Ipswich-London Rail Fares

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

Absolutely. Ticket machines should be programmed to offer the best-value fare, and to the extent that they are not, it is worth further consideration by the team undertaking the rail review.

Turning to the cost of fares, the Government and the train operators have made long-term and far-reaching investments in the railways to cope with the considerable increase in use in the years since privatisation. Fares revenue is crucial to funding day-to-day railway operations, and the massive upgrade programme we are delivering now will benefit passengers. We know that a rise in rail fares can affect the family budgets of hard-working people, including commuters in the constituency of the hon. Member for Ipswich and in London, which is why, for the sixth year running, we will be capping regulated fares in line with inflation.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his welcome news on capping rail fares, but does he not also agree that it is difficult for customers to disaggregate the cost of the fare—those in Ipswich are very high per mile by national standards—from reliability and speed of service? Despite the cost of tickets from Ipswich, reliability and speed of service have not improved over the years. Reliability, speed of service and track capacity desperately need to improve and be better linked to fare prices.

[Joseph Johnson]

Of course I agree that performance, whether measured by reliability or punctuality, is exceptionally important to passengers and their perception of value for money. Performance on Greater Anglia has been reasonably good over recent weeks. From memory—I am seeking a prompt—I think its public performance measure is around 89%, so just a couple of percentage points off its target for the relevant period, but there is always room for improvement and we carefully monitor how it is doing against its targets.