to this Committee. We are talking a matter of weeks, as well, not months.
Chair: Wonderful. Thank you so much.
Q201 Tracy Brabin: What measures are in place to ensure that public funds are spent in ways that improve and do not undermine accessibility in the built environment? How is that being monitored?
Gavin Barwell: The key here is to get the right policies in place in the planning system so that when you have either public investment, in terms of a regeneration scheme, or private investment into an area, the outcomes that you get from that scheme improve accessibility. I suppose my answer to you would be the key to that is getting the right policies in the National Planning Policy Framework to try to address those issues, and then also making sure that we have mechanisms to ensure that those policies are being translated into local plans produced by local authorities like your own, and then applied on a case-by-case basis when people are bringing forward planning applications for redevelopment.
Q202 Tracy Brabin: Does this include the required high standards of accessible and inclusive design as part of public procurement specifications?
Gavin Barwell: There is obviously a minimum standard that we have set in relation to the building regulations in the housing standards review that Bob was referring to. We have then essentially left it to local authorities to determine, in terms of their own policies, based on an assessment of the needs in their area, whether they wish to apply either of the two higher standards and, if they do, for what proportion of any particular scheme.
Q203 Tracy Brabin: Andrew, is it right that money from European regional development funds and public money more generally is being used to create shared spaces, given the feedback we have had is that many people find these places inaccessible and often dangerous and frightening?
Andrew Jones: “Shared space” is quite an unhelpful phrase. It is a bit of a catch‑all for projects that are developed by local councils, as the highways authorities, to improve their urban realm, to declutter their urban realm, to reduce the car dominance and make spaces that people want to be in. That seems, to me, a very good thing to do, so is it right that they try to do this? Of course it is, but it should not be at the expense of any section of our community.
It goes back to Gavin’s point about where you start the planning. When you start to design a process in whichever highways authority you are in, you need to make sure that you have considered the needs of every single community, to make sure they are not discriminated against. Should people be building schemes that discriminate? Of course not. Do I think they are doing it intentionally? Of course not. Can we help them through guidance? Yes, we can, and the Department produces guidance in Local Transport Note 1/11; I can circulate that to the Committee if people are interested. Basically, it encourages consideration to be as broad as possible and at the very earliest of stages of development.
Q204 Tracy Brabin: Minister, what ideas are you considering to make public buildings adhere to the high standards of accessibility?
Gavin Barwell: As I said, that is not something that the Government are seeking to prescribe because, to a degree, that is a matter for local authorities. However, if we are talking about non‑residential buildings, there is essentially a single standard. There are three standards in relation to residential buildings, and there is a minimum standard that local authorities have to apply and two optional higher standards, and they can decide on the mix. For non‑residential buildings, there is a clear single standard set out in the building regulations and it is then through the enforcement function and building control to ensure that that is adhered to.
Bob Ledsome: It is also worth remembering that public buildings owned by public bodies will, therefore, be covered by the public sector equality duty. Under that responsibility, the building owner or the organisation commissioning that building need to think about what design, functionality, facilities, services they are providing that enable them to demonstrate that they have taken proper account of the public sector equality duty.
Gavin Barwell: I guess what you are driving at is that the expectation should be that the public sector sets the lead on these issues.
Q205 Tracy Brabin: Yes, that it has best practice. Do you feel the scrutiny of that is appropriate and thorough?
Gavin Barwell: I believe so. To a degree, it is for individual public bodies to exercise that function, but I am confident the policy is there, both in terms of the building regulations and planning policy, to drive up standards from where they were.
Q206 Chair: The policy might be there, but is the enforcement there? Does it work in practice?
Gavin Barwell: Is your concern about whether the building regulations and the NPPF are being properly applied or whether, in some cases, public bodies are not providing that leadership function that you might want them to do?
Chair: Both.
Gavin Barwell: Okay. In relation to the former, certainly I would have confidence, yes. Obviously, the Planning Inspectorate, ultimately, are the people who judge whether a local authority’s plan is sound or not. We will be publishing an update to the NPPF at some point later this year. When we do that, I want to draw to their attention certain key things that I want to make sure that they are checking when they are inspecting a plan, and this is one of those issues. We also, clearly, need to make sure that local authorities are properly resourced in terms of the enforcement function they have and making sure that that works. There are some measures coming forward that will help in that regard as well.
Q207 Chair: Does what you outline indicate that you do not think enough is being done in this area?
Gavin Barwell: It indicates that I want to make sure it is being given the attention that it deserves. Essentially, the way that we work in planning policy is through the NPPF. One of the issues that we tend to get challenged on, Chair, when we bring legislation to the House is that, quite properly, people who have a passion for a particular issue come to us and say, “This is so important that maybe instead of being in policy, we should put it in legislation”. The Department, quite rightly, tends to want to resist that, because it feels the moment it agrees to that for one person you will end up with the entire NPPF written into primary legislation. However, what is legitimate is to say there are certain things that are so important to society as a whole, in trying to ensure a fairer, more equal society, that it is right that we ask inspectors to pay particular attention to them.
There are two or three things already that I have picked up in the six months that I have been doing the job. One is about making sure that when a local authority assesses housing need, the assessment is an accurate and honest one. This goes beyond the scope of your inquiry, but my perception is that sometimes these assessments are underestimating what the real level of housing need in a place is. This is another issue where we would definitely want to make sure that housing need is not only about a number; it is about the mix and the kinds of homes that are going to be required for the particular demography of a place, and making sure that there is a good evidence base to underpin what a local authority is doing. That is something that I certainly would want to give attention to.
Q208 Chair: Why do you not think they have given that attention in the past?
Gavin Barwell: The impression I have, from doing the job and certainly from talking to colleagues and taking the Neighbourhood Planning Bill through the House, is that there is a perception that insufficient attention is being given to this issue and, particularly in terms of our ageing population, it is clearly a growing issue. It is something that we are going to have to confront, as a society, over the next 10 or 20 years. You will have personal experience of this, Chair, but when you take legislation through the House, it is a very useful process, as a Minister, because you pick up a lot of detailed feedback from colleagues about particular concerns they have on whether the policies you are setting out are, in fact, happening in their place.
Q209 Angela Crawley: If I can press you, Minister, on the National Planning Policy Framework and how it is implemented, do you think it has done enough to ensure that local authorities have planned for an accessible and inclusive built environment? Is there a risk, in the current economic climate, with the subsequent pressures on local government, that accessibility may become a “nice to do”?
Gavin Barwell: If it is not contradictory, I would answer your question with “yes” and “yes”. We have made significant progress. The housing standards review, as I said, was only implemented in October 2015 and that is a step forward. Clearly, we need to give a bit of time to see how that is working before we can make a definitive judgment. However, you can certainly look at what some local authorities are doing. You can look at the London plan, but also Peterborough is another that has made real progress in this area, so there are clear signs that people are taking forward this agenda.
Where you have a point is that the overall objective the Prime Minister gave me when she appointed me to this job was to get this country building more homes. One of the things that we need to guard against is that in the urgent need to drive up quantity, which pretty much every Member of this House would recognise the importance of given the housing crisis we face in this country, we do not lose sight of quality in terms of design, the appearance and character of homes, but also accessibility and all of those issues. I would certainly accept the second point of your question, but there is a risk there that when the real focus is on how we get this country building the homes we so desperately need, we do not lose sight of those issues, and I am determined that we do not fall into that trap.
Q210 Angela Crawley: Should local plans that fail to ensure accessibility be found unsound on that basis? Is it sufficient that the Planning Inspectorate appears to be accepting local plans that are not based on inclusive design principles, on the basis of commitments by local councils to take action in the future? That perhaps touches on what you have said.
Gavin Barwell: If plans are not consistent with national planning policy, inspectors should not be approving them. That is what I was trying to indicate very clearly to the Chair earlier, when she was questioning me. The first job of an inspector is to look at the evidence. What we ask local authorities to do when they prepare these plans is to identify the evidence of what housing need is there. The starting point for that is about numbers, but it is also about tenure mix, the kinds of tenure of housing that people might require. It is also about mixes of different sizes. You will have some parts of the country where you have predominantly a younger population and maybe you have a need for more starter homes. Other parts of the country will have a more ageing population, where we need to ensure the housing stock is suitable for their needs as they age. Clearly, also, it is about the decision of what proportion of the homes should meet the higher accessibility standards. The starting point for an inspector is to look at that assessment of needs, whether the assessment is robust and whether the plan then delivers against the evidence of what the need is in that local community.
Q211 Angela Crawley: Do you share the Planning Inspectorate’s confidence that local plans are compliant with the public sector equality duty? What information do you base that assessment on?
Gavin Barwell: Obviously, I have trust in the ability of the inspectors to make these judgments. However, there are concerns that are expressed to me about the extent to which we are properly taking account of what the evolving needs of our society are, given the demographic changes that we are facing, so, to a degree, I have an open mind on that. As I said to the Chair, what I want to do when we refresh the NPPF is to draw inspectors’ attention to key elements that I want to make sure there is a proper focus on.
Bob Ledsome: Perhaps if I could add a couple of points to that. First, as part of the process of drawing up a local plan, a local authority will be expected to undertake an equality impact assessment. That will set out the impact of the local plan’s policies for equalities issues generally, but obviously accessibility will be part of that. Secondly—and I believe you had a representative from the Planning Inspectorate here before Christmas—inspectors are versed in the public sector equality Duty in terms of the approach they would take when they are assessing a plan or be cognisant that they have responsibilities also, when they are assessing a plan for its soundness, to think about accessibility issues and to ensure that they are operating in line with the public sector equality duty.
Q212 Philip Davies: Andrew Gibson, from Habinteg, which is a housing provider that specialises in this area, gave evidence to the Committee. I was not on it at the time, but I have met him subsequently. He said that there are 1.8 million disabled people with an accessible housing need, with around 300,000 disabled adults having an unmet accessible housing need. Those figures do not include families with disabled children and do rely on self‑reporting, which obviously might underestimate it. Given the scale of that, why is the Government not doing more to ensure that these people have an accessible housing need?
Gavin Barwell: There are two issues here. There is what we can do in relation to the new stock that we build to make sure that we are planning properly for our future needs. There is also what we can do in relation to conversion and adaption of the existing stock. One of the challenges that we face is in some of the difficulties in doing that, given the constraints that there are. Sometimes it is not possible, when you build an extension or whatever to an existing property, to make the adaptions that would get you up to the standards that you might want to do. There are challenges there, but there is significant resource that the Government put into that.
Bob Ledsome: In terms of the statistics, we discussed these in the session that Mr Gibson and I attended, and if you look at the data that we have from the English Housing Survey, which may well be where Mr Gibson got the figures that you quoted, you can see that since 2001 the number of homes that have what are called visitability features, which are basic access features, has increased. That suggests that as new stock comes onto the market key access features are incorporated, so that is an encouraging trend. It is absolutely clear that, in terms of the existing stock, there are issues and problems, which you have identified, and then of course there are Government programmes, such as the disabled facilities grant, which is available to help disabled people improve their homes and their dwellings with features that will enable them.
Gavin Barwell: I was just looking up the figures while Bob was speaking and the Spending Review, as you are probably aware, secured a year‑on‑year increase in the disabled facilities grant over the next five years. It went up from £220 million to £394 million in 2016-17, and it will rise to over £500 million by 2020.
Q213 Philip Davies: I will come back to that in a second, if I might. The thing is, I tend to judge Ministers and Governments not on what they say at Select Committees, which are conducting specific inquiries and so they come along and give the patter the Select Committee wants to hear at the particular time. It is what they say outside of the Select Committee that is a better judge. When I turn up to Local Government Questions in the Chamber, I hear lots about more housing, and that we need more housing. I hear lots about our needing more affordable housing. I hear this all the time. I do not think I can ever recall hearing that we need more accessible housing. Despite what you might say in front of the Committee, because this is what we want to hear and this is what we are focusing on, it does not seem that, outside of the Committee, the Government have the same focus on accessible housing as they might do on others.
Gavin Barwell: What I would say in response to that, and I was trying to touch on that in relation to an earlier question, is that there is absolutely no doubt that if you are asking me what the number one pressure on me is, as the Housing Minister, it is to get more homes built in this country. In virtually every local authority area, we are not building enough homes to meet the level of need. We have seen the affordability ratio in this country, in terms of median house prices to median earnings, go from about 3:1 in 1997 to about 8:1 now. There are falling rates of home ownership among younger people; private rent takes up about 50% of people’s disposable income; homelessness is rising.
If you are asking me, when I go into the House of Commons and answer questions, whether most of the questions are about that national housing crisis that we are facing and what we are going to do about it, yes. That is where the number one pressure on me is. However, it is very important, if you are doing my job, that in trying to solve that problem you do not lose sight of what is still a very important issue about how we ensure that our housing stock is accessible. In particular, not just, if you like, catching up with the historic fact that we have not given proper priority to this issue in the past, but also recognising the nature of the demographic change that the country is undergoing and the fact that this is going to be a growing issue.
Q214 Philip Davies: Is anything to do with accessibility going to be in the Housing White Paper?
Gavin Barwell: No, because the Housing White Paper is not trying to set out all of housing policy. It is focused on the specific question of how we ensure that we build enough homes in this country. It certainly is going to be covered in there, but the main focus of the document is how we get overall housing supply up.
Q215 Philip Davies: There is something that you could do. We have had lots of evidence that M4(1), in terms of building regulations, provides for homes that many disabled people cannot visit, let alone live in. Andrew Gibson told me, if he wanted to buy a new house, how few homes he would have to choose from because of the shortage that there is; that is a problem that many people would not experience. One thing that you could do is make, in M4(2), a minimum baseline compulsory standard for new-build homes, which would indicate that this is something that the Government do take seriously. Will you do that?
Gavin Barwell: I recognise the issue you raise. It is not just limited to M4(1). For one or two‑bedroom homes, M4(2) does not require a fully accessible toilet. It is only required for houses with three or more bedrooms for M4(2). It is probably worth starting by explaining why that issue is there. This compromise recognises that accommodating a fully wheelchair‑accessible entrance‑level toilet is difficult in some circumstances; it is large and, in an average one or two‑bedroom home, it is quite difficult to plan for. That clearly is an issue and I can understand why wheelchair users feel very strongly about it, and it is absolutely something that we can keep under review.
We obviously made the changes fairly recently; the standards came in force in October 2015. There is nothing to stop local authorities making judgments about what proportion of their homes this standard should apply for, and it is noticeable that the area of the country that has gone furthest on this is London. That is no coincidence, Chair, because in London nearly all of the new homes that we are building are flats, not houses; therefore, some of those difficult design considerations that apply do not apply in relation to flats and it is easier to reach the standard.
Bob Ledsome: As you say, the London plan mandates that 90% of new-build should be built to M4(2) and 10% to M4(3), which is the wheelchair‑accessible standard. Clearly, some local authorities feel that that meets the needs of their area and they can see that they can ask for those standards in terms of viability and it is viable to do so. That is possible in an area like London or the South‑East where there are high land values, so the extra costs of applying the M4(2) standard can be met. However, the Government took the view that M4(2) should not be mandated nationally because there are extra costs and, in some parts of the country, there may not be the same need, but also it may not be viable to require that standard against all of the things that a local authority might want from new development, which is improving.
Q216 Philip Davies: You talk about extra costs, but they are not that high, even by the Government’s own calculation of what the cost would be. In many cases, it is simply hundreds of pounds. You talk about the disabled facilities grant, but if all of these things were sorted out at the start of the design, you would not need to spend as much money on the disabled facilities grant. Most people will say that the cost of care for people would be lower if the design of the house was better in the first place. Why does the Government not have joined-up thinking about what the savings would be out of doing this, rather than just looking in isolation at one cost and then spending millions of pounds further down the line on different costs that could have been resolved at the time?
Gavin Barwell: I am very happy to keep it under review; I do not have a closed mind on these issues.
Q217 Philip Davies: What does that mean? It is Civil Service talk, isn’t it? That means we are not going to do anything.
Gavin Barwell: I will just come back on two of the points you made. As I said, even if you were to do what you are suggesting, it would not solve the problem for one and two‑bedroom homes. You would still have the issue that M4(2) does not require them to have a fully accessible wheelchair‑designed toilet. Secondly, you made the suggestion that if we did this we would not need to spend all the money on the disabled facilities grant. That is not the case, because these regulations only apply to new-build and, with the best will in the world, for a long time the vast majority of our housing stock is going to be made up of existing stock that is already there today, and it is about the need to adapt that. I am sure if you have constituents that develop particular needs, what people want in that situation is their own home, which they love, adapted to be made suitable for them. You cannot just solve these problems with new housing stock, but I take your point.
Q218 Philip Davies: Basically, what you are saying is that because we cannot solve every problem we are not going to solve any problem. Since we cannot do everything, we will not do anything, which seems to me to be a bizarre kind of approach.
Gavin Barwell: First, we have just done something. We have just done a review, which brought these standards into place in the autumn of 2015. I do not think it is great policy‑setting to be continually changing policy. We need to look at how these standards bed down. However, I recognise that there is an issue there that you are referring to. Also, of course, what the Government have done is to give local authorities the ability, based on the needs of their area, to allow for a proportion of homes to be built either to the M4(2) standard or, as London has done in 10% of homes, to the M4(3) standard. The ability is there for local authorities to address this problem based on their assessment of the level of need, so I am not sure if it would make sense nationally to mandate all homes to the M4(2) standard. That is what I am saying.
Q219 Philip Davies: Why does part M, volume 1, only apply to new-build dwellings and not to other forms of development that create dwellings, such as change of use or the conversion of an existing building into dwellings? Should the standard not apply to all types of development?
Gavin Barwell: There are some technical issues that arise when it comes to conversion. Bob, I do not know if you want to add.
Bob Ledsome: Yes. Historically, part M has not been applied to conversions because of the difficulties and the practicalities of introducing the features required under part M into existing buildings. In terms of a change of use to a dwelling, for example, part M does not apply and the optional requirements, M4(2) and M4(3), also apply in relation only to new-build. That was a decision that was taken when those standards were introduced, given, as I say, the practicalities that were identified in trying to adapt existing buildings to these standards.
Q220 Philip Davies: When I worked for Asda, I was responsible for our facilities for disabled customers, and one thing I found was that the things that disabled customers find irritating everybody finds irritating, really, and if you make something better for disabled people, you tend to make it better for everyone. If people cannot reach something off the top shelf, everybody complains about that, or if you cannot get down an aisle because there is a big pallet there, everybody complains about that. I suspect it is the same with housing: that the lack of space in housing, if you sorted this out, would not just please disabled people; it would probably please everybody. They would probably all appreciate these things. Do you accept that?
Gavin Barwell: You are right in some regards, but there are some counterpoints. I will be careful here and will turn to Bob for some advice because I am not an expert in these matters, but, as I understand it, when you move to some of the higher accessibility standards, in certain sizes of homes the way in which they would be met would lead to quite an unusual layout of the home, which might not be what people who did not have those particular needs would require. Often the hallway is done away with and people will come straight into a living area, and the toilet is then placed in the middle of the floor plan.
Bob Ledsome: There would be issues. For example, if you are designing a wheelchair‑accessible home, you have to have wider entrances, in particular, and different circulation spaces. There is a technical issue that by the doorway you would need to provide space for a wheelchair‑user to be able to manoeuvre their wheelchair to be able to get to the handle of the doorway, which could constrain the design of the property. There are those sorts of technical and practical considerations that need to be borne in mind when we think about applying these standards across the piece to all new dwellings.
Gavin Barwell: That is not to say we should not apply them at all, because clearly we need to make sure that a proportion of new homes are suitable for people who have these particular needs. The question is whether they should be applied universally.
Q221 Philip Davies: In Government and the Civil Service there is always a reason not to do something. It is the easiest game in the book, is it not, giving a list of reasons why you should not do something? Despite the warm words at the start, basically the upshot of all of this is that really, across the piece, the Government’s position on these matters is you are going to do bugger all. That is really the upshot. What I have taken away from it is that on all these issues, which are clear issues to many people who do not have accessible homes, the Government are going to say lots of warm words, obviously, and “We feel your pain” and all this kind of stuff, but when it comes down to doing something tangible you are not going to do anything.
Gavin Barwell: What we would say is that we have done something very recently. We have done a review of housing standards, we have introduced new standards, and we have given local authorities the ability to look at the needs of people in their local community, to assess the right level of needs to be met and how they should be addressing them. We have made some changes very recently.
It would be unfair of you to say this is a Civil Service mentality of warm words and we are not going to do anything. If you go and talk both to local authorities and to developers, one of the things that they would criticise Governments of all colours over the years for is the constantly chopping and changing of policy. What they want is a degree of continuity and, therefore, it is right, having made these changes, to let them bed in and see how they work. It is absolutely right for this Committee to hold our feet to the fire over these issues, so I am not ruling out that we might make changes at some point down the line. We are obviously doing this work in relation to non‑residential buildings, so it is definitely not the case that we are not going to do anything. We have done something, we are looking at further areas of work, but it is right to give those changes some time to settle in.
Q222 Tracy Brabin: I too had the privilege of meeting Andrew and we had a good conversation. I appreciate what you say about communities getting older and the changing demographic, but surely the impulse would be to future‑proof homes. As Andrew was saying, it is more expensive to adapt than to build in the first place.
Gavin Barwell: Absolutely, so it is quite right that when your local authority is drawing up its local plan, it is looking not just at what the current make-up of the population is but how that is going to change over the plan period and making sure that it is doing that future‑proofing. The point I was trying to make to Mr Davies is, even if we get the level of housebuilding that I am desperate to see in this country, the vast majority of the housing stock in your constituency in 20 years’ time is going to be homes that are currently there now. Therefore, policy has to look at what it can do in terms of building regulations and the planning policy to make sure the new homes we are building are of the standard we want, but also that we have resources there to make adaptions to the existing stock as well.
Q223 Tracy Brabin: The question is why can we not all follow London’s standard? If they can do it here, why can they not do it in Yorkshire?
Gavin Barwell: The answer is you could. Your council absolutely could do that and if you, as the local MP, want to pressure them to do that and that is the decision they take, we have given then the powers to do exactly what London is doing. If you are asking me to comment on that, for the reasons I gave, it is an easier issue to address in London because most of the homes we are building in London are flats, not houses, and so those adaption issues are simpler in that context than they would be with a house. I do not want, in any way, to knock what London has done, because it is very impressive and people will hold them up as an example to others, but it probably is an easier thing for them to address than it would be for authorities where most of the homes they are building are houses.
Q224 Chair: Before I bring in the next line of questioning, can I just press you on that, Minister? I do not think you have given all local authorities the same powers. You rightly talk about the importance of flatted accommodation in providing disability‑accessible homes in London. However, outside of London, as I know you know, as a local constituency MP, many of those new flats are being developed from converted office accommodation, which even when my local authority wants to require accessible standards they cannot, because it is outside of the law. You could change that.
Gavin Barwell: That is a very fair point and you lead me into one of the contentious areas of housing policy, which is permitted development. You are referring to office-to-residential permitted development, essentially. This is something that we have debated and are debating extensively as part of the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. I have said on the record that I would absolutely accept that there are some drawbacks to the permitted development policy: you do not get an affordable housing contribution in the way that you would if someone had applied for permission, and you do not necessarily have the opportunities that you are referring to, although there are difficulties that Bob has alluded to.
Q225 Chair: Minister, it is not that you do not necessarily have them; you do not have them.
Gavin Barwell: You do not have them; you are quite right.
Q226 Chair: If local authorities demand them, they will be taken to court and get it thrown out.
Gavin Barwell: You are quite right, and I will leave Bob to comment in a second on the difficulties in terms of conversion. The reason that the Government have persisted with the permitted development policy is it is leading to a very significant contribution to supply at a time when we are facing a housing crisis. My judgment is, while I accept there are drawbacks to the policy, that supply is very important.
In terms of the conversion issue, Bob can answer.
Bob Ledsome: One of the examples would be staircases. There are requirements in part M for the width of staircases that just may not be possible with an existing building and an existing staircase, where the conversion wants to make use of the existing staircase. If that staircase had to be taken out and replaced, it could throw the viability of that particular development into question. That is an example of some of the practicalities that come into play.
Gavin Barwell: At the moment, if someone is applying for planning permission for a conversion rather than trying to do it from permitted development, part M does not apply to conversions. Mr Davies was suggesting it should, but that is the current position.
Q227 Mrs Drummond: Moving on now to shared spaces, and looking at part M, volume 2, the approved document on building regulations that apply to accessibility of housing has recently been reviewed. When will the updates and improvements to other elements of the building regulations that affect the accessibility of buildings be undertaken? I know there is a difference between the building standards and the regulations, so when are we going to marry those up together?
Bob Ledsome: At the moment, we have research looking at volume 2 of part M, which covers buildings other than dwellings, as the Minister said earlier. That part of the building regulations has not been substantially reviewed for many years, so we thought it was time to look at that. That is a piece of research that is underway, it is close to being finalised and that will obviously give us the opportunity to reflect on whether there are changes that need to be made to the guidance.
In terms of the relationship between the regulations and the guidance, the regulations set some very high‑level goals. They talk about things like making reasonable provision for access and the important document is the approved document that you referred to, which sets out practical guidance on how those regulatory requirements can be complied with. I would imagine that, consequent to this research, if the Government decided that things needed to be done for buildings other than dwellings, we would be looking at the guidance in the approved document, volume 2.
Q228 Mrs Drummond: Following on from Philip’s point on houses and dwellings, for non‑dwellings, at the moment, there is quite a lot that is not covered by part M, and we have some examples here. For instance, in terms of a major refurbishment works of an existing hotel, if it was previously a hotel and is still a hotel—that is not covered for having to put the standards up, and nor is a computer shop converted in a large department store. A large department store that has no accessible toilets undergoes major refurbishment but has still not put in such a toilet, and that is not a reduction of accessibility; part M would not apply. Are you going to upgrade those?
Bob Ledsome: The applicability of part M is slightly different in terms of changes of use if it is change of use to a public building. If a building is being changed to a hotel, the basic requirements of part M would apply. We are very happy to write to the Committee with more detail about how the building regulations apply in these circumstances, because it is quite complicated. There is a difference between how part M applies in respect to changes of use to dwellings as opposed to changes of use to public buildings, which recognises the fact that public access to those buildings is needed and, therefore, it is important that the access provisions do apply.
Gavin Barwell: Mr Davies pressed me on the housing standards, which is something that was reviewed at the end of the last Parliament, and I think I am right in saying it is 2004 since the regulations in respect of buildings that are not dwellings was looked at. You can take it from the fact that we have commissioned research there that we are aware that there may well be issues that we wish to address.
Q229 Mrs Drummond: Okay. Will you look at ergonomic research into that as well, so you are updating it? It has been updated three times since 1997. Are you looking at ergonomic things? Again, it goes back to my question at the beginning when you are looking at individuals and their ideas. Is there any ergonomic research, which has been done by universities or individuals or whatever, that is feeding into the improvements in the standards and regulations?
Gavin Barwell: Do you want to say a word about the scope of the research?
Bob Ledsome: The research is primarily focused on how the current requirements in volume 4(2) are working. It is primarily taking the existing requirements and looking at whether they are delivering the outcomes that were expected of them. Part of that could be that new issues that are not covered in the guidance may well be identified as important and need to be addressed. For example, it has raised questions about Changing Places toilets, which the Minister mentioned earlier, and it has also raised issues about the ability of people who are visually impaired or have impaired hearing to navigate their way around a building. Those are the sorts of the issues that are starting to come through from the research and will be things that we may well need to look at when we look again at the guidance.
Gavin Barwell: We will provide the Committee with a copy of the report when it is published.
Q230 Chair: Can I just ask a point of very technical clarification there? The current part M, volume 2, is based on the British standards that were in place at that time. Are you planning to update that in line with current British standards?
Bob Ledsome: That may be one of the conclusions we reach, because the current standard is currently being revised again by the British Standards Institution. One of the things that we often do in our technical guidance to buildings regulations is to cross‑refer to British or other standards if we think that is the appropriate thing to do. Clearly, as the revised BS comes forward, we will have a look at that and see what cross‑referencing we can sensibly make.
Chair: That is actively looked at.
Bob Ledsome: It is something that we would expect to look at.
Q231 Mrs Drummond: On the British standard, BS 8300, the Changing Places toilets that you were just talking about, just talking to Andrew on this, what about transport—railways, bus stations, airports, etc? What are you doing to promote the need for Changing Places in those sorts of infrastructures?
Andrew Jones: Changing Places toilets are required for what are called category A railway stations. Those are stations that have more than 2 million entrances or exits per year. There are 28 of them across the network, and that is a requirement. Otherwise we are looking at what we class as accessible toilet facilities, as defined by the accessible railway station guidance, which was completed and updated in 2015. It is a part of transport planning.
Q232 Mrs Drummond: Okay. Do you think that is adequate? There are statistics about this that I was just amazed by. There are 881 Changing Places. That is one every 106 square miles or per 73,000 people, and really that is not good enough, is it?
Andrew Jones: It is a difficult one. I started work on this issue a long time before I came here. This goes back to when I started as a councillor and was involved in making sure we had Changing Places toilets in my constituency before it became my constituency. We have a railway infrastructure that is essentially Victorian and all Governments of all colours have been upgrading it gradually ever since. Can we go further and faster? We are doing this. Can we do better? Yes, of course I want to make our stations and the trains and everything else much more friendly. It is almost impossible to answer your question, really. Are Changing Places toilets good? Yes, they provide a particular need, and I know that the Rail Minister is meeting the Changing Places foundation in a few weeks’ time. We know that they are built into the planning for the most high-volume stations. We have accessible toilets in other areas of our transport network, but of course we are seeking to go further.
Q233 Mrs Drummond: What about motorway stations and airports? I know motorway stations are relatively easy to upgrade, are they not?
Andrew Jones: They are private spaces. I am not sure if there are any defined standards. I would need to check that with the relevant Minister, so I will have to do that and then report back to the Committee.
Q234 Mrs Drummond: That would be good. That was going to be my next question. Is there a specific requirement to have them in the building regulations? Can you do it without doing it through building regulations, for instance through encouragement?
Andrew Jones: I will have to check on motorway service stations. It is not an area that I am that familiar with. I will do that check and then write back to the Committee.
Gavin Barwell: The first thing to say is that it is both true that we have seen a significant increase in the number of Changing Places toilets in recent years and, as you highlight, that there are nowhere near enough of them. Both those things are true. The question, in policy terms, is whether we are most likely to get the outcome that we want through a requirement approach or through a voluntary approach. The Government have worked very closely with Mencap, the British Toilet Association and with the Changing Places campaign to try to make progress here, at the moment mainly on a voluntary basis. You are probably aware that one of the things that came out in the adjournment debate that we had about this, Chair, was the benefit of the website we have developed, so that people can find the nearest Changing Places toilet to where they are or on the route they are travelling on, quickly and easily. The latest figure that I have is there are 918 Changing Places facilities across the UK.
Doing this purely through the building regulations, they are not retrospective, so that only gets you anywhere when you have either new buildings or works that involve major refurbishment. They do not apply to all buildings, so railway stations, airports and ports are outside the building regulations. It is also important, if you talk to those involved in the campaign, to get them in the right places. We are certainly going to consider whether they should be required in larger public buildings, but policy should also have an element of a voluntary campaign of working with people to get them in the right locations and not just waiting for when a new building comes forward or a major refurbishment happens. You need a mixed economy in terms of getting us to the position where we all want to be on numbers and making sure that we have good reach right across the country. One of the things that came out very clearly in the adjournment debate was that some Members reported that there was good provision in their part of the country and in others none at all, so that is clearly an important factor.
Q235 Mrs Drummond: It probably has one of the biggest impacts on quality of life for disabled people—not being able to go out because there is no Changing Places or accessible toilet.
Gavin Barwell: It is a huge issue. The debate was raised by an individual Member of this House, Jonathan Reynolds, who had a constituent who needed an accessible toilet and had gone into several businesses and not been able to access their toilet and had then soiled themselves. It was a horrific story. My own father suffered from Alzheimer’s at the end of his life, so I know what it is like to be caring for someone and to need a toilet at relatively short notice. This is a really important issue in terms of people’s basic dignity and quality of life, not just for them but for the people who care for them. I suppose the point I was just trying to make to you is that in getting to where you want to be and where the Government definitely want to get to, we are going to need a mixture of maybe looking at a requirement for certain limited kinds of buildings, but also proceeding on a voluntary basis. In much the same way as I was saying to Mr Davies in relation to housing, if you just try to do it through building regulations, you are only doing it when there is a new building of a certain kind or a major conversion, and we cannot just rely on that if we want a quick pace of progress on this.
Q236 Mrs Drummond: Can you give us a timescale for that and how you are going to do it? Obviously, you said there is going to be a two‑pronged approach really, but, like Philip said, can we have a commitment and a timescale so that we can hold you to it?
Gavin Barwell: We do not have an existing commitment on that and that is something I will need to go away and reflect on. There is a clear ambition to make progress, but let me go away and reflect on that thought about whether there should be some kind of formal target so that people can hold us to account.
Q237 Mrs Drummond: You can always do it with a carrot rather than a stick, as well.
Gavin Barwell: On your earlier question at the start of this session, asking me about whether policy proceeds through Government setting an agenda or responding to concerns that people raise, I am sure anyone who has served as a Minister will say that when you reply to an adjournment debate and an individual Member of Parliament is raising an issue that an individual constituent has brought up with them, it is quite a powerful way of illustrating some of the problems that we have in public policy. Responding to that debate definitely made an impression on me, and it is an issue that I feel very strongly about, which I hope I have communicated.
Andrew Jones: I support that point. The reason why I first got involved in this 15‑odd years ago was simply that it was a piece of casework that came in to me as a new councillor and it changed my opinion. It was an issue that I had not had to face personally, I learnt stuff and made policy changes locally on the back of it, so it can work by people raising issues and having strong voices and sharp elbows, and people in elected places listening and responding.
Gavin Barwell: Can I, very quickly, make one other point, Chair? It touches on a point that Mr Davies made in relation to his own experience working for Asda, before he became a Member of Parliament. In terms of the public sector equality duty and reasonable adjustments, that is not just about making physical adjustments to the premises in question where products are positioned on the shelves or whatever; it is also about people in management positions thinking through what the needs of people might be and whether the policies are in place to address them.
In terms of the case that Jonathan Reynolds raised in his adjournment debate, those individual stores had clearly not thought through how they would respond to someone with particular needs coming and saying, “Could I use the staff toilet?” so it is important to be clear that reasonable adjustment is not only about physical changes; it is about management attitudes and thinking through these issues in advance.
Q238 Mrs Drummond: Quite often, they will just take the lowest common denominator rather than thinking about it, because they do not have to do it, so we have to do that, do we not?
Gavin Barwell: Of course.
Q239 Tracy Brabin: I appreciate your ambition in that regard, but is it appropriate that the onus for creating an accessible environment appears to be on individual disabled people to enforce the Equality Act?
Gavin Barwell: If that was solely the way in which we were going about policy, it would not be appropriate. It is appropriate to give individuals the ability to do it where they have experienced something unacceptable. It is absolutely right that the law gives them the opportunity to raise cases, but we certainly should not have a position where we are solely relying on that as the mechanism for driving progress.
Q240 Tracy Brabin: Could I press you on that? That maybe applies for new buildings, but for existing buildings, shops and so on, it is absolutely down to the individual to bring those legal actions to challenge the reasonable adjustments in regard to the Equality Act. You cover a new‑build and so on, but for existing spaces the burden is on the individual.
Gavin Barwell: I would obviously hope that organisations would be thinking proactively about the reasonable adjustments that they need to make, and Government have a role in prompting people to do that, so the burden should not be solely on the individual. If you are asking me whether, if someone has a bad experience, they should have a vehicle to raise that case, then I think they should, but the burden certainly should not solely be on them.
Bob Ledsome: As you said, in terms of new development there is a structure through enforcement of building regulations requirements and, indeed, for enforcement of planning conditions if there is a planning aspect. However, it is true that where planning and building regulations do not apply, it would be the Equality Act duties that come into play and there it is a matter for the individual person to take action if they feel they need to.
Q241 Tracy Brabin: Minister, you said that it is down to other organisations, so what steps are you putting in place where you can monitor that and get feedback from these organisations, to take the burden off the individual?
Bob Ledsome: That is not something we would be doing in this Department. The Equality Act obviously is led by the Government Equalities Office, so perhaps it is an issue we need to take away and speak to the GEO about.
Gavin Barwell: We will come back to you on that.
Q242 Tracy Brabin: Have the Government explored what local authority mechanisms could be used to improve access for disabled people—for example, the Licensing Act 2003, environmental health or health and safety functions?
Gavin Barwell: Yes, we have looked at that. There are a number of possibilities there. Section 20 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, for example, gives local authorities the power to require toilets to be provided and maintained for public use in any place that provides entertainment, exhibitions or sporting events, and places serving food and drink for consumption on the premises.
Environmental health officers have a role to play in reviewing plans and premises’ licence applications, and that includes advising on whether sufficient sanitary facilities are provided in terms of number, design and, crucially, layout.
Coming back to the planning system, local authorities can impose requirements or negotiate with developers to ensure enhanced accessible toilets are brought forward in large‑scale developments or in buildings of strategic importance. There are other bits of legislation, absolutely, that are relevant here.
Q243 Tracy Brabin: It is not down to the individual to press for that.
Gavin Barwell: No. Local authorities could proactively do some of that work, absolutely, and would be expected to.
Q244 Angela Crawley: Andrew, moving on to the subject of shared spaces, we have heard from individuals across the country with a wide range of different disabilities that shared space schemes have left them so afraid that they are excluded from publicly designed spaces on these principles. Given the strength of feeling from the public, is it appropriate for the Department to remain neutral and leave decisions on the use and design to the local level of government?
Andrew Jones: It is appropriate that local authorities take responsibility for their own spaces and the schemes they develop. We have a system with devolved responsibilities, and we should be having more devolution not less. Is it appropriate that schemes that get developed exclude sections of our community? No, of course not. The heart of that is making sure they develop the right scheme. I have met with campaigners, with groups, with colleagues here and from the Upper House, and they have highlighted that there are schemes around the country that have problems.
At the same time, I have also been meeting with the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation, which is the professional body for people involved in the sector. I was asking questions about how we can improve the guidance that goes out to councils or learn from experience, basically take some schemes and review them, look at what had worked well, what had not worked and provide some guidance. As the CIHT was working on this, I was asking the same questions, as a new Minister, as well. It seemed to be foolish to have two things working in parallel, so we brought them together, and the CIHT have been providing significant resource on a project to review shared space. I started off looking at what had worked and what had not worked, to inform the development. The principles of improving the urban realm are absolutely fine. It is certainly a local decision. We cannot really have road schemes designed and delivered through central government; it would be an appalling emasculation of local government, but the idea that people cannot use them is a total failure.
Q245 Angela Crawley: On that point, do you accept the assertion that, whatever the original intention, the use of shared spaces has led to the exclusion of many disabled people in public spaces? What action, as the Minister, do you specifically intend to take to respond to these safety fears?
Andrew Jones: I do not think we can say that every scheme has failed; that would be a difficult assertion to make about local government plans. It is clear that some schemes have proved very problematic, and I am aware that some councils have had to go back and make amendments to their schemes in light of the experience of people with disabilities. This basically says that they have not got the planning right in the first place. My point is that we need to get the planning right and share what good practice looks like.
We have produced what we have called LTN 1/11, which is guidance on how to develop schemes. Section 3.6 within that document deals with how the needs of people with disabilities must be considered at the very earliest of stages. If we are seeing problems, we are seeing them in execution rather than in principle, and that is why I am very grateful to the CIHT for their work on this issue. I have met with them several times. I have met with charities, campaigners, members of the Upper House and colleagues of ours to inform this work.
The latest information we have from the project group is that they are going from the principle of review to some recommendations. They think that we basically do not have enough knowledge about what is working and what is not working. They are due to report next month. I look forward to that report and to engaging with them. One of the action points in the accessibility action plan is to take their recommendations and look at them and I am very keen to do so.
Q246 Angela Crawley: Okay. In the interim, then, why have you not acted on Lord Holmes’ call for a moratorium on shared spaces while you make that assessment?
Andrew Jones: Because I do not think we are in a position to say that there should be no development. Shared space is a headline that covers a multitude of improvements in the urban realm, and I do not think we can say that councils should be stopping improving the urban realm. They need to work on getting their design better. We have seen some schemes that have worked and some schemes that have not. I do not think that should mean that we stop councils investing in the urban realm.
Q247 Angela Crawley: In their response to the House of Lords Committee on the Equality Act and disability, the Government declined to review their guidance on shared spaces, instead pointing to the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transport’s review as its best means to provide consistency in the design of shared space. Is this still the Government’s position? What do you expect from the results of the CIHT review and what actions do you expect the Department to take once it is completed.
Andrew Jones: Is this the Government’s view? Yes. I was trying to explain that we have been asking questions and they were working on it. I have brought the two things together to inform the work through having the professionals give their advice and their experience. I was hoping that we will, ultimately, have some complementary advice to provide to local authorities so they design schemes better.
Are we going to implement the recommendations? I do know what the recommendations are, so it is hard to comment upon that. I can definitely confirm that I will be reading the recommendations with much interest. I have met with the group several times. I have been out on escorted walks with a guide dog and a blindfold. It is very hard to imagine yourself into other people’s shoes, so getting out there and experiencing the needs of other people is pretty fundamental, and I have done that. I am very keen that we make a very significant difference here. This is right at the heart of what I want to do in transport. I am not going to prejudge the recommendations and say, “I know what they are. I can do this or that,” when I have not even seen them.
Q248 Angela Crawley: So with that in mind, then, do you accept the evidence we have heard that the current guidance on shared spaces is inadequate and there is a need for change, not least to achieve some sort of national consistency? Are there any plans to update the guidance contained in the manual for streets or in the 2011 Local Transport Note on shared spaces?
Andrew Jones: I have read that note. I read it many months ago when I started in the role and I read it again in preparation for this Committee. The points it makes about ensuring that disabled voices are heard in scheme development are still true, but I will certainly review the note in light of the recommendations when we find out what they are.
Q249 Tracy Brabin: May I just ask a supplementary? No one can doubt your commitment to this area, but would it not make sense to have a uniformity of expectation of shared spaces, so that disabled people can move around their community without worrying about differentials? If so, how would you go about implementing that?
Andrew Jones: To go back to my earlier point, “shared spaces” is an umbrella term for improving the urban realm and, by definition, it is going to be different in each area. The challenges that a local authority has to solve will be different from street to street or from square to square, so it is quite difficult to say that we will have one national standard. You can have national standards on things like tactile paving; that seems completely sensible and reasonable, but these are local solutions to local problems. I want to make sure that we have the best possible plans developed locally that include everybody within communities. When I first heard that we were hearing from all over the country that people were self‑excluding from parts of our urban realm, that is clearly not appropriate and obviously ridiculous. That is why we started doing all of this work, and I have to say that I am very grateful for the CIHT and the way they have embraced this, and I hope that the result will be better schemes being developed around our country and better community facilities for everyone.
Q250 Chair: Can I just ask a supplementary on that? We took evidence from Andrew Hugill from the CIHT; we wanted to clear up any confusion and I wonder if you could help us further on this. Originally, they were asked to produce guidance and now they are simply making recommendations. I will quote Mr Hugill: “If I can just be clear, what we are doing at the moment is a review where we will be making recommendations. It is not guidance.” The reference I made earlier was to an earlier stage where they were anticipating producing guidance. Why that change when it is so clear that guidance is needed?
Andrew Jones: I am going to see what their recommendations are. I have read the guidance that is currently out there; it is working and it is helpful, but it is clearly not working or is failing in some areas of execution. That is why this work is taking place. I wanted complementary advice on “This is what good looks like; this is what bad looks like. Do not make the mistakes that these councils have made.” I am not criticising the councils for working. They are trying to make their areas better, but they are making mistakes in doing so. This was about complementary advice based on practical insight. As their work has developed, they have basically come to the conclusion that there are gaps in the knowledge and evidence around shared space, and they want to move away from guidance to recommendations on what we need to do to fill the knowledge gaps. That is my understanding of where they are. I am expecting to have their recommendations next month. If we need to fill knowledge gaps, that is what we will be working on.
Q251 Chair: In the meantime, why would you not just call for a moratorium on this, if you have acknowledged gaps in knowledge and evidence? This is pretty important to people’s lives.
Andrew Jones: It is important to people’s lives and I completely realise that, but what does the headline, “shared space”, actually mean? Some people define some schemes as shared space; some people define them as decluttering; some people define them as getting a slightly more pedestrian‑friendly environment. We cannot really say, “There will be no works on the urban realm while we work this out”. Councils are working all over the country to improve their urban realms. I do not think we should be stopping them doing it. This is a headline of a type of approach towards urban development, and people are using it in different ways because it is not really defined, so stopping that work would be inappropriate.
Chair: We have covered an awful lot of ground today. I cannot thank you enough. It is a complex, technical area as well as being hugely important and affecting people’s lives on a day-to-day basis, and I think you have given us a great deal of food for thought. Thank you very much for your time today, and I look forward to the additional evidence that you have undertaken to provide to the Committee. Thank you very much.
Gavin Barwell: Thank you to the Committee for your attention to this issue.