What we are doing

Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995

Removing the transport exemption

Following initial consultation process, the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 contains a regulation-making power enabling us to apply any of Part 3's provisions, in whole or in part, to different transport services and at different times. The provision is flexible enough to enable us to apply Part 3 to any existing or future transport service without the need for further primary legislation.

We completed consultation on draft regulations in February 2005. These will cover public transport - rail vehicles (including light rail, underground and trams), buses, coaches, taxis and private hire vehicles - vehicle hire, breakdown services and vehicles used on leisure and tourism transport services.

To help the industry understand the new duties, the Disability Rights Commission will produce a Code of Practice for the transport sector as they have already done for other service providers. The draft Code will be subject to consultation in due course and will be available around 12 months in advance of the new duties coming into force to give industry sufficient time to adapt to the change. Subject to the responses to that exercise, we intend to introduce the new duties in December 2006.

Part 5 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995

Rail provisions

Following initial consultation on policy proposals in November 2003, measures have been included in the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 allowing us to change the rail vehicle accessibility regime including:

• setting an "end date" of no later than 1 January 2020 by which all rail vehicles must comply with accessibility regulations;
• extending powers so that accessibility regulations can be applied to rail vehicles that are being refurbished;
• introducing a compliance certification regime; and
• amending the way accessibility regulations are enforced.

We intend to consult on draft regulations giving effect to these measures in due course.