Metro Hustings: Election parties tell us how they'd plan to tackle cost of train travel

Right. So moving on to transport, especially pertinent for Metro, we've got Umar who sent in the question, why is the cost of train tickets so expensive and is anything being done to bring the cost of these down in due course? We've got a couple of parties that want to nationalise the railways and we've got one party that actually has nationalised the railways. So Ian Blackford, when you're on the train from Inverness to kind of Loch Auch, are the trains any cheaper than they were when the S&P took over the railways? The answer to that is yes, they are. And the reason is, and admittedly it's for a trial period is now we've taken away peak fares. So there's no, there's no dis benefit from travelling to to work at peak times, for example, whether you're in the Highlands or whether you're in the Central belt. And I'm glad to say that we also reached an earlier resolution with the train workers in Scotland in terms of industrial action. And if I may say so, we did that in the health service as well. We didn't lose a single day in Scotland to industrial action with the health workers in stark contrast of what has happened in in England and in Wales. So we will, we will work with the unions, but we'll work on the basis of delivering good value services to the public. And that's exactly what we've done with the rail workers. Thank you very much, Ian. Moving on to David, why is the cost of train travel so expensive and what would you do about it? COVID clearly had a huge impact on people's travel to work in particular. And that's not just seen in the rail industry. It's seen on buses, it's seen on the roads, seen on the the London Tube network. So we need to make sure that it is a sustainable system for people that need it. Now, government's given a lot of financial support and we see that manifesting itself in different ways. Mayor of London's using that money to reduce the cost of fares certain days of the week to freeze bus fares. Other parts of the country are using it, for example, to open up new routes where they think that there is demand. I think the long term solution lies around integration and the government's proposal for Great British Railways to make it more integrated than it's been in the past without seeking simply to create just a massive taxpayer subsidy is a big part of that. The other thing that's changing significantly is the use of AI by railway companies, the ability now to use more dynamic pricing so that if you're able to book in advance, you can get a much, much cheaper ticket. Now. The consequence of that of course is some of those turn up and purchase tickets have got more expensive, but it means that the travelling public who are able to plan at least a few days ahead are able to access cheaper fares. Longer term, there's going to be a bigger debate about what the future of public transport network looks like, particularly with the growth of work from home. We know across all sorts of different sectors of industry people simply aren't travelling to work every day. That gives a huge boost to high streets in places like mine where people are spending their their money at the local coffee shop rather than Pret a Moshe in the city. However, it does have a big impact on the financial sustainability of public transport and that's something we're going to need address once we've got an idea of what that looks like for the future. Great. Whereas Labour is wanting to introduce Great British Railways, Would that bring ticket prices down? Yeah, I think it would. We already have publicly owned railways in England. The problem is that they're owned by the travelling public in European countries, whose countries have a massive stake in Britain's railways. It means that as we're, as they're accruing profits, those profits are being taken and used to invest in and subsidise the transport infrastructure on continental Europe rather than for the benefit of our own fare payers. We also have enormous taxpayer subsidy of our railways in this country and we don't seem to get a great deal for it. Services are unreliable, fares are rocketing. And I think that was people's experience before the pandemic. By the way, I must have, I must have been asleep during the halcyon decade that the Conservatives were in power, before the pandemic happened, where apparently everything was sunshine and roses and everyone found that Britain was working really well. I mean, let's get real. The great thing about British Rail though, isn't it? I think in the days of a nationalised system, I think we can see the improvement that's been delivered. Far too young to remember British Rail, I'm afraid. But there's a serious point, which is the, that the problem isn't, it's about how the railways are actually run and managed and how you get value for taxpayer investment. And I think the we've got a really sensible, pragmatic solution which is as, as franchises come up, we bring them back in house and we run them owned by and for the benefit of taxpayers and the travelling public. We allow Open Access operators like Grand Central to continue to operate. So there's a degree of private competition and I think everyone benefits from that. I think it's sensible, it's pragmatic, it's the right thing to do and will make a real difference for for taxpayers and for passengers. Just very briefly for me, because David said you give the unions what they want, No you don't. You negotiate with them. And that's what we did with the real workers in Scotland and that's what we did with the National Health Service. And the fact that people in England and Wales have suffered from not getting access to hospitals because of strikes because the Tory government didn't take the responsibilities to negotiate, that is a disgrace and you've all paid a price for that failure. Don't know if you noticed, Ian, but Penny Morden said just this week that she thinks the junior doctor strike should have been solved by the government is part of, I mean, if any of the penny had dropped sooner, that they've had plenty of time and they've run out of excuses. And I think the question is, do people just want more of the same with this clown show continuing or do they want change and that change can only come with the Labour government. I don't is there any appetite to pay a 35% pay rise, which I ended? Well, no, we've and we've and we've and we've been no, we've been, we've been very honest with railways. We're talking about railways. We're talking about railways negotiate. Thank you. We're talking about railways, people. We're talking about railways. Daisy Cooper, Lib Dem manifesto promises wholesale reform of the broken fare system in the railway. What does that look like? So I've been a commuter for 12 years and boy, it can be tough. I think what commuters and passengers really want is a system where the trains are comfortable, reliable and affordable, and it almost doesn't matter what form of ownership it is, as long as it delivers for the passengers who are actually using the railways day in, day out. So the first thing that we would want to see is an immediate fare freeze because they keep going up year after year and it's really, really expensive, quite frankly, for a lot of people who have to commute in. So immediate rail fare freeze. The second thing is to accelerate the simplification of our ticketing system. You know, here in London, you want to get from one side to the other. You just tap in and you tap out bus, tube, anything else, super easy. You leave London, you go into the Home Counties. Boy, the tickets are complicated. You can tap in one bit, but you've got to have a ticket at the other end. You can scan on your phone for one thing, but you can't somewhere else. You know, if you go one station further out, the tickets a little bit cheaper, but only if you get a train that's two minutes after the time that the previous one was. I mean, it's so complicated. So we need to simplify the ticketing system so it's fairer, and that needs to happen as soon as possible. Great. Thank you very much, Daisy. That's great. Zach, you also. The Green Party also wants to bring real into public ownership. How would that bring ticket prices down? Yeah, and it's genuine public ownership, too. It's not. We can't tinker at the edges with this. We also need to look at the rolling stock. I think, you know, this campaign, I've travelled to so many cities by train, sometimes several cities in a day, and I've seen the state of, of, of EU KS train system and often not being able to find a seat and also the massive prices that are happening. We don't just need to look at the railways, we could look at the water too. You know, when that was privatised, Margaret Thatcher promised us this would improve the services. We literally have sewage being pumped into our rivers and sometimes the water companies are incentivised to pump sewage into our waters. Privatisation has failed and ultimately we need to make sure that people can get around who want to travel the greenest way, the cheapest way. And just to finish off, I'd widen that out to all forms of transport. I'm a London Assembly member, I love our city and in the centre of London, if you want to get around on public transport, it's pretty easy and often it is affordable. Get to zone six or seven and it starts to get much more difficult. We have a situation where it is cheaper to drive your private vehicle and pollute rather than use public transport. Even if you want to do the right thing. That's in zone six and seven. Let's get to the rural towns and villages. And this situation is completely unsustainable. Transport is 1/4 of our emissions across the country. If we really want to look at a green transition and make sure this is affordable for people, we have to incentivise and subsidise things like railway travel and our bus networks. Thank you Zack and moving on to Alex Wilson. Sure. Well, as it's already been said, transport and commuting very, very important part of life in our city. When I made the decision a few years ago to so set up my own business and work from home, you know, before working from home was, was fashionable. Then a large part of that was because I, I was not really enjoying the commuting experience, the cost and the, the, the complexity and the just the kind of atmosphere of being, being, you know, sort of cooped up in that way. And, and, you know, we're not very good at delivering infrastructure in this country. And governments of, of both parties have have been very, very bad at doing that. And that's something that we need to be much better. And probably one, one example where we've got it right is the, the, the Elizabeth line, a fantastic addition to, to London's transport infrastructure. But beyond that, whether we're talking about roads, whether we're talking about railways, I mean, HS2, look at the absolute disaster that's become, just become, you know, an absolute BIM off and, and, and excuse for ratcheting costs without actually achieving a great deal. I think if we're to have affordable and, you know, well connected infrastructure that will then enable tickets to be at a a sensible price that people will use and, and to to get people back into using those systems post pandemic, We just need to be much better at organising, planning and delivering in the first place.