Access For All in rural areas

That this House recognises the enormous barriers that still exist at many railway stations across the country for people with mobility issues; welcomes the Department for Transport’s Access for All scheme to provide funding to make accessibility improvements to railway stations; acknowledges that the scheme’s criteria rewards stations with higher footfall and therefore penalise rural areas with often more elderly populations; and calls on the Government to review this criteria so that stations in rural communities are given a fair chance of being selected when the next round of funding is announced in 2024.