Rail Ticket Offices

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for her exposition of the greatness of the staff. We absolutely value the staff, which is why we want to get them out there to enable them to help more people. Ticket vending machines are being continually upgraded and there are all sorts of ways we can upgrade them: for example, we are adding video calling to enable people to ask the absolute experts if they wish to take a particularly complicated route. If AI is appropriate, I am sure that the train operating companies are looking at it.

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak from personal experience, having travelled up and down from Liverpool twice this week alone. Only this morning, I was listening to the staff there who were worried sick about their jobs, but more importantly, I watched a partially sighted customer trying to get help and support which would not have been available had there been no assistant to help them. This is not about people; it is about profits and wiping people’s jobs out. I urge others to make sure, as I have already done today, that in respect of the consultation paper they vote no to this outrageous proposal.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, those staff will still be there to help the passenger, whether they be partially sighted or for whatever reason they need help. The noble Lord says that this is about profits but it is not at all, because the costs of running the railways fall to the taxpayer. We need to have a modern seven-day railway and that is what this Government are going to deliver.