Rail Fares at PMQs

Splitting Image warning of Tory privitisation...has to be watched...

Ed Miliband was on the right track today when he stood up and attacked Cameron over the increases in rail fares.

Rail fares are a contentious issue and this blog has been at the vanguard of exposing the absolute and eye-watering, vomit-inducing, hair-wrenching Tory hypocrisy over fares and most importantly why the Conservatives have fibbed and duped the commuter by cutting the rail grant and increasing direct cost, making the choice (and it was a choice) to scrap flex-caps.

I fully admit that Labour did not get it totally right and there is an argument for saying that fares for many were too high in 2008 and 2009.

But the argument at the time was clear; the investment to introduce HS1 and speed up rail times (which Tory Ministers now conceed is necessary in terms of HS2) and to improve rolling-stock, stations and security after years of chronic under-investment under the Conservative-awarded franchise Connex.

And dont let the Tories fool you on rail fares; because they are the culprits.

Rewind back to 2006 (only 6 years ago) and we saw the Tories finally apologise over the monstrous act of privitisation unleashed upon the public by the Major government.

Remember within seven years of the Conservative privitisation the railway was costing the taxpayer three times what it had cost before de-nationalisation (up from £1.3bn to £3.7bn). In the 1980s, fares covered 76% of rail costs, in 2006 42%.

The reason why fares in the UK are so eye-watering when compared with Europe is directly because of the Tory privitisation in the 1990s mentioned above. Other countries have state-owned rail and were able to manage cost; the Tory design of a myriad of complex Whitehall sub-contracts and punitive get-out clauses made it too expensive to re-nationalise (deliberately designed by the way). The establishment of a separate track company destroyed management discipline, unleashed a nightmare in infrastructure costs and proliferate litigation and regulation and your fares have gone up ever since.

The privatisation was the biggest Conservative failure on a national infrastructure programme ever.

Add into this mix the conveniently forgotton Tory-driven Connex franchise; many of the Tory Councillors in Medway moan about service now, but forget (mainly as many arent actually from Medway) that it was truly god-awful under the previous franchise.

The full scale of the Tory-franchised incompetence can be read here in a special Parliamentary report no less. This report is utterly utterly damning on the franchise, made all the more real by the fact it has been the only franchise in history to require re-nationalisation. These people were fiscally inept and duped the public; and they were quite literally playing with commuters lives.

Essientially the Tory franchise deliberately and maliciously hid the state of its finance which led to the SRA compulsory termination of the contract. It was operating at a loss with massive irregularities caused by an unsustainable model over 10 years. If you read reports at the time was putting passengers lives at risk; one only need to take a look at the Health & Safety record,

The Tories are so very happy to ignore history; to conveniently forget that SouthEastern inherited a network woefully starved of investment which had been fragmented and weakened because of there own botched incompetence.

Fares did go up; but the utterly shameless Tories then had the nerve only one year later to jump on the fact that Connex was allowed a concession for RPI+3% to invest in the same railways the franchise they awarded had just destroyed.

It is so utterly shamlesss that you have to admire the audacity

Fast forward to this week and you can see a genuine attempt by Labour to re-evaluate fares; we called for SouthEastern to return to 1% RPI and it happened after lobbying. The pledge to re-introduce fare-capping on all services in addition to the Labour transport five point plan on ticket pricing is a genuine and plausible alternative in the current climate. I suspect the Conservatives will steal all our policies but the fact remains that it is Labour that are raising this up the agenda with the support of commuters and the Trade Unions.

The fact that Ed raised the issue today on fares is symbolic. To Labour the improvement and best management on the railways has always mattered. We opposed the privitisation in the 1990s and we inherited a mess which had to be fixed. The reason why fares are and remain high is because of the Connex franchise and the mess left.

Lastly, the spin that Labour had planned to lift fare capping is utterly trite. The Conservatives had a choice in the Comprehensive Spending Review on rail to suggest another agenda (remember at the time the rumours of RPI+5% or RPI+7%).

The Tories chose to remove the cap and that was a government decision; just as the Conservative government has been pushed by opposition to reduce fares to RPI+1%.

No matter what the Tories spin on rail the independent facts stand for themselves.

Only a fool would not learn from history. This mess is the legacy left by them from the 1990s and for that they can be never forgiven