Rising Cost of Transport

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) for inviting me to deliver the winding-up speech for the Opposition. That was especially generous given yesterday’s front page on the “ConservativeHome” website and a lead article written by someone appropriately called Harry Phibbs—it was not spelled Fibs, although I am not sure what kind of future he thinks he has in politics. Mr Phibbs writes about a dozen politicians who he says should defect to the Conservatives, and he names me along with some other distinguished colleagues, including the former Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris). I am grateful that the shadow Secretary of State trusts me with this winding-up speech in the face of such provocation.

I understand Mr Phibbs’s confusion, because in the 21st century, party lines can blur on some issues, of which equal marriage and Europe are good examples. On transport, however, and the motion before the House, nothing could be clearer: as my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood laid out when opening the debate, bus fares are up twice the rate of inflation, services are disappearing and a prime ministerial promise of capping rail fares at 1% above inflation has been broken. Fares are increasing not by 4.3%—1% above inflation—but by 9.2%, and even worse, Government documents propose super-peak tickets that will cost even more. There are no problems with party lines on this issue. People are either with the vested interests—the train operating companies and the Government—or with hard-pressed commuters, the Transport Committee and the Opposition motion on the Order Paper. I will return to those issues shortly.

The Secretary of State generously joined the shadow Secretary of State’s tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), and—quite correctly—that was well greeted across the House. The Secretary of State has had difficult times during his short tenure. He is regarded as a honourable man but he has been picking up the pieces of the west coast main line franchise fiasco and the Davies commission signalled a Government U-turn—well, certainly a Conservative U-turn—on aviation policy in 2015. My hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood is not the only Member critical of the delay in the announcement by the Davies commission, and she is joined by Mayor Boris Johnson and Lord Heseltine. In my view, however, the biggest mistake—

[Mr McLoughlin]

rose—

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me; he knows that time is very limited but I do not wish to be discourteous. I was about to pay him a compliment in saying that in my view, one of the biggest mistakes made by one of his predecessors, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), was scrapping road safety targets that had bipartisan support across the House for 30 years and massively reduced deaths and serious injuries on our roads. Indeed, I commend the Secretary of State because at least he has had the decency to bring in forecasts that acknowledge we need to measure such things and set an ambition to reduce the numbers of people killed and seriously injured on the roads.

We have heard a number of thoughtful contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) made relevant points about the east coast main line and local connections, as well as sharing disturbing data on staffing conditions. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), a former Department for Transport Parliamentary Private Secretary, mounted a sterling defence of the coalition, which was a good way to sweeten his special local pleading, which I am sure went down well.

The distinguished Chair of the Transport Committee covered the recommendation from the new Committee report, to which I shall refer in a moment. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) reminded us how the Lib Dems are the honest brokers in the coalition. He even got the Scottish National party on side, albeit briefly. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) used his characteristic gentle aggressiveness and Transport Committee experience to criticise Labour’s record, and sought to use European comparisons to justify UK prices. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) raised the question of overcrowding on her local trains, as well as high ticketing costs and local buses, and the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) majored on the question of costs. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) raised a number of local issues as well as discussing major infrastructure items.

To return to the substance of the motion, according to the Department for Transport’s figures—the annual bus usage statistics for England—there was an increase in bus fares of 6.5%, which means fares have gone up by, on average, twice the rate of inflation. They have gone up by 5.4% in London. As we have heard, research has shown that one in five council-supported bus routes were cut or reduced last year, and that 41% of local authorities have had to axe services. That is not a good record on buses.

As we have heard, on rail fares, the Prime Minister promised to peg increases at 1% above inflation. That is another broken promise to add to the 70 missed targets headlined in The Daily Telegraph today—although perhaps it is one of the 70. The target was not only just missed; fare increases of up to 9.2% have been registered. And it gets worse: the Transport Committee states in its “Rail 2020” report:

“We recommend that the Government rule out forms of demand management which would lead to even higher fares for commuters on peak times”.

Why does it make that recommendation? It does so because of a quote from the Government’s rail fares and ticketing review from last year. The scriptwriters from “Yes, Minister” could not have improved on this language, and hon. Members will need to concentrate on the words:

“To provide a stronger incentive for behavioural change and more even usage of peak capacity among existing passengers, a wider ‘menu’ of fares could…also include a ‘high peak’ fare priced higher than the current Anytime day fare, a season ticket priced higher than the current season ticket”,

which means higher prices on routes. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that, because the Secretary of State did not refer to it, even though my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood raised the super-peak ticket on a number of occasions.

Labour’s position is a total contrast. The noble Lord Adonis set out his view last year of the policy he followed as Secretary of State in 2010. He said:

“Prior to 2010, train companies had the right to increase individual fares by up to five per cent above the…RPI+1 per cent level. This was a legacy of the privatisation settlement. I scrapped this flexibility because I believed it was deeply unfair”.

Of his successor as Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, Lord Adonis has said:

“It was my firm intention to continue the policy for subsequent years, and I was mystified when…my successor…reinstated the fares flexibility. The only people who supported this change were the train companies. It is the job of government to be on the side of the travelling public. Labour took this seriously, which is why we scrapped the fares flexibility. By contrast, the present government appears just to be on the side of the train companies.”

Government Members asked why the policy was introduced only in 2010. That is a legitimate question, but a better one would be: why has it not been repeated since 2010? We have had three years of coalition fares increases, but the policy has not been back.

The Prime Minister promised capped fares, but it has not happened, and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), held out the prospect of the end of the era of above-inflation fare increases, but when asked by the BBC when that would happen, he could not answer. The Government are out of touch on rail. My hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood quoted the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, who said that rail is a “rich man’s toy”. The Under-Secretary of State—long-serving in the Government; long-suffering on the Opposition Benches—tried to claim over the new year that rail fares were

“not nearly as expensive as”

they were “being presented”, and that passengers were paying for a “premium service”. If by “premium service” he means paying more, getting less and standing for longer, I agree. Just this week, the rail Minister, the Minister of State, was bullied into using rail by the media, which was a sad passage.

Labour would put passengers first by banning train companies from increasing fares above a cap set by Ministers. Government Members have the opportunity to stand up for their rail and bus commuters by supporting our motion tonight in the Lobby. I strongly urge them to do so and I commend the motion to the House.