Business of the House

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The Minister for the Cabinet Office will be here on 9 March to take questions. Mr Speaker, you have been generous in granting opportunities to Members of this House to raise concerns in urgent questions, but I cannot remember this subject being raised in that way, so perhaps it is not that urgent.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

When I heard from a constituent that she had gone elsewhere in the country to volunteer as part of her Duke of Edinburgh award, I was, as I am sure all hon. Members would be, delighted at her commitment to this award scheme and to volunteering. However, I was less pleased by the fact that she had to pay a rather large sum for her rail ticket and then discovered that by splitting her tickets she could perfectly legally have paid a lot less. May we have a debate on how such fare information can be much more widely publicised and whether rail companies should be obliged to show the cheapest possible way of getting from A to B?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend the rail Minister would be very much in agreement with what my hon. Friend says, and indeed is working to achieve that. All of us who travel by train will sometimes find a bizarre fare structure and bizarre circumstances, such as finding that the first class fare is lower than the second class fare, or that it is cheaper to split the journey in half. It would be much easier and more straightforward if the information available to the public was obvious, straightforward and demonstrated the cheapest way to travel.