Railways Investment: North of England

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we are working closely with Transport for the North to help transform the economy of the north of England through Northern Powerhouse Rail. That will significantly improve the capacity, frequency and journey time. I can reassure the noble Lord that we are fully committed to Northern Powerhouse Rail. We have invested money into Transport for the North, and are looking forward to its business case which will be published at the end of this year, and which will set out details of routes and indeed costs.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I have some very good experience of travelling by train in the north. However, does my noble friend agree that the pricing of rail tickets is very confusing—even making it difficult for our excellent parliamentary travel office? There are different levels of service and different interpretations, for example, relating to what represents “off-peak” in different franchise areas. Could new investment, whether in the north or elsewhere, include sorting that out?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that we need to do more to simplify rail fares. I mentioned in the earlier Question the easier fares consultation carried out by the Rail Delivery Group. Train operators are obligated to sell the most appropriate fare available, but there is a wide range of tickets on offer and we have made a commitment to removing that complexity and the perverse pricing we sometimes see from ticketing. We would like to see online retailers give passengers much clearer information at the point of purchase and, as I said, we look forward to the findings of the RDG consultation.