Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Western Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question. As I have just said, we will shortly publish the low-carbon fuel strategy, which will set out the different sources of low-carbon fuels. We will publish our response to the SAF mandate by the spring. A great deal of detailed analysis and work is being done in relation to different fuel sources. We will also publish a revenue certainty mechanism to ensure that we have a UK SAF industry. We engage regularly with the industry on this, and it is very confident about and supportive of the Government’s policies. We do have a detailed plan, and I want to commiserate with the hon. Gentleman, because I am sure that as Energy Minister he too had a plan, but the Opposition’s plans seem to have been U-turned today.

[Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

7. What assessment he has made of the impact of the rise in rail fares on passenger numbers since 2010.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)]

Since 2010, regulated fares across Great Britain have decreased by around 7% compared with the retail prices index. The Government continue to intervene to keep fares affordable, and to encourage travel, by capping increases below inflation and delivering initiatives such as the second great British rail sale. We have to strike a balance between encouraging passengers to use our rail network and supporting the rail industry to get back on a good financial footing as it continues to deal with a revenue shortfall following the pandemic.

[Andrew Western]

For a period last year, Urmston train station in my constituency was one of the country’s 10 worst performing train stations for service reliability. Given the level of service experienced by my constituents who use Urmston and other stations on the line, why are they set to face an inflation-busting fare increase in March?

[Huw Merriman]

If we take the current year’s fares as an example, we delivered the biggest Government intervention on rail fares since privatisation by capping fare increases at 5.9%, which was 6.4 percentage points below the July RPI. It is all about striking a balance, and I believe that balance is a fair one.

In the last three years, the UK taxpayer has contributed £45.9 billion to keep the railways going. This year’s figure of 4.9% is, again, below inflation. It cannot be that bad, because Labour-run Wales has done exactly the same. It is better than Scotland, where the SNP has put up fares by 8.7%.