Justin Madders
Main Page: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)Department Debates - View all Justin Madders's debates with the Department for Transport
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Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Huw Merriman
Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I hope that these changes will lead to more face-to-face interaction, because those who work on the railway and provide such brilliant help, information and reassurance for passengers will be more likely to be in the places where those passengers are located. Southeastern is doing its consultation in stages—the current part is for the metro side of Southeastern, after which it will be rolled out further—but I can give my hon. Friend that assurance.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
My constituents and I are getting a bit fed up of everything being pushed online, because as we have heard today, it does not work for everyone. However, I want to ask the Minister what he is going to do to help operators deal with this change. Merseyrail, for example, does not accept tickets on phones, and there have been plenty of examples of people who bought through tickets online being fined because they have not been able to produce a physical ticket. Is the Minister going to do an assessment of operators’ capacity to deal with this issue and give them some financial support to make that change?