Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 19 October 2018 to Question 178322 on Train Operating Companies: Pay, whether he has asked the Rail Delivery Group to include executive pay in the development of a pay award system that uses CPI as the inflation measure for future pay deals.

The rail industry has been shifting away from RPI over time and most rail industry costs now are not linked to RPI, with the primary exception of wages. The Secretary of State for Transport has asked the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) to develop an approach for how earnings growth for all employees could be more closely aligned with CPI, with the aim of ensuring that the railway is affordable for the fare paying and tax paying public. He has not made any reference to a ‘pay award system’ for any groups of staff.

Pay negotiations and the settlements reached by individual employers and trade unions remain a matter for local collective bargaining.