Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to encourage people to (a) commute and (b) make other journeys by train.

The Department has taken a number of steps to encourage people to make journeys by train. We extended single-leg pricing on the LNER network in June, and will extend contactless pay as you go ticketing to 53 stations in the south east by the end of 2023.. In March 2023, we delivered the biggest Government intervention on rail fares in 25 years, by capping fares at 5.9 per cent, 6.4 percentage points below July 2022 RPI. In 2021, we introduced flexible season tickets and have sold over 850,000 since, supporting commuters’ return to rail following the pandemic.

We have announced that we will continue to protect passengers from cost of living pressures by not increasing next year’s rail fares by as much as the July RPI figure.

We are working with train operators as they continue to prepare for future timetable changes, to ensure their service offer provides capacity where it is most needed, whilst maintaining performance and protecting the public purse.