Rail anger over fare rise

The Rail Minister says this eye-watering rise is required to help Ministers pay for Crossrail and Thameslink, two major projects now under way in London.

That may be so, but her defence will not ring true in Yorkshire where users of Metro services will see their fares rise by 10 per cent to help pay for some long-awaited rolling stock to ease chronic levels of rush-hour overcrowding.

If this is the only way to finance extra carriages, why are Londoners not being asked to pay an additional premium to pay for the considerable improvements that they will benefit from in the future?

Such double standards, compounded even further by fare increases in Scotland that will be lower than the national average, will only perpetuate the belief that the capital and the Celtic nations are, once again, being given preferential treatment.

This North-South divide must end. While the Government’s commitment to high-speed rail is welcome, Ministers need to do far more to improve local commuter services in the meantime.

The status quo must not persist. But equally Mrs Villiers needs to be realistic on what rail passengers can afford. When the method for setting fares – a three per cent increase on top of the RPI inflation rate – was agreed, it was predicted that the rise in the cost of living would slow down.

This has not happened, and because inflation remains in excess of 4.5 per cent, the Government is having to revise every budget forecast to take account of this.

However passengers would not have to bear the brunt of such exorbitant fare increases if Ministers had taken greater steps to improve the efficiency of the railway industry – Network Rail is a case in point – and put a greater onus on the train operators to provide far greater value for money.

As Sir Roy McNulty indicated in his landmark report earlier this year, rail fares need to be more equitable if the network is to fulfil its potential, hence the need for the £1bn of efficiency savings that he identified.

But it is difficult to see how fares will be more “equitable” – or fairer – when London’s interests continue to come first in this way.