Rail Fares: Flexi-season Tickets

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Baroness is quite right; the one thing we are going to have to do to get people back on to the railways—indeed, the public transport system as a whole—is to improve passenger confidence in the system. One way to do that is to be at the forefront of being able to provide the most up-to-date air filtration systems and secure the best enhanced cleaning contracts.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, noble Lords may have wonderful, imaginative ideas for playing around with fares, and there may indeed be a commercial case for flexible season tickets, but does my noble friend agree that the future of the railways is best secured if they maximise their own revenues and that the fundamental purpose of commuter fares and season tickets must therefore always be, as with airlines, to increase yields to the railways, thus saving expense for the taxpayer?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I somewhat agree with my noble friend in that, if this were being done in purely commercial terms, that would be the case, and we certainly want to minimise the amount of subsidy from the taxpayer where appropriate. However, the state might also want to intervene for other reasons and use pricing levers; for example, to encourage modal shift and get people out of their cars and on to the rail, particularly for certain types of journeys, and that might include commuting.