Rail Fares

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

Rail travel is vital to the far south-west. It takes nearly three and a half hours to travel from London to Plymouth, and five hours to travel further down the Penzance main line. We have ever-diminishing air travel options—Plymouth airport has just shut—and only two strategic road routes, and there is no motorway leading down to Cornwall. Rail and its affordability are therefore incredibly important.

Over the 15 years since privatisation, rail travel in the south-west has boomed. There have been 85% more journeys, 40% of them to London and the south-east. The number of journeys in Plymouth has increased over the past 10 years, despite the recession, and we have seen the fastest rate of travel-to-work growth—about 4.6% each year.

A major capacity gap is looming, however. The decisions taken on High Speed 2 will not help the south-west as much as we would like. It is especially expensive for people in the south-west to travel around the country, as we pay more per mile than those in other areas. That is part of the legacy of botched privatisation. There is a deep sense of unfairness. I fully accept that rail passengers have to pay towards the service they use, but there should be fairness in the system and that does not exist.

Local authority figures and development plans suggest that the number of rail passenger journeys will increase further, and in excess of Network Rail’s figures—I urge the Government to compare the figures of Network Rail with those of the local authorities—but passengers will still face historically high fares, and in particular those travelling from the south-west. Why are standard anytime single fares that are priced per mile so much higher for our region than for any other region? A standard open ticket down to Plymouth will now cost £252, up by 9.7%.

The Government put forward the idea that people can commute for 90 minutes into work. The 90-minute journey out of Plymouth to Taunton is a fair stretch, and a young person doing their first job will have to pay £170 a week if they cannot afford to buy a season ticket. That simply is not realistic, and it is certainly not affordable.

A number of Members touched on the economic significance of the rail network for regional and city growth. Its importance to the south-west cannot be overestimated. So much potential could be unlocked if our rail services were efficient, on time and, importantly, affordable. In yesterday’s local government finance debate, we talked about how local authority budgets might grow, such as through increasing business rate revenues. Those revenues will not grow if a decent infrastructure is not in place and if fares are not affordable, as under those circumstances businesses will not want to invest in cities that are distant from the central hub of London.

As always, we in the south-west and Plymouth are concerned about our peripherality. Following the HS2 announcement, we are increasingly concerned that the south-west’s links to London are not being looked at and that we are not getting a strategic overview of exactly how the benefits of HS2 will pan out in terms of access to and from the south-west. We have also received no reassurances about affordability, and we see no fairness in the fares structure. We need a fares structure that is simpler, too. We have a new franchise coming up, and fares structuring and pricing must be taken into account at that time. I also urge the Minister to take on board the concerns of the people of the south-west.

My hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) was right to call this debate, as we should highlight the policies of the Government, which do not tackle the rail companies and therefore, in effect, acquiesce in the unacceptably high rail fares. I urge Members to vote for our motion.