Vince Cable: ‘Getting the fair deal you deserve’

Looking for fairness in rail fares opens a can of worms because of the different subsidy regimes across the different categories of passenger. Government’s share of rail’s total income has now fallen to around 30%, and as a result of government policies, regulated and unregulated fares are now seriously out of balance. Season ticket commuters are the most heavily subsidised yet the services provided for them are the most uneconomical because of the extra capacity required only in the Monday – Friday peaks, but such is their influence that any above-inflation fare rises are politically unfeasible [and I notice that the Labour Party are now taking the commuters’ corner]. There is, though, a powerful economic case for maintaining subsidies for commuter services because all major cities depend on the efficient mass movement of workers and the alternatives are impractical. Unregulated fares have been rising exponentially for some time, and this will no doubt continue on an upward curve because the income makes up a high proportion of passenger fare revenue; these fares are effectively subsidising the regulated fares even though many of the people making irregular off-peak train journeys, possibly as much as half of them, are the least able to afford them, certainly at full-fare levels. Advance-purchase tickets are the best value for that category but they require considerable forward planning and are quite restrictive. Off- peak ‘walk on’ fares are relatively OK, but ‘anytime’ fares are very expensive in comparison with the other categories. Unless there is a big rise in the taxpayer contribution to redress the imbalance, the only way to level the pitch is to put up regulated fares by more than inflation and to lower, or at least to stop increasing, unregulated fares. No signs of that train coming any time soon it seems.

John, peak travel is a problem we have never tackled – whether road or rail. It is time we looked at staggering working hours – even by an hour or less either side of the peak. It would help both relieve the pressure on capacity of road and rail and speed journeys. I am not in favour of subsidised rail travel – otherwise road commuters would also feel entitiled to help from the taxpayer. I think we should be looking to live nearer work – or put work nearer where we live – to cut down travelling distance, particularly in the southeast. Encouraging business, civil service, and new enterprises to locate in less-stressed parts of the country would be part of a solution.

I totally agree with you Malcolm. We have towns and cities within an hour or so’s travel time of London that are dying on their feet for the want of some good employment opportunities. Personally I think there has to be a degree of government push and some practical and economic incentives for the relocation of businesses to the regions. Norwich – and lots of other cities too I should think – has lots of empty office blocks just waiting for business and government operations to relocate; it also has plenty of good value housing in pleasant surroundings to attract the workers, shorten their travelling time, and enhance the quality of their lives. I have read that planners in the Office of the Mayor of London are thinking of a network of underground toll roads around the capital in order to cope with the predicted rise in population as more and more people cram into less and less space with every terraced house split into two dwellings and the rail and Undeground networks creaking at the seams. Madness.