Labour loses 'super peak' rail fares vote

 
Fast thinking: new Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin plans quicker rail services from London to Scotland, slashing the time to under three hours Pic: Alex Lentati
Alex Lentati
9 January 2013

Labour failed tonight in its bid to derail proposals for new "super peak" rail fares which it said would hurt commuters.

The Opposition urged MPs to condemn the proposal, which would see higher fares at peak times in a bid to spread congestion on the railways.

But the Government comfortably won the Commons vote by 311 to 237, a majority of 74 after Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin claimed Labour plans would have seen even higher fares.

Opening the Opposition Day debate, shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle admitted Labour had not done enough on rail fares in office and pledged to remove the flexibility train companies have to impose rises well above inflation on some tickets.

She told MPs: "In future, if we get the chance, we will... put it in to law so that commuters always know that the cap on fare rises set by ministers is the cap that they actually see at the ticket office.

"I have said before that the last Labour government should have been bolder in taking on the train companies and should have done so sooner but the important fact is that when times got tough we acted.

"This Government is just clobbering commuters even more."

But Mr McLoughlin said the Labour administration in Wales was allowing train companies to raise fares by RPI plus 1%, with a flexibility of 5% - the same as in England.

"When they are in a position of changing the rules, they don't change the rules and they have accepted the flexibility which they believe they need to get the proper service," he said.

"They have acted in exactly the same way that this Government has done."

The Transport Secretary added: "This Government has capped fare rises and we're getting the investment in, we're tackling overcrowding, increasing seats on services and delivering High Speed 2.

"The right deal for passengers and the right deal for Britain's future."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in