McNulty Report and West Coast Rail

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I have already made a statement to the House on the economics of the electrification from Cardiff to Swansea and I am afraid that those economics have not changed, but if the hon. Gentleman is raising the issue of trans-European network funding, I am not aware that there is any still available. However, I undertake to have a look at that potential source of funding.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I welcome this report and congratulate Sir Roy McNulty on it. Commuters and other travellers have suffered for far too long from high and complex fares and overcrowded trains. Can the Secretary of State assure me and all those who use the trains that the savings that must be made from the system will be returned to people in lower fares and better services?

[Mr Hammond]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I have to put it to him slightly differently: the savings will be returned to people in the form of lower taxpayer subsidy—which we have to deliver, because my Department, like every other Department, has to make its contribution to dealing with the fiscal mess that we inherited—and in due course, if they are successful, there will be lower pressure for upward real increases in fares. I would like to see a return to a world in which fares rise broadly in line with inflation, and a move away from the era of inflation-busting fare increase that we have faced over the last few years and, unfortunately, will have to face over the next three years.