David Lepper

Labour Party | Brighton Pavilion

Train fares

Mr. David Lepper (Brighton, Pavilion): I welcome my right hon. Friend's comments about a national rail card and the investment in new rolling stock. However, many of my constituents, who constitute the captive cashbox for South Central trains and commute daily from Brighton—a high housing cost area—to London, will find it difficult to understand the increase in train fares. Will he consider reviewing the system of inflation plus 1 per cent. earlier than the three-year deadline that he specified? Will he also require the train operating companies and Network Rail to set out a clear timetable for the improvements that the investment brings so that my constituents understand what they will get for their money?

Mr. Darling: I travelled on the London to Brighton line recently. My hon. Friend knows that it has new rolling stock, which is expensive, good and reliable. Unfortunately, as is the way of things, it must be paid for. As I said earlier, it can be financed from only one of two sources. The price of an annual season ticket for London to Brighton will increase by approximately £2 a week as a result of my announcement today. I know that any increase is unwelcome, but if we are to invest the money that we need in the railways—in the track, the power supply or the stock—it must be financed. We cannot get away from that. A railway cannot be upgraded and improved for nothing.

I wish that successive Governments—in the past, Labour Governments were as guilty as Tory Governments—had done the same as other countries and ensured that we invested money in the railways decade after decade. Our problem is that we now have to make up for years of under-investment quickly.

I greatly welcome my hon. Friend's comments on the rail card, but my announcement on fares is for three years, and I cannot undertake to reconsider the matter before the end of that time.