I will not trouble the Committee for too long. I just think that now is a useful opportunity to ask the Solicitor-General to look again at the provision before we return to it on Report. She will be aware that in February the Department for Transport published a consultation paper on improving access to taxis. I think that all the responses are back, but I have not seen any information from the Department. I think it is in order to discuss the matter because one option in the consultation document requires primary legislation. Given that we are transferring measures from the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to the Bill, a change is needed in the provision on which the Government were consulting.

Will the hon. and learned Lady touch on where the consultation process has got to, describe the responses and say what the Department for Transport is likely to do? If primary legislation is the option favoured by the Government, the measure will need to be amended. A specific option is to allow local authorities to enforce section 36 of the DDA on taxis to ensure that the policy takes place in actuality rather than just in name.

Without veering too far from the Bill, it might be helpful to explain the changes. The Government have been consulting on how to improve access to licensed taxis and equality of opportunity for disabled people. A  number of local authorities have implemented an accessible-taxi policy, but a lot have not and only about half the licensed taxis in the country can be described as wheelchair-accessible. I assume from the words “can be described” as wheelchair-accessible that that is being generous.

In one third of licensing authorities, less than 10 per cent. of taxis are wheelchair-accessible and 16 authorities have no wheelchair-accessible taxis. Just copying across the DDA regulations to the Bill means that that state of affairs will continue, which is not satisfactory.

The Government have been consulting on a policy to improve access to taxi fleets in line with the objectives under the clause to improve access to jobs and enable people to have better access to services and other social networks. That is squarely within the goods and services measures in the Bill and their attempt to improve accessibility for people. Recent court cases have highlighted or challenged local authority policies that require a proportion of taxi fleets to be wheelchair-accessible. The Government were looking at using regulation-making powers under the DDA to require local authorities to have an accessibility standard for a taxi fleet in their area and ensure compliance. One policy option is primary legislation that would require changes under the Bill. Another is the introduction of an accessible-taxi standard by 2025. The third option is the introduction of a standard in line with the existing enhanced standard by 2025, or application of an interim standard in urban areas and areas with high levels of illness by 2020.

Those options clearly have different costs. The first, unsurprisingly, would be the most expensive, with a value of around £2.7 million, although the benefits have not been calculated. The benefits would be significant and, I suspect, would outweigh the costs. It would be helpful if the Solicitor-General set out where the DFT has got to. If changes are needed in primary legislation, they are clearly not here now. If there are to be such legislative changes, perhaps she will say whether we are likely to have them on Report and when that is likely to be, because it might be a good opportunity to introduce the amendments.