Maria Eagle
Main Page: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)Department Debates - View all Maria Eagle's debates with the Department for Transport
(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House believes the rising cost of transport is adding to the financial pressures facing many households; notes that the Government failed to honour its pledge to cap this month’s rail fare rises at 1 per cent above inflation, resulting in some fares rising by as much as 9.2 per cent; recognises that this was a direct consequence of the Government’s decision to give back to the private train operators the right to increase fares by up to an additional 5 per cent beyond the increase set by Ministers; further notes that bus fares increased on average by more than twice the rate of inflation in 2012; calls on the Government to ban train operators from increasing fares beyond strict limits and to rule out the proposed introduction of a new category of super peak ticket which would increase the burden on hard-pressed commuters; and further calls on Ministers to support transport authorities pursuing Quality Contracts to bring accountability to bus fares, instead of using Better Bus Area funding to penalise authorities seeking to get better value for money for these taxpayer-funded services.
I begin by thanking and paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who has decided, because of a head injury, to step down from his duties on the Front Bench. He has been an excellent, hard-working colleague, full of ideas, and I thank him very much for all the work he has done in my team. I know that he will be back.
The cost of transport is rising; it is rising by more than the rate of inflation—by much more in many cases. That increase is being fuelled by an out-of-touch Government and Transport Ministers who just do not seem to understand the pain they are imposing on hard-working people. Returning to work after the new year, those who commute by rail found that the price of their tickets had increased by an average of 4.2%, and by as much as 9.2% on some routes. Over the past year, bus fares have increased by more than twice the rate of inflation and motorists have found that VAT at 20% wipes out any relief they have had from the deferral of increases in fuel duty. Yet most people are not seeing their wages go up by anything like as much as those increases, and for many their wages or salaries are stagnant or falling.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady not acknowledge that if her party were still in government and fuel duty had been 13p a litre more than it is today under this Government, bus fares would have increased even more?
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman knows that his Government have cut the bus service operators grant by 20%. As for any policies that a re-elected Labour Government may have carried out on fuel duty, it is just speculation to say that they would or would not have been cut or kept; it is completely speculative to suggest that there may not have been any changes in the intervening two years—
Maria Eagle
No, I think once is enough.
Together with the rising costs of housing, fuel and food, the rising cost of transport is adding to the cost-of-living crisis now making life much tougher for households across Britain. Yet Transport Ministers and the Government are so out of touch with the pressures that families are under that they are making it easier for private train companies and bus companies to hike fares and increase their profits—
Maria Eagle
I will in a moment. These companies are doing that off the back of struggling commuters and passengers. The pain is not yet over. This year, we are set to see even greater pressure from the rising cost of transport as the Government unveil their rail fares and ticketing review, with proposals for even higher fares at the times when most people need to travel.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Is not the really sneaky thing the Government’s allowing train companies to regain the power of so-called flexibility, which enables them to increase rail fares by up to 5% on top of the regulated fare increase? The Labour Government removed that power from them in 2009.
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is entirely correct. Even now, this Government could put that right by simply removing that power from the train companies, as we did in office. I invite the Secretary of State, who is relatively new to his job, to consider that.
We have Transport Ministers and a Government who are so out of touch with the pressures that families are under that they are making it easier for the private train and bus companies to hike fares and increase their profits off the back of struggling commuters and passengers.
Henry Smith
I am grateful that my persistence has paid off. Will the hon. Lady acknowledge the considerable investment in rail? For example, my constituency has a £26 million upgrade of Three Bridges station, a £53 million upgrade of Gatwick station and extra rolling stock from Thameslink and Southern. The travelling public are seeing real improvements.
Maria Eagle
I acknowledge that over a number of years, under the current Government and the previous Government, there has been big investment in rail travel. That is a good thing and I do not deny that.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I want to point out that the situation is not uniform. In my constituency, London Midland has sacked the people who work in the ticket office and installed machines and CCTV cameras that do not work. Despite a promise made by the Secretary of State to the House in a recent statement, there is no evidence that security has been improved at all.
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is correct. Significant problems are occurring with London Midland’s handling of its franchise. I know that Ministers are considering that and I hope that they will be tough and ensure that the passengers—
Maria Eagle
We will wait and see what action the Government take before we conclude that they are being tough—I am just encouraging them to be tough.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Maria Eagle
I want to make a little progress, but I might allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene a little later.
The pain is not over yet. This year is set to see even greater pressures from the rising cost of transport as the Government unveil their rail fares and ticketing review, with proposals for even higher fares at the times when most people need to travel. Ministers are to reform bus funding in a way that, deliberately it would seem, will penalise transport authorities that seek to regulate bus fares in the way they are regulated in London.
In contrast, as we set out in our motion, Labour would be taking steps now to ease the pressure on those who rely on our public transport system, standing up to the train and bus companies on behalf of commuters. We would be on the side of passengers, not vested interests.
Last September this House debated rail fares, and to the frustration of commuters—and many on the Government Benches, judging from what they told their local papers—the Prime Minister marched his MPs through the Lobby to oppose Labour’s motion to cap fare rises at 1% above inflation. Of course, Liberal Democrat MPs were marching alongside them. Yet within a month of Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs voting down Labour’s attempt to help commuters, we had a U-turn. On the eve of his party conference, the Prime Minister finally said that he agreed with Labour, and pledged to cap the annual fare rise at 1% above inflation. As commuters found when they returned to work this month, however, that was yet another broken promise from this Prime Minister and this Government, because fares were capped not at 1% above inflation, but at 9.2%. The reason the Prime Minister could not honour his pledge to commuters is clear: he was simply unable or unwilling to stand up to the vested interests in the private train companies. They had lobbied hard before the last election to get an agreement that the Conservative party would give back to them a power that had been taken away by the Labour Government when times got tough—the right to turn the annual cap on fare rises into an average, turning a cap of 1% above inflation into fare rises of as much as 9.2%.
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
I am surprised by what the hon. Lady says. She said that the previous Labour Government took that power away from the train operators when times got tough. Will she confirm that times got tough in 2010, which coincided with a general election?
Maria Eagle
No. There was a rule change that would have applied each and every year after the decision was made. Lord Adonis, who was in post at the time as Transport Secretary, took that decision and had been absolutely clear about it. If anybody in the House doubts that, they can read the Select Committee on Transport report on rail fares and franchises, published in July 2009. Lord Adonis told the Committee:
“The Government's intention is, therefore, that in future the cap should apply to individual regulated fares, not just to the average of each fares basket.”
He did not say “for one year” but “in future.” As Lord Adonis reaffirmed last year, when the issue came up:
“It was my firm intention to continue the policy for subsequent years, and I was mystified when…my successor”—
that is, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond)—
“reinstated the fares flexibility. The only people who supported this change were the train companies.”
I do not therefore accept that the cap was a one-off or that it would not have continued into the future under a Labour Government.
How have the Government reacted? The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), told passengers to stop complaining because fares are
“not nearly as expensive as is being presented”,
and then told peak-time commuters that they were paying for a premium service. I assure the Under-Secretary that many passengers do not feel that that describes their experience in getting to work in the morning on an overcrowded train. They do not agree with him that fares are not expensive.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), was avoiding taking the train altogether, and had a chauffeur bill to and from his constituency—a commute that would take just half an hour by train on a season ticket that would cost taxpayers not £80,000 a year but £4,500 a year. Transport Ministers—
Maria Eagle
No, I will make some progress. We have out-of-touch Transport Ministers and a Prime Minister not willing to enforce his own commitment on fares.
Mr Burns
Will the hon. Lady withdraw the accusation that she has just made—that the service to Chelmsford cost £80,000? If she had done her homework or was being fair, she would know that pool cars cost the Department a flat rate of £80,000 for the year, regardless of how many journeys they make or how far they travel. Even if the car stopped coming to Chelmsford, the flat fee would still be paid at the same level.
Maria Eagle
I note the right hon. Gentleman’s attempt to argue that he is actually saving money for the taxpayer, and I will leave that for those who wish to report on these things to decide.
Daniel Kawczynski
I am rather disappointed that at the start of the hon. Lady’s speech she did not acknowledge that there had been significant increases in rail fares under the previous Labour Administration. Her argument would hold more water—we are all concerned about rising prices—if she had acknowledged that that had happened under her Administration as well.
Maria Eagle
I do acknowledge that there were rail fare rises of RPI plus 1 under the previous Labour Government, but when times got tough after the global banking crisis and financial crash, the last Government acted to protect commuters. As households struggled, we immediately changed the rules to force train companies to apply strictly the cap on train fares. That was 1% above inflation, not the up to 9.2% that we have seen this year. That rule change would have applied each and every year from then on—
Maria Eagle
If the hon. Gentleman allows me to answer the point put to me, I might consider giving way to him a little later.
Putting train companies before commuters is what this Government are doing; when times got tough, we acted to try to support commuters. In future, if we get the chance, we will restore the rule and put it into law so that passengers will always know that the cap on fare rises set by Ministers is the one they see at the ticket office.
As I have said before, I believe that the previous Labour Government should have been bolder in taking on the train companies and they should have done so sooner, but the important fact is that we acted when times got really tough. This Government are just clobbering commuters even more.
Maria Eagle
No. I wish to make a little progress.
I think I have answered the point made by the Minister of State. If he is trying to argue that paying for a car is saving money because he is not having to pay for commuter rail fares, that is extraordinary.
Maria Eagle
No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Buried in the innocuous-sounding Government paper “Rail Fares and Ticketing Review” is a plan to introduce a new category of ticket—the super-peak ticket. It proposes
“a ‘high-peak’ fare priced higher than the current Anytime day fare/a season ticket priced higher than the current season ticket.”
So a commuter who is already paying thousands of pounds for their season ticket faces this year being told that their very expensive purchase is not valid on every train, even if they have no choice about when they have to get to work, and most people do not have that choice. With a captive market, train companies will be allowed to hike fares even higher than they are now on services that suffer the most overcrowding and where there is already no guarantee of a seat. Only this Government would think that the answer to overcrowding on our trains is to price all but the richest off those services. The Defence Secretary gave away this Government’s view of the railways when he was Transport Secretary—“a rich man’s toy”, he called them.
When these tickets are introduced, an even nastier shock is awaiting commuters because the Government’s paper includes modelling on how much the cost of these new super-peak tickets could rise each year. Here is what the Government chose to include in their paper as apparently the favoured option:
“some fares (in the high peak) rising by an additional 7% annually (an additional 40% over the course of five years)”.
So there it is in black and white: new super-peak tickets introduced, with their cost then rising by 7% a year and 40% in just five years. We agree with the Transport Committee, which last week in its report, “Rail 2020”, urged the Government to
“rule out forms of demand management which would lead to even higher fares for commuters on peak time trains”.
The Secretary of State should take the opportunity of today’s debate to do just that, and I hope he will. If he does not, Labour will oppose any attempt to penalise commuters with new super-peak tickets.
The Government are not only hiking the cost of travelling by train but making it harder to buy the cheapest fare by supporting the campaign for the private train companies to close ticket offices or reduce their opening hours. The Government’s paper, “Rail Fares and Ticketing Review”, says:
“Ticket offices are the most expensive way of selling tickets…Train operators will be expected to reduce their costs and this is one important option they will want to consider…it may not be possible or appropriate for ticket office opening hours to continue at current levels.”
It may well be inconveniently expensive for the train companies to have to employ staff to sell tickets to their passengers, but it is one of the best ways for many customers to ensure that they purchase the cheapest ticket, not least when we have a ticketing system so complex that it can be very confusing. Surely decisions should be made on the basis of what is least expensive for passengers, not what is least expensive for train companies.
We know that Ministers do not plan on listening because we have seen leaked e-mails from the Department for Transport showing that plans to close ticket offices are already well advanced. This is what one official said in an e-mail to the Department’s press office advising it on what it could say on ticket office closures:
“We can’t say that the Government has no plans to close ticket offices because we have an application from London Midland where the minister has already decided to approve some ticket office closures (it’s just not been announced yet…and there will be more of those in the future.”
When I first read that out last year during Transport questions, the Minister, the hon. Member for Lewes, said that the official must have been mistaken as he had not approved any ticket office closures. Yet weeks later it was announced that the Minister had indeed approved London Midland’s plans to close some ticket offices and reduce the opening hours of others, despite the company’s abysmal performance in recent months which has caused such misery for passengers. What is even more revealing in the leaked e-mail is that it shows how the Government intend to pass the blame for those closures on to the train companies. This is what the official told the press office:
“your way of slipping in there that the initiative comes from the TOCs”—
the train operating companies—
“not us is very neat.”
So that is the Government’s plan for fares and ticketing: ticket prices rising by as much as 9% every year; more expensive new super-peak tickets which mean that season ticket holders will not even be able to get on every train without paying up to 40% more than other passengers over the next five years; and new freedoms for train companies to close ticket offices, making it harder for passengers to get the best deals. What a contrast with the ideas to make fares and ticketing fairer and simpler that we have heard as a result of listening to passengers during our policy review process.
Those ideas include a clear definition of peak and off-peak, to prevent passengers from facing massive extra charges on the train because it was not clear when peak time ended, and to prevent train operators stretching their peak time to stretch their profits at the expense of passengers. Another is a legal right to the cheapest ticket, so that passengers are offered the cheapest deal available, with rights to refunds if they find that they were mis-sold a more expensive ticket.
Another idea is a more flexible way for passengers to change travel plans so that if, through no fault of their own, they just miss a train and have an advance ticket, they can take the next train without incurring a massive new fare on board. Another is a right to a discount for a rail replacement bus service, because if your train, Mr Deputy Speaker, becomes a bus, which usually results in a longer journey, it should be treated in the same way as a service that is delayed for any other reason. Finally, it is suggested that there should be a cap on annual increases in station car parking charges, because it is increasingly clear that some train companies are squeezing yet more money out of hard-pressed commuters by whacking up parking charges when we should be making it easier for people to leave their car at the station and commute, because by doing so they are helping to cut congestion and helping the environment.
Maria Eagle
No. Those are the changes to fares and ticketing that passengers want, not the Government’s approach, which seems to be more about what is in the best interests of the train companies, not commuters.
If the Government are out of touch with the impact of fare rises on commuters, Ministers are even more woefully out of touch with the consequences for bus fares and services of their funding decisions since the election. When they set out plans to cut 28% of funding from local transport and axe a fifth of the direct support for bus services, Ministers claimed, incredibly, that that could be done without an impact on fares. The Minister, the hon. Member for Lewes, told the House:
“When I spoke to the industry following the spending review announcement, it indicated that the cut was so minimal that it hoped that it could absorb it without fares having to rise, which is what we hope will happen.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2010; Vol. 519, c. 953.]
What incredible naivety.
For the subsequent two years, those who rely on local bus services have had to listen to the Minister, with his fingers in his ears, denying all knowledge of the consequences of the cuts. At Transport questions last April, he said of bus services that
“there have not been the cuts that the Opposition are so keen to talk up.”—[Official Report, 19 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 485.]
At Transport questions in November, he again refused to accept the truth when my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) warned him of the higher fares and reduced services in communities up and down the country.
We now have the truth, because the Government have had to publish the annual bus statistics for 2011-12. They clearly show an average increase in bus fares of 6.5% in England and an even higher average increase of 7.6% in non-metropolitan areas. Those are increases of more than double the rate of inflation on services that are relied on by some of the poorest in our communities.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend consider whether the impact of those increases will be felt by young people in particular, who have to pay high fares to get to college and to work and who are suffering a great burden because of the increases being visited on them by the Government?
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is right. The Government’s own statistics also reveal the truth on lost services. Directly contradicting the Minister’s claims, they show that between 2010-11 and 2011-12, mileage on supported services dropped by 10% in non-metropolitan areas in England and by 7% in metropolitan areas.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend’s point about lost services is crucial to those who live in villages in my constituency, particularly older people who do not have another option for transport. They face higher transport costs because there is no bus service any more. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that that is a consequence of what she is saying.
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend is correct in explaining the experience that his constituents are living through. These are not just statistics, but the loss of actual services. Research by the Campaign for Better Transport has found that 41% of local authorities have been forced to cut services that are socially necessary and the support that they give them. That is on top of the cuts from the previous year, when one in five local council-supported bus services were cut or cut back. A tenth of councils have had to cut more than £1 million from support for bus services.
The Government’s own watchdog, Passenger Focus, has warned that the reduction in those services will impact disproportionately on
“older people, less affluent households, those with health related issues, or households containing teenagers”.
I hope that Ministers will accept that they cannot remain in denial any longer about the impact of the cuts to bus services—cuts that could have been avoided in their entirety just by using the Department’s underspend from last year, which Ministers handed back to the Treasury. Ministers need to explain to parents why they are having to struggle with the extra costs of getting their teenagers to college. They should explain to pensioners why the Prime Minister’s election pledge to protect their bus pass did not extend to protecting their local bus services, leaving many with a bus pass but no bus on which to use it, thereby reducing their access to shops and vital services and increasing their isolation.
Gareth Johnson
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Clearly, bus services, train services and transport systems have always had to be paid for in some way or another. Does she feel that most of the burden should fall on the passenger or on the taxpayer?
Maria Eagle
The hon. Gentleman has missed out the profits of rail and bus companies. Perhaps those ought to be looked at as well. As he knows, all Governments have to strike a balance. This Government have to do so, as did the previous one, and that will no doubt be the case for the next one too.
Because bus services outside London were deregulated, local authorities have for far too long been unable to limit fare rises or properly plan the network of local bus services in the interests of passengers and economic growth in their area. That is why the last Labour Government changed the law to enable transport authorities to use quality contracts to move to a tendered model for bus services, thereby bringing accountability over fares.
Maria Eagle
No.
That model means that decisions on fare rises are made by politicians, just as we have always accepted should happen for rail fares and as has happened for bus services in London. However, the integrated transport authorities that are rightly going down that route are finding that they are up against the vested interests in the private bus companies. Stagecoach is the worst culprit and has threatened to close depots, sack drivers and take buses off the road overnight. Sir Brian Souter claimed that he would rather “take poison” than enter a quality contract. His managing director accused the elected accountable transport authority of
“operating in the same camp as Marx, Lenin and Trotsky.”
Have the Government stood by transport authorities that are trying to secure a better deal in the use of taxpayers’ money? No. On the contrary, the Government are using their reform of bus funding to stack the odds even further against transport authorities. They are caving in to pressure from the bus companies and proposing to exclude from better bus area funding authorities that seek greater control over fares through quality contracts. Yet again, the Government are on the side of the wrong people and are putting the interests of the bus companies before bus passengers. The Government should think again and work with councils, not against them. Ministers should say to the bus companies, “You operate successfully in a regulated system right across Europe and you can do so here.” Instead, Ministers are cutting funding, oblivious to the impact on rising fares and reduced services, and standing in the way of local authorities that are seeking reform to deliver more for less and keep down fares.
On rail and bus services, the cost of transport is rising by well above the rate of inflation. The Government should listen to passengers, and the House should support the motion. Let this be the last year when the train companies are allowed to turn the so-called cap on fare rises into an average. The Government should restore the strict cap on fares that was introduced by Labour and that they scrapped. They should also listen to passengers about ticket offices and look at the ideas that we have set out to make fares and ticketing fairer and simpler. The Government have so far shown themselves to be completely out of touch on the rising cost of transport and the pressure that it is causing for families who are already feeling the squeeze on household budgets. Today is an opportunity for Ministers to start listening, recognise the consequences of the misguided decisions that their predecessors have taken over the past two years on rail and bus services, and act. I invite the Secretary of State for Transport to do so.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Before I call the Secretary of State, I should say that there will be a time limit on contributions. It is difficult to say what the limit will be until the Secretary of State sits down, but I should not think that it will be much more than six minutes.
Mr McLoughlin
If I am still Secretary of State in 2017, I will have been the longest serving Transport Secretary. If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I have enough problems on my plate without making commitments for 2017. I look forward, however, to a Conservative Government making that decision—that is as far as I will go towards meeting that commitment at the moment.
The fact that we have capped fares to RPI plus 1% will benefit more than a quarter of a million annual season ticket holders by around £45 a year, and some commuters will be more than £200 better off over the two years. The motion before the House is confused in another way. It attacks the flexibility that allows operators to increase some regulated fares by more than RPI plus 1% if they cut other fares by an equal amount—for example, on Virgin Trains the Rugby to Euston season ticket has increased by almost 1% less than inflation. Today, the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood tried to claim that it was not the last Government who introduced that flexibility, or that such flexibility existed for more than one year. The changes to the agreement, which I can read to her, make it clear. The deed of amendment states:
“With effect from 00.00 on 1 January 2010 Schedule 5.5 of the Franchise Agreement will be amended as set out in the Appendix to the Deed…From 00.00 on 1 January 2011”.
Therefore, the agreement was amended for just one year.
Maria Eagle
Is the Secretary of State saying that Lord Adonis, whom he just praised, misled the Transport Committee when he said that he intended the agreement to go into the future and that it was a permanent change? Does he realise—he will find it out in 2014—that the year before an election, the limits of how far into the future one can go in the time of one’s successors are set by Whitehall and are different from those for the beginning of a Parliament?
Mr McLoughlin
I am not accusing the noble Lord of misleading anybody; I am informing the House of what he did as Secretary of State. He may have wished his changes to last longer, but they did not and were solely for that one year. Indeed, when the 5% flexibility was introduced in 2004 it led to some increases of 11% under the previous Labour Government in 2009 alone. That flexibility was suspended for one year—an election year.
However, that is not Labour policy now. How do we know? Well, let us look at Wales where this year under the Labour devolved Administration fares went up by RPI plus 1%, with flexibility of 5%.