Rail Fares

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I am disappointed by the text of the motion. We could have had a sensible and mature debate on the future of the rail industry, its costs and the appropriate balance between revenue from the fare box and from the taxpayer, but instead we have merely had cheap political point making, which does no one any service. From listening to some contributions, one would have thought that train fare increases occurred for the very first time in January of this year, whereas there have, of course, been increases for many years.

For many years before I was elected, I commuted daily up and down the west coast main line between Milton Keynes and Euston. Every year, the season ticket went up a couple of hundred pounds. Now, it is about £5,000, and if one adds on parking charges, that is a huge sum of money to come out of people’s pockets after tax. I acknowledge that that is a huge cost, but we need to have a sensible debate about how we move forward from here, rather than just engaging in cheap point scoring across the board. I hope that the Select Committee on Transport, on which I serve, will turn its attention to this issue at some point this year, once the Government have published their fares review and response to McNulty.

In the short term, it is important that we do what we can to cap fares, and I welcome the announcement in the autumn statement that we are scaling back from RPI plus 3 to RPI plus 1. However, it is also important that passengers see something for what they are paying. I applaud what the Government have done to prioritise investment in the rail industry, and we have seen some examples of that on the line I use. It is far from perfect, but there are measures to tackle overcrowding. We have a new fleet of trains, and just this week, Virgin Trains announced that an extra three of its fast trains will stop at Milton Keynes during the evening peak. That will go some way towards relieving overcrowding, and many of the Pendolino trains are being lengthened. Some tangible improvements are therefore happening, although not as fast as I would like—I would like more trains to stop during the peak morning period—but, this is a welcome first step.

Also welcome is the announcement in the autumn statement about the East West Rail line, which will connect my constituency westwards to Oxford, and southwards to Aylesbury and on to London. I hope that, in the fullness of time, we will extend eastwards towards Cambridge, so that I can go and see my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) in record speed. However, I suspect that that is a little while off. The key point is that these are tangible improvements in the short term that passengers can see for the extra money they have to pay.

However, there are long-term structural issues within the rail industry, and we need to have a frank and honest debate about how we move forward. We should look not just at this country, but overseas to what other countries do. During the summer recess, I had the great privilege of travelling to Switzerland as the guest of the Swiss railway to examine its system. It has increased cost pressures, as well. We hold up the Swiss railway example as nirvana—the goal that we want to achieve—and in many respects it is, but it is having a big argument at the minute about putting up rail fares to pay for increased infrastructure investment in order to increase capacity. So, this problem is not unique to this country.

However, there are certain parts of the Swiss system that we should look at. In the one minute and 50 seconds remaining to me, I do not have quite enough time to go into that issue in depth, but the Swiss have what they call the general access card, which covers public transport costs across all modes, be they rail, tram, ferry or bus. We should encourage measures in this country to improve transport integration, which has long been talked about. The former Deputy Prime Minister, now Lord Prescott, proclaimed that we would have a committee for integrated transport; however, 13 years on, little has been achieved. We need to address such issues and to look at the long-term costs within the rail industry. Our rail costs are among the highest in the world, and we should not just accept that the existing situation must be preserved in aspic for ever.

Some tough issues have to be addressed and it is not going to be easy, but I am looking forward to having a sensible debate. I hope the Transport Committee will tackle these key issues when we conduct our inquiry, hopefully later this year, and that we can have a sensible debate, rather than the petty and pointless political point scoring that has happened today. There are many sensible Opposition Members with whom I serve on the Transport Committee, and I hope we can have a decent discussion and explore all the issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Let me start by picking up on the last point that the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) made. He suggests that this debate was thrust on our Front Bench. Far from it; I believe that a number of Members desperately want to discuss this issue—[Hon. Members: “Where are they?”] Well, I am here and if hon. Members will grant me the courtesy of listening, I will tell them that my constituents e-mail and write to me on a weekly basis about this issue, and when I knock on their door they talk to me about the affordability of the railway. My constituents depend on the railway far more than most Members’ constituents, partly because there are not a huge number of locally based jobs in the area of Lewisham that I represent. Most of my constituents who work—70%—travel into central London, down to Croydon and out to Bromley using the railway, not the tube, and sometimes the bus to go about their daily life. The railway and the affordability of train fares are critical to my constituents. That is why we are having this debate today.

I was struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who said that train fares have been increasing for a number of years. That certainly has been my experience as a London Member of Parliament, but the real difficulty this year is that the train fare increases are particularly hard to stomach given that they come on top of so many other increases in the cost of living, such as in utility bills and food. Constituents are coming to us and saying that their housing benefit is being reduced, and it is a real kick in the teeth when train and bus fares are being hiked by such considerable amounts this year.

[Iain Stewart]

The two issues that the hon. Lady has just mentioned are not separate points, because trains require energy to run on and if energy costs go up the operating costs of the railways also go up. One cannot simply differentiate those two issues.

[Heidi Alexander]

Energy was just one of the things that I mentioned. Most people would recognise that the cost of living is going up considerably. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman when he says that, with fares going up, our constituents—the public—expect to see an improvement in service, getting some bang for their buck. When the trains roll into stations in my constituency, they are rammed full of people. This morning I tried to get on the 8.32 train from Lewisham and had to wait for the next one to come along. The previous Government put in place a number of measures to increase capacity on some of the suburban lines coming into London.