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You and Yours - Transcript 大象传媒 Radio 4 |
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TX: 13.09.07 - Blue Badges PRESENTER: LIZ BARCLAY |
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THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 大象传媒 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. BARCLAY Now Blue Badges - the parking badges for disabled people - are a lifeline for hundreds of thousands around the UK. But they've also become a commodity - stolen or forged and sold on to non-disabled people, thousands of whom use them illegally every day. On You and Yours we've reported regularly on the problem - three years ago we uncovered a garage in London that was illegally trading stolen badges for about £40 a throw. And we've also been uncover with a team from the London Borough of Wandsworth, who claimed in their borough alone there were scores of non-disabled people using the badges every day to get free parking and to avoid London's congestion charge. COUNCIL INSPECTOR What we're going to do now though is just go round to a side street around the corner from here where we know there's a vehicle displaying a forged badge and we're going to try and get the vehicle impounded. The vehicle is outside the owner's address so it may well be that the owner comes out, in which case we'll speak to him and hopefully seize the badge from him. I checked earlier on and it had the forged badge on it. The badge itself is a known forgery to us, we've already prosecuted someone for a copy of the same badge. And we do know that someone else in the neighbouring borough has also been prosecuted for a copy of this badge. BARCLAY Well today the government announced new regulations to curb the problem and the transport minister Rosie Winterton is on the line. Minister, what are you - what have you announced today to deal with this kind of fraud? WINTERTON Well I should first of all say that obviously the vast majority of people using the badges are using them perfectly legitimately but there is some evidence, and you've just referred to it just now on your programme, of abuse, sometimes through forgery. So what we've done is to change the legislation so that we're able to put holograms on the badges themselves which make it much more difficult to actually reproduce them. BARCLAY But what about the problem of them being stolen and sold on - how do we tackle that? WINTERTON Well we're also looking - we will also be introducing a change which means, for example, that traffic wardens will be able to tell whether the badge should belong to a man or a woman, which again will help in some of these circumstances. Wider than that we're conducting a more strategic review to say what else can we do to cut down on fraud, particularly by perhaps using some of the new technology to help us in that. BARCLAY Are you considering a national database of Blue Badges? WINTERTON What we will be doing in the strategic review is looking at all those issues, that's going to come back to me later on this month and address some of the real issues that you're talking about. Of course at the moment local authorities have that responsibility but we want to see whether there's anything we can do, perhaps in conjunction with them, to cut down on fraud and abuse. BARCLAY Well we spoke to the charity Mobilise, which campaigns on transport for disabled people. A spokesman told us that the biggest problem with Blue Badges is that there are simply far too many of them being issued. Nearly 1 in 20 people in the UK have one. Do you have any plans to change how the need for a badge is assessed? WINTERTON We will in our strategic review be looking at the assessment process to see whether there is anything else that ought to be done in that area. As I say the vast majority of people use their badges properly but we do want to make sure that there isn't abuse and fraud in the system and make sure that we're doing everything we can to quite frankly stamp it out. BARCLAY Well the second thing that's changing in October is the age at which children can get a Blue Badge. Up till now you've had to be over two. Well back in February Helen Grindrod got in touch to tell us about her daughter, Mia, who was being treating for a hip dysplasia. This involved wearing a huge and heavy cast and so transporting her daughter around was very difficult. GRINDROD It's a stressful situation and you're trying to keep your life and their life as normal as possible. And when you can't even do something simple like go out shopping it's quite upsetting. Also the hospital visits - because you're backwards and forwards so frequently we've had lots of people say to us well park in the parents space, well in hospital car parks there aren't parent spaces. And our actual hospital that the girls are being treated under actually have their own disabled car park, so you know instead of having to make sure that there was always two of us, trying to make sure that one or the other of you gets days off work and that, we could have just - it would have just been a lot easier. INTERVIEWER And yesterday the minister came to visit you. GRINDROD Yes that's right she came to visit us at my home yesterday morning and we had no idea what the meeting was going to be about but she told us that the changes that we were looking for are going to be made, meaning that children with hip dysplasia, because they have to carry the bulky medical equipment, will now be eligible for a Blue Badge and that's from October that families will be apply for badges for these children. GRINDROD So good news for Mia and Helen there. Minister, this change though doesn't just apply to children with hip dysplasia does it, who will be covered? WINTERTON It applies to any children who have bulky medical equipment. For example, ventilators and feeding tubes - anybody who has to carry that kind of equipment around or has to have something, for example, in a car if they needed emergency treatment very quickly they would be entitled to a badge as well. BARCLAY Transport minister Rosie Winterton, thank you for joining us. Back to the You and Yours homepage The 大象传媒 is not responsible for external websites |
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