Rail Fares

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 18th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness highlights that the number of discount cards has grown over the years. Some of them have different conditions from others, so it is quite hard to understand, if you do not have one, which one might be applicable. We are mindful that, when GBR is up and running, it addresses consistency and examines what else can be done to encourage people to travel by train.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, fare simplification, by definition, means that there will be fewer fares options. Can the Government guarantee that, under their simplification programme, no individual fare will go up purely because of fare simplification?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord has some background in this, because he was deputy chair of Transport for London and, I think, the Deputy Mayor for Transport. He knows perfectly well that, when we rationalised the fare structure on the Tube, some fares did go up while others went down. We made sure that the fares that went up were generally ones that a lot of people did not pay for and that the benefits were found across the system. If we have 50 million fares, we inevitably need to reduce that number and ensure that they are balanced. The noble Lord has some experience of balancing them within an overall fare rise, so he should use that knowledge to his own advantage, because I do not particularly want to tell him this again.