{"id":902449,"date":"2026-09-23T11:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/902449\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T11:26:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:26:15","slug":"this-is-a-fairness-issue-it-is-an-accessibility-issue-blind-paralympian-calls-for-vat-cut-on-tandem-bicycles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/902449\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThis is a fairness issue. It is an accessibility issue\u201d: Blind Paralympian calls for VAT cut on tandem bicycles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paralympic gold medal winner Lizzi Jordan MBE is campaigning for tandem bicycles sold to visually impaired individuals to be VAT-exempt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jordan, who is blind, won Paralympic gold in the women\u2019s tandem 1km time trial alongside her pilot Danni Khan. She has also won six world titles, four world champion medals and a bronze medal as part of Team England at the Commonwealth Games this summer.<\/p>\n

Jordan, 28, lost her eyesight at the age 19 due to illness complications that led to her being in a coma and on life support for eight weeks. She eventually found herself at a British Cycling Talent ID day, where her para-cycling career began.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Equal access to more affordable bicycles<\/p>\n

Jordan says she wants to use her platform to ensure every blind and visually impaired person in the UK \u201chas equal access to something as basic as more affordable bicycles\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis campaign presents the government with a practical, affordable, and highly visible opportunity to improve disability inclusion in the United Kingdom,\u201d Jordan says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fairness issue. It is an accessibility issue. And it is an opportunity for the Government to make a meaningful change,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

British Cycling says current legislation \u201cdiscriminates against visually impaired people\u201d, failing to recognise tandems as adaptive bicycles, because they are not used exclusively by those with disabilities.<\/p>\n

However, it adds that recognising tandems as adaptive bicycles<\/a> would \u201cimprove access to exercise, travel, social inclusion and physical and mental wellbeing for visually impaired people up and down the country\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A 2025 analysis by the Royal National Institute of Blind People found blind and partially sighted working-age adults are about half as likely to be in paid employment as non-disabled people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Sport England says disabled people are \u201calmost twice as likely\u201d to be physically inactive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A \u201ctransformative\u201d social impact
\n\"LizziLizzi Jordan with pilot Danni Khan at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, where they won gold in the women’s tandem 1km time trial. Alex Whitehead \/ SWPx<\/p>\n

Jordan says the financial impact of recognising tandems<\/a> as adaptive bicycles would be \u201cminimal\u201d. Figures provided by Orbit Tandems LTD, England\u2019s largest tandem bicycle supplier, suggests the impact would be roughly \u00a326,000 per year. Yet Jordan says \u201cthe social impact would be transformative\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI urge the Government to please formally recognise standard tandem bicycles purchased by visually impaired individuals as adaptive bicycles with regards to the VAT exemption,” she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI would welcome a meeting with you and your team to discuss this important issue, and opportunity, in more detail.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Steve Darling, MP for Torbay, says: \u201cThe current rules, meaning that tandem bikes are not recognised as adaptive cycles, make little sense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to encourage people with disabilities to stay active rather than making specialist equipment more expensive. I hope that the Chancellor sees this error and reverses it at the budget.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The campaign has the support of several organisations, including the Bicycle Association, British Blind Sport, ParalympicsGB and Cycling UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paralympic gold medal winner Lizzi Jordan MBE is campaigning for tandem bicycles sold to visually impaired individuals to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":902450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-902449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}