Lord Bradshaw
Main Page: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bradshaw's debates with the Department for Transport
(3 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberI would love to help the noble Lord. I fear that I am unable to explain it, and the irony in this Question is very clear to me; investment in High Speed 2 is clearly good for the environment and should be continued. As he identified, the journey time savings can be significant as well as capacity.
My Lords, yesterday I obtained the figures of the cost of travelling from London to Manchester and Newcastle, and from Paris to Lyons and Marseilles. The costs in France by train in all classes are at least half what they are here, and in France you go twice as fast. You get a double benefit for the money spent. A lot of answers need to come from the Treasury as to why rail fares in Britain are so much higher than they are elsewhere.
The noble Lord is quite right that customers could and should make various decisions based on price. That is why the Government asked for the Williams Rail Review to be done; I recognise that it has not yet been published, because of the pandemic, but it will come out shortly. The way we reform our railway systems should have a very positive impact on fares.