Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what recent discussions they have
had with the Railway Group and train operators about proposed
station ticket office closures.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport () (Con)
My Lords, together with the rail industry, we want to modernise
the passenger experience by moving staff out of ticket offices to
provide more help and assistance in customer-focused roles.
Ministers and department officials regularly engage with
industry, including the Rail Delivery Group and train operating
companies, to discuss a wide range of topics including how best
to operate stations and serve passenger needs in the most
efficient and effective way.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister keeps saying that this proposal is all
about getting staff out of ticket offices and on to platforms to
help people. However, in my local station, Alnmouth, the staff
already help people both in the ticket office and on the
platform. This proposal therefore represents a deterioration in
quality, not an improvement. I have a simple question for the
Minister: in cases where a clear majority of the public is
against ticket office closures at their station, will their views
be listened to, with no question of their views being
overridden?
(Con)
The important thing to understand here is that this is a genuine
consultation. The people who have received all the responses to
the consultation are independent—they are independent passenger
bodies, including Transport Focus and London TravelWatch. They
will look at the responses that they get and the proposals put to
them by the TOCs. They will listen to concerns and refine the
proposals with the TOCs to ensure that appropriate service levels
are being offered.
(Con)
My Lords, will the figures be published? Does my noble friend the
Minister not realise that many of us get the feeling that it has
been decided that this is what we want when many of us do
not?
(Con)
The independent passenger bodies will publish their responses to
each of the train operating companies’ proposals.
(Lab)
Will the people on the platform be prepared to help the elderly
and the disabled get their tickets if tickets offices do not
exist?
(Con)
That is the whole point: they will be more than happy to do so.
We want to have multi-skilled individuals working for the
railways such that they can help all sorts of passengers with a
varying range of needs.
(CB)
My Lords, I will share with the Minister the experience at my
local station, where there is only ever one member of staff on
duty. In the morning, that member of staff opens up the station,
the toilets and waiting rooms, and helps people get their
tickets, sold either directly or with these complicated machines.
They are, in effect, the station manager; this one person is
essential to the operation of the station.
(Con)
I hope the noble Lord has fed that back into the consultation,
where it will be taken into account by the independent passenger
bodies.
(Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Transport for London
introduced an almost identical scheme a few years ago? It went
extremely smoothly; nobody noticed or complained about it once it
had been implemented, and it has greatly benefitted
passengers.
(Con)
My noble friend is exactly right. It was a former Conservative
Mayor of London who took this step for ticket offices in Tube
stations. The current Mayor of London came in with great fury and
said he was going to review the whole thing and make changes if
appropriate—not a single change was made.
(LD)
My Lords, it has become clear over the last year that several
train companies have ceased to recruit new staff for ticket
offices, and have therefore been shutting them gradually by
default. Can the Minister assure us that the Government have not
sanctioned this, and that any review of the 700,000 people who
have responded to the consultation will take into account firmly
the balance of opinion among those respondents?
(Con)
I am very concerned to hear what the noble Baroness has to say,
and I hope that she will provide me with the evidence so that we
can look into this further. There are 980 DfT-regulated ticket
offices and that has been the case for a very long time. So if
ticket offices are closing, as she says—again, I am not aware
that they are—they also should have gone through the ticketing
and settlement agreement. I would be very happy to look at the
noble Baroness’s evidence.
(Lab)
My Lords, the ticket office in my local station does not do
advance tickets. How can a would-be passenger who wants to book
ahead, and thus save quite a lot of money, get an advance ticket
with no ticket office?
(Con)
I cannot comment on the noble Baroness’s ticket office
specifically, but 99% of transactions at ticket offices last year
could have been made either through a ticket vending machine or
online.
(Con)
My Lords, I travel from Banbury to Marylebone every Monday. When
I approach the ticket office there is at least one person ahead
of me. I hope that there will be flexibility in this: maybe some
stations do not need ticket offices, but places that are busy
certainly do.
(Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right. This is not a
one-size-fits-all process; this is a consultation, and we will
look to see what the independent passenger bodies say when they
have finished reviewing all the consultation responses. We
believe that that will be towards the end of October.
(Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend mentioned already the situation for
disabled and elderly passengers. They already face barriers to
using public transport, which will be made much worse by these
proposals. Given that only 3% of blind people are able to use the
ticket vending machine, how will the Government ensure that they
can still use the railway network?
(Con)
The Government have been consulting with various accessibility
groups, alongside industry, over the period, and have taken their
views into account. That has included invitations to the Royal
National Institute of Blind People, the Royal National Institute
for Deaf People, the National Autistic Society and the Multiple
Sclerosis Society— I have an entire list, which I will not read
out right now. Accessibility is at the heart of what we are doing
here. We are trying to improve passenger service. The ORR’s
latest annual consumer report shows that passenger assistance
bookings have increased significantly. I am delighted to say that
disabled people are coming back to the railways.
(LD)
My Lords, under these proposals, it will not be possible to buy a
senior or disabled persons railcard at the vast majority of
stations, whether there are staff there or not. Is that
right?
(Con)
I cannot say, because the consultation process is still going
ahead. At this time, 43% of stations do not have any staff at
all, so the noble Lord would not be able to get those railcards
at those stations. All of those considerations are being taken
into account. We want people to travel on the trains, and we need
them to get their tickets and their railcards. All of those are
very important considerations as we go through this consultation
process.
(Con)
My Lords, any consultation will clearly be a snapshot of the
situation now or maybe in the near future. What happens if
passengers at a certain station find that there is no help when
they need it, particularly with ticket machines or for advice?
How can they feed that into the process to make sure that this
problem is rectified?
(Con)
My noble friend makes an important point, and of course that
could happen now. I encourage anybody who feels they do not get
the service that they need from the railways to get in touch with
that train operating company. It could be that circumstances have
changed, such as more people or different types of people
travelling from a certain station.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has referenced blind people. When I was in
my local station the other day, getting my ticket to come to
London, I stood behind a blind person who was completely confused
and had no idea how to use the ticket machine. The chap in the
ticket office was able to help and comfort her and tell her that
she would be alright. I find it impossible to understand what the
Minister is trying to make us believe—that people like that will
not be disadvantaged. They will be.
(Con)
That same person does not have to be in that ticket office in
order to help them. That is what we are saying. There are all
sorts of different people who need different help, and having
somebody in a ticket office whose time is not being used
effectively does not help passengers.
(CB)
My Lords, I was not planning to ask a question but I find this a
completely shocking proposal. Disabled and vulnerable people will
be disadvantaged. Can the Minister give us a generic email
address—publicly, so that it goes out across the BBC and
everywhere else—to which people can write in and express their
objections?
(Con)
I cannot give a generic email address, although I am sure the
noble Baroness could contact Transport Focus. The train operating
companies have publicised this consultation widely. It is worth
pointing out what the Rail Minister said very recently in a
Westminster Hall debate. The consultation is ongoing, but, at
this stage, he does not
“expect a material reduction in the number of hours where
ticketing expertise is available at stations”.—[Official Report,
Commons, 13/9/23; col. 346WH.]
That will help people who have sight deficiencies, as the noble
Baroness mentioned, and it will help all people who need greater
assistance at train stations.
