Railways: Fares

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, since privatisation, UK railways have seen a period of incredible growth and passenger journeys have more than doubled. The industry has not been able to keep up with that demand, which is why we are looking at the rail review. It will consider all parts of the rail industry, from the current franchising system to industry structures. That will not stop us continuing to invest in the meantime and seeing more trains with more capacity come on to our lines.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

As has been said, the issue is the level of fares. The Government’s line is that their annual new year present to rail users of a fare increase is to finance their rail investment programme. In fact, that is not the case. The reason for the Government’s high level of fare increases each year is to ensure that we remain the European railway network with the highest, or nearly the highest, percentage contribution towards the running costs of our network coming from fares paid by passengers and the lowest, or nearly the lowest, percentage from the Government. That is why our fares are so high. Will the Government confirm that in any new modernised rail fare structure that will unfortunately continue to be the position?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as I said, we are aiming to move from RPI to CPI. We are continuing with record levels of funding, with around £48 billion expected to be spent on the network from 2019 to 24, but rail fares will continue to play a role in delivering improvements. We are delivering the biggest rail modernisation for more than a century, and it is meaning faster journeys, longer trains, longer platforms and more seats.