Cowardice over 3.8 per cent rail fare hike announcement and Integrated Rail Plan flaw – The Yorkshire Post says
FINALLY, the manner in which Ministers sneaked out news that rail fares will rise by 3.8 per cent next March, the largest hike for a decade, sums up their cowardice and contempt for Parliament.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps had a chance to make this announcement on Thursday when questioned by MPs hours before they adjourned for Christmas.
These exchanges saw his de facto deputy, Andrew Stephenson, tell commuters to stop obsessing with “big fancy plans” such as Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2. This prompted The Yorkshire Post in its editorial yesterday to challenge Mr Stephenson to set out the precise number of extra trains that will be able to run on local lines as a result of his government’s Integrated Rail Plan.
Yet now it emerges via Baroness Vere, a junior transport minister, that this precise detail has not even been worked out. “We do not know that now,” she told peers. And yet Ministers expect to be trusted over this and much else...
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