Kate Green
Main Page: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)Department Debates - View all Kate Green's debates with the Department for Transport
(4 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Heaton-Harris
I thank my hon. Friend, who is a near neighbour of mine, for his excellent question. We are currently trialling a new, simpler fares structure with London North Eastern Railway, and will use the findings to inform the development of wider plans to improve fares. This will be a big part of the Williams review White Paper that will be published shortly.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
One aspect of fare regulation that I invite the Minister to consider is compensation arrangements for cancellations and delays, particularly on commuter services, where the sums involved for the individual journey are small, but the cumulative effect of poor services is significant for those passengers. Will the Minister suggest some ways in which commuters can not only hope to see their trains arrive on time, but easily claim compensation when they do not?
Chris Heaton-Harris
The obvious way to get around this problem is to ensure that trains actually arrive on time. That is the ultimate aim of all that we do in this area at the Department for Transport. We have rolled out the Delay Repay scheme across the vast majority of the network, and it is working. However, we are going to spend £48 billion over the course of the next five years to try to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place to make the trains run on time. That has to be the ultimate goal.