Tory rail chief told to stop misleading public as ticket office claims debunked
The Tory Rail Minister has been told to stop misleading passengers as his claims over the ticket office cull are debunked.
Ahead of a debate in Parliament on Wednesday, Huw Merriman has been urged to “come clean”. Mr Merriman has defended plans put forward by train bosses to close ticket counters at 974 railway stations across England.
He told MPs in July that “no station currently staffed would become unstaffed”. But a Labour analysis of the proposals shows there are a number of locations where this will be the case. East Midlands Railway is planning to remove staff at 16 stations, which will in future just get daily or weekly visits from mobile teams. South Western Railway has 135 stations, which currently have ticket offices, that will no longer be staffed on certain days of the week.
Mr Merriman also claimed that “staff will still be there to provide assistance and additional support for those who need and want it”. But bosses have admitted that disabled customers will be affected. In an Equality Analysis, Northern Rail admitted: "The total number of station staffing hours is reducing across the majority of stations impacted in this proposal, meaning that some accessibility requests may not be able to be supported during the same hours that they are currently, in particular ‘turn up and go’ requests. As such, some customers with disabilities may not receive assistance during hours where the staff presence has been removed. This may discourage some passengers from using the railway.”
Thirdly, Mr Merriman insisted the proposals weren't about job losses, claiming "the aim” is to “redeploy staff who are currently under-utilised and who are not seeing the passengers that they used to”. On the day that the ticket office plans were announced, the train companies issued s188 redundancy notices putting around 2,300 station staff jobs at risk.
'We can all strike back at Rich Rishi Sunak and vote Tories out'
Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said: "The key claims of Tory Ministers are falling apart under scrutiny. Ministers must stop misleading the public and come clean on the damage these closures will do. This is just the latest evidence that the Conservatives’ shambolic plan only risks excluding even more passengers from the railways. It's time they think again.”
More than 680,000 people have had their voice heard by responding to an official consultation on the ticket office cull. But Rishi Sunak has refused to say whether he will listen to them by forcing the rail firms to abandon the closures that will particularly hit disabled, elderly and vulnerable passengers. Asked at the weekend if he will respect the wishes of people if the consultation finds the majority of people don’t want their local ticket office closed, Mr Sunak told reporters: “The whole point about a consultation is that we don't pre-empt the conclusions of them.”
He added: “It's right that our railway network is modernised and is put on a sustainable footing. That's the right thing for the British public and British taxpayers and recognises the fact that I think only one in 10 tickets are sold currently in ticket offices. But this is actually fundamentally as far as I understand it, about getting people out of ticket offices onto platforms and in stations where they can help people in different ways,which is where the help is required.”
Challenged on how many stations will have reduced staffing hours after ticket offices are closed, including at Northallerton in his Richmond, North Yorkshire constituency, Mr Sunak said: “It’s not right for me to pre-empt the result of the consultation.” The ticket office at Northallerton, which currently is open for 13 hours on weekdays, is set to close. The station will only be staffed for just seven hours, with no one there from 2pm on weekdays.
The Mirror has been leading the fight against the plans with our Save Our Ticket Offices campaign. Hundreds of readers gathered opposite Downing Street a fortnight ago to urge the Government to back down.
A DfT spokesperson said: “We have been consistently clear that the industry must ensure that the quality of service for passengers is maintained to a high standard.
“The public consultation has now closed and independent passenger representatives will review the responses with train operating companies over the coming weeks.”
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