Flexible Rail Ticketing

Debate between Greg Clark and Rosie Duffield

Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I agree with my hon. Friend that this is a time in which we must display the same flexibility, innovation and responsiveness that we have—and have had to—in so many other areas of life, and that we should not be bound by the structures that we inherited.

It is time now to make this change. It does not have to be this way. If we can bring in a job retention scheme within days of the need being identified, if we can invent a scheme in July to help thousands of restaurants attract back millions of customers in August, and if businesses can switch to conducting meetings online virtually overnight, surely we are more than capable of introducing without further procrastination a train ticket to meet the needs of part-time and flexible workers. There is no shortage of models available: a ticket that allows any three days in seven, for example; a ticket that permits travel only 12 days in a month; or, at the most basic, a carnet system that gives a discount on the purchase of multiple peak-time tickets to be used within a limited period.

At the end of July, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) wrote, along with all Kent MPs, to the managing director of Southeastern, Mr Statham. He replied that Southeastern has submitted proposals for flexible ticketing to the Department for Transport and is waiting for the Department’s authorisation under the emergency measures agreement. I say to the Minister: please act now. As the Transport Secretary said last week, we are in a different era. The Government are—which is to say, we are—paying for the railway. With these covid-changed circumstances, very few people are going to be paying for an annual seven-day-a-week ticket at any time soon. That money is simply not coming in.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

For years I have been hearing from constituents who are desperate for part-time season tickets. The right hon. Gentleman is making some brilliant points on this issue. I have been speaking to my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi)—our shadow Rail Minister—and he is in agreement with me. With the job market about to be reeling for years in a post-covid environment, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Government must do everything and anything they can, such as allowing part-time season tickets, or at least thinking about doing so, to allow businesses to create new jobs and accommodate flexible, part-time working?

[Greg Clark]

As I have said, this problem has persisted for too long and we need to catch up with the 21st century, but now is a particular moment to make that reform, so that people can go back to work according to the needs of their employer while also respecting the advice to stay and work at home where possible.

In contrast to a full season ticket for five or seven days a week, a flexible commuting ticket is likely to be bought by commuters here and now, and could actually increase revenue to the railway and the taxpayer while fighting covid by supporting people not going into the office every day. It would also provide a long-overdue journey of the railway fare system to a rendezvous with working life in the 21st century.

I suspect that the Minister, whose talents I admire, will be briefed to buy time and say that these things must be examined in greater detail, but my admiration of him extends to the knowledge that he has embraced his portfolio with enthusiasm and ambition. He does not need to be a captive of the standard advice on this subject that has been given out for years; he can make a difference during the next few weeks ahead. He will go down in railway history as one of the reformers if he is the Minister who brings railway ticketing into modern times—and I urge him to do it.