Unions blamed for £200 rail fare rises

RAIL passengers face £200 fare increases as train operators prepare to roll out their summer price reviews. Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, said union greed was to blame.

It was announced in August that rail fares in much of the UK would go up by as much as 3.2percent in January and train operators today publish detail on the impact on specific services.

It has reignited a war of words between the Government and trade unions. Mr Grayling insisted that the only way fares could be lowered would be if rail workers accepted lower pay rises. It came as it emerged that Mark Carne, the former head of Network Rail, was awarded a CBE by the Duke of Cambridge yesterday, less than two hours after a report from regulators criticised the firm for its poor record on providing a “punctual and reliable” service.

The Office for Road and Rail (ORR) said it was taking action against Network Rail, which manages the rail infrastructure, for the first time in 10 years amid accusations of failings over punctuality, planning and incident recovery.

Its data shows the sharpest drop in train punctuality in five years, with twice as many services arriving later than they did in 2012. More than 15 per cent of trains were at least five minutes late, with one in 20 failing to turn up at all. In 2012 one in 33 was late.

About 40 per cent of rail fares are regulated by the Government, including season tickets on most commuter journeys, with increases linked to the RPI (retail price index) measure recorded in July. The rises could add more than £200 to the cost of an annual season ticket from Cambridge to Birmingham.

Mr Grayling has said he wants to shift to using the lower CPI (Consumer Price Index) measure, which would also be used to calculate workers’ pay, something unions vehemently oppose.

While campaigners backed the call to change to CPI, they also demanded fares be frozen in January because of problems endured by passengers earlier this year after a botched timetable roll-out.

A source close to Mr Grayling said: “It cannot be right that the rail unions receive a higher wage based on RPI when most passengers, who fund these pay deals, get pay rises using the lower CPI. If the unions are serious about limiting fare rises they should accept the same method for setting pay rather than threaten more strike misery.”

Labour costs account for more than a third of total train operator spend and these increase in line with the RPI.

A spokesman for Aslef, the train drivers’ union, said the proposed change was a “smoke and mirrors exercise”. Mick Cash, of the RMT union, said: “If we took the profits of the private rail companies out of the equation we could have affordable and reliable rail service for all.”

Darren Shirley, of the Campaign for Better Transport group, called RPI “an outdated and discredited measure”.

‘If the unions are serious about limiting fare rises they should accept the same method for setting pay’