Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Villiers]

In considering the recommendations of the independent McNulty report and before any decision was made on changes to future ticket office rules, it would of course be vital carefully to assess the needs of disabled communities and pensioners. That would be a very important part of any decisions made on future reform of ticket offices.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The McNulty report identified some 30% savings in real costs across the piece. If that is to be achieved by the closure of ticket offices or in other ways, what will the Minister do to ensure that that money will be passed on not to the rail companies but to the users? The line from Chippenham—the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames)—to London is among the most expensive in the world: more, mile for mile, than the cost of Concorde. We need to cut those rates, and we can do that by saving money on the infrastructure.

[Mrs Villiers]

We have made it clear that it is vital to get the costs of running the railways down, and it is also vital that the benefits of those cost reductions be shared by both taxpayers and fare payers so that we can give both better value for money. If we can achieve savings on the scale contemplated by McNulty, we could, we hope, see the end of the era of above-inflation fare increases.