Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has decided to punish the rail and bus traveller whilst freezing road fuel duty for yet another year!
The Guardian reports that regulated rail fares will go up by 4.6% next March, the government disclosed alongside the budget – meaning they will rise above inflation for only the second time in 12 years. Meanwhile, the cost of most railcards will rise by £5, or almost 17%.
This new Labour Government have repeatedly been telling the public that they need to fill a financial black hole, but when it came to budget day, they chose the easy alternative by continuing the freeze on road fuel duty for another year. £4.2 billion could have been collected in the next year, which would have gone a long way to ‘balancing the books’ and reducing the UK’s record debt. Instead, the Chancellor has chosen to penalise the less well-off by raising standard bus fares by 50% to £3. By contrast, research shows that this would only bring the Treasury extra revenue of about £150 million a year. At the same time, the Government are going to increase rail fares next year by 4.6%.
Paul Tuohy from Campaign for Better Transport said: “Raising rail fares above inflation and hiking the cost of railcards is a kick in the teeth for people who rely on public transport, especially those on low income. Doing this at the same time as keeping fuel duty frozen sends entirely the wrong message. To tackle air pollution, congestion and climate change, we need to make public transport the attractive, affordable choice.”
Andy Bagnall, the chief executive of Rail Partners, representing private train operators, said: “Government should set fares at a level that will ultimately encourage more people to travel by train … The focus must be on growing passenger numbers, not making current passengers pay more.”
Simon Calder in The Independent “The increase in fares is one percentage point above July’s Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation, which until 2023 was used by Westminster governments to set the cap on annual rises in regulated fares”.