Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department has taken to monitor compliance with the Office of Rail and Road's guidance, published in March 2015, in respect of advertising the cheapest possible tickets from ticket offices on or near self-service machines.

As part of its role as a designated consumer body under Part 8 of the Enterprise Act 2002, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has a role in ensuring compliance with consumer law. As part of this, it worked with the industry to oversee the introduction of a Code of Practice on Retail Information, published in March 2015. It was under this remit that the ORR wrote to all train operators in May 2015, seeking to establish levels of compliance with the code and the law that it reflects. In September 2015, the ORR published an update document, setting out how train operators are performing and what actions are needed to improve the retail experience for customers in line with consumer law. A copy of this document can be found here: http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/19192/Retail-Info-cop-update-nextsteps.pdf

Train operators have already made improvements and passengers are benefiting from better on-screen information at stations and at many ticket machines. But there is clearly more to be done and, working alongside the ORR in its role as consumer regulator, I continue to push the industry to address the remaining issues as soon as possible.