Labour announces biggest ever rail fares cut of 33% in a move that will save the average commuter over £1000 a year
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Labour will announce the biggest ever cuts to rail fares in England
tomorrow (Monday) after we learnt over the weekend that rail fares
are set to rise again by an average of 2.7% next year.
Labour’s plans for an integrated railway under public ownership
will: Cut regulated rail fares by 33% from January 2020, saving the
average commuter £1097 a year Guarantee fair fares for part-time
workers Deliver a simple,...Request free
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Labour will announce the biggest ever cuts to rail fares in
England tomorrow (Monday) after we learnt over the weekend that
rail fares are set to rise again by an average of 2.7% next
year.
Labour’s plans for an integrated railway under public
ownership will:
Most commuter fares including peak time fares and season
tickets are regulated fares, which make up almost half of all
tickets sold, and will be reduced by 33%, the biggest ever
reduction in rail fares, to tackle the crisis of
unaffordability on the railway and give relief to millions of
rail commuters from years of excessive price rises.
Labour will guarantee fair fares for part time workers by
ensuring that workers who commute fewer than 5 days a week pay
no more per journey than full-time workers who use weekly
season tickets – meaning part-time workers will see their fares
cut by more than a third.
Labour will also deliver wholesale reform of fares and
ticketing, replacing the current system with a simple,
London-style ticketing system across the nation, delivering
contactless payments and creating zonal rail fares that will
apply across all modes of public transport.
Rail travel will be made free for those age 16 years old and
younger to encourage young people to use public transport,
tackle generational inequality and make family holidays more
affordable.
Labour’s plan for an integrated railway under public ownership
will deliver easy and affordable access to sustainable public
transport to boost economic growth and reduce road traffic to
tackle congestion, air pollution and climate emissions.
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, said:
"Travelling by train is my favourite way of getting around the
country but for too long a fragmented and privatised rail
system has ripped-off passengers.
"Taking back control of our railways is the only way to bring
down fares and create a railway network that is fit for the
future.
"Labour will bring about real change on the railways because we
are on the side of passengers."
Andy McDonald, Labour's Shadow Transport
Secretary, said:
"Privatisation has created one of the most complex,
exploitative and expensive ticketing systems in the world.
Labour will scrap the bewildering and outdated fares and
ticketing system that discriminates against part-time workers,
discourages rail travel and excludes the young and low paid.
“Labour is on the side of passengers which is why we will
introduce a simpler, fairer and more affordable system for all,
integrated with other forms of public transport. Rail
passengers who want to save hundreds or thousands of pounds
next year need to vote Labour on 12th December. Labour will
deliver a railway in public ownership for the many, not the
few.”
Notes to editors
From January 2019, regulated rail fares will be 40% higher
than in 2010 having risen at more than twice the rate of
wages.
Around 45% of fares on National Rail are subject to
regulation (by the Secretary of State in England, Welsh Minister
in Wales and Scottish Ministers in Scotland); the remainder are
unregulated. Regulated fares tend to be on commuter routes where
commuters have few practical alternatives to rail. Regulated fare
types include season tickets and a proportion of Anytime Day,
Off-Peak and Super Off-Peak fares. - House of Commons Library
Briefing on Rail Fares, 30 November 2018
Decisions on whether to fund rail fare reductions in
Scotland and Wales are a matter for the devolved governments.
This policy clears the way for Scotland and Wales to follow suit
if they wish. In the meantime the fare reduction will apply to
rail journeys wholly or partly within England.
The privatised railway has created an expensive, bafflingly
complex range of 55 million rail fares. “There are now around 55
million different fares.” https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/about-us/priorities/fares-reform-proposals.html
Labour will create rail fares that are simple, fair,
affordable and transparent. The fragmented nature of the
privatised railway frustrates the coordinated reform required to
implement reform of fares and ticketing and integration across
public transport.
The next Labour government will work with local transport
authorities to define ‘islands’ within which zonal rail fares
apply across all modes of public transport, with an affordable
daily price cap so travelers can Pay-As-You-Go using bank cards
or mobile phones.
Longer distance rail journeys will form ‘bridges’ between
the islands, for trips where passengers need to know the price in
advance to judge whether to flex their journey time to get
off-peak rates. Fares for these journeys will become simple and
transparent, with mainly distance-related, ‘single-leg’ pricing,
where the return price is always the combined outward and return
leg prices. Apart from higher ‘peak’ prices other complexities
will be wiped out.
Labour will guarantee fair rail fares for part-time workers
by ensuring they don’t pay more per trip than holders of weekly
season tickets.
The current system of rail fares disadvantage part time
workers who commute or would like to commute by rail. A person
who commutes by rail fewer than 5 days a week must either buy a
whole week season ticket or purchase individual tickets, meaning
the per journey cost is higher than for a person who commutes 5
days a week using a season ticket.
This practice disadvantages part-time workers by making
them pay over the odds or by pricing them off the railway
altogether.
Labour will reduce the cost of single peak fares to 1/10th
the cost of a whole week season ticket, so part-time workers will
no longer incur higher per journey costs than full-time
workers.
Free rail travel for under 16s will reduce generational
inequality, encourage lifelong use of public transport, increase
educational and leisure opportunities and make holidays more
affordable for families.
Labour forecasts indicate that £1.5 billion per year will
be spent on this policy, based on regulated fare revenue data
from Office of Rail and Road and single/weekly season price
ratios from the National Fares Manual. This funding will come
from existing DfT budgets, drawn from Vehicle Excise Duty (VED).
VED is forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility to raise
£6.5 bn in the 2019-20 financial year and is due to be
hypothecated by the Conservative government to major new
road-building projects from 2020, whilst excluding repair of
potholes and other road maintenance.
The next Labour government will expand this hypothecation
of VED to form a sustainable transport fund for rail and other
sustainable modes of travel and to address the pothole backlog.
If this money were to be spent on road building it would increase
traffic, congestion and carbon emissions, the opposite of what is
needed to reach the UK’s commitment to climate targets and to
clean up polluted air.
The present regulated rail fare income is £3.3 bn/yr and
total rail fare income from all types of fares is £9.8
bn/yr.)
(ORR 2019 UK Rail Industry Financial Information 2017-18
Figure 1.4, p.2 and Figure 1)
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