Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when his Department plans to publish the impact assessment on the closure of rail ticket offices.

When proposing major changes to ticket office opening hours – including closures – train operators are required to take into account the adequacy of the proposed alternatives in relation to the needs of passengers who are disabled, and to include this in the notice of the proposal sent to other operators and passenger groups. When consulting, operators should have also clearly considered other equality-related needs. Operators prepared Equality Impact Assessments, and these were available on their websites during the consultation.

Together with the industry, we want to improve and modernise the passenger experience by moving staff out from ticket offices to provide more help and advice in customer focused roles. The consultation period has now closed, and we now expect train operators to work collaboratively with the passenger bodies in the coming weeks, to listen to the concerns raised and to refine their proposals accordingly.