(qlmbusinessnews.com via theguardian.com – – Wed, 15 Aug 2018) London, Uk – –
Commuter and campaign groups call for freeze on train fare hikes following year of mass cancellations and strikes
Rail fares will go up by another 3.2% in January, the government has confirmed, with the cost of some season tickets to rise by hundreds of pounds.
The figure is below the 3.6% hike in January this year, which was the steepest rise in five years, but continues the trend of fare increases far outstripping any rise in wages.
Rail industry leaders said the fares were “underpinning once-in-a-generation investment” in the railways.
Commuters and campaigners intensified calls for a freeze in fares, in a year in which promised improvements to the railway did not materialise, strikes disrupted services, and the May timetable change cancelled tens of thousands of trains, particularly across Northern and Govia Thameslink Railway.
Confirmation of the planned 2019 rise came with the publication of July’s inflation figures by the Office of National Statistics. Rises to regulated fares, which include season tickets and off-peak returns, are capped at the level of RPI inflation – a measure that is not habitually used and is higher than CPI.
The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, infuriated unions by suggesting rail fare increases could be pegged to the lower measure of inflation if unions accept the same measure for staff pay. In a letter to the RMT, Aslef, Unite and TSSA unions, Grayling said: “As you will be aware, one of the industry’s largest costs is pay … it is important that pay agreements also use CPI and not RPI in future when it comes to basing pay deals on inflation.”
Unions blame privatisation for escalating rail costs. Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT, said: “If Chris Grayling seriously thinks that rail staff are going to pay the price for his rank incompetence and the greed of the private train operating companies then he needs to think again.”
Grayling defended his proposal in BBC interviews on Wednesday morning as “entirely fair”, said he was “very disappointed” at the reaction from the unions. He said: “My challenge to the unions is let’s get the routine increases down to the lower level of inflation.”
Labour’s shadow transport secretary, Andy McDonald, said Grayling’s “attack on staff pay is, at best, a distraction technique and at wo a recipe for years of industrial action”.
The RMT staged small protests at stations across the country on Wednesday morning against fare rises, claiming passengers were paying “more for less” as job cuts meant fewer staff working on trains, stations and ticket offices.
Commuters at Kings Cross station in London were dismayed at the news of further fare rises. Lydia Bolton, 35, of Royston, Hertfordshire, who works part-time in the charity sector and pays £32 a day to travel to work, said: “It’s awful. We don’t know if we’re going to get a pay rise, we’ve got a young child and we have nursery costs. Of course they should freeze fares – it’s insane.”
Philip Doyle, 46, pays almost £300 a month to commute in from Potters Bar, Herts, to work in recruitment. “Fares are ridiculous, and the service is a shambles. Last Sunday we went away as a family and when we came back to London there was only one train running in three hours, instead of every 20 minutes on the timetable.”
Rosie Jones, 29, a marketing manager, pays £5,284 for an annual season ticket from Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, said the service had recovered since the chaos of May but evening cancellations still often left her waiting at stations or standing on crowded trains: “It doesn’t seem like there’s any added value for the extra money, and it seems out of step with other costs.”
The TUC renewed calls for public ownership of rail with research showing fares have increased at more than double the rate of wages over the last decade. Fares in Britain have risen by 42% since 2008, while average weekly pay has gone up by only 18%, it said, while private firms running the trains paid out at least £165m in dividends to their shareholders last year, when overall taxpayer subsidy to the rail industry reached £3.5bn.
The RPI figure is used to set the maximum increase in regulated fares, which account for around half of all tickets sold – including commuter season tickets, some off-peak long-distance returns, and “anytime” tickets in major cities. The increased revenue is factored in to rail franchise contracts – although the government says it is up to operators whether they choose to raise fares or not.
Paul Plummer, chief executive of the Rail Delivery Group, which represents the railway, said: “Fares are underpinning a once-in-a-generation investment plan to improve the railway and politicians effectively determine that season ticket prices should change in line with other day-to-day costs to help fund this.”
By Gwyn Topham
