Transport Secretary refuses to rule out train fare rises next year
Transport Minister Heidi Alexander has confirmed that next year’s train fares have not yet been determined as the Labor Government prepares to nationalize a third rail company.
Greater Anglia, operated by Transport UK Group, will come into public ownership this Sunday.
The operator, which serves Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire, is the seventh of 14 train companies to go into public hands as it prepares to create passenger services within Great Britain Railways, a new public body that oversees Britain’s rail infrastructure and operations.
Ms Alexander visited Norwich railway station on Thursday and examined a train with a ‘Great British Railways – coming soon’ sticker, highlighting the changes.
When asked if wages would increase, he replied: “I haven’t made a decision on wages for next year.
“I am conscious that the traveling public more generally wants an affordable rail and an affordable public transport system.
“We currently spend more than £10bn a year of taxpayers’ money on investment and maintenance in infrastructure, rail and railway signaling.
“There is also a gap of around £2 billion each year between the money coming in from fare revenues and the daily running costs of trains.
“I need to get the balance right between the contribution made by the ratepayers and the (contribution) made by the taxpayer.
“So I can’t promise that wages will come down, but I’m certainly aware that people want to get value for money.”
In the latest research by watchdog Transport Focus, Greater Anglia’s overall passenger satisfaction rate was 89 per cent.
This was the sixth best performance among 22 operators.
Ms Alexander described Greater Anglia as “one of the country’s best-performing train operating companies”.
“What we really want to do is learn from what Greater Anglia is doing and make sure that applies to the rest of the country,” he said.
He said he was “absolutely adamant that the first thing we need to do when we bring train operating companies into public ownership is to make sure we have greater reliability on the railways”.
Martin Beable, managing director of Greater Anglia, said: “By working more closely with a wider family of publicly owned operators we can share expertise, drive innovation and deliver better journeys to our passengers across the Anglia region.”
South Western Railway became the first operator to be taken into public ownership by the Labor Government in May.
This was followed in July by c2c, which operates a service between London’s Fenchurch Street and South Essex.
They join Northern, TransPennine Express, Southeastern and LNER, which were nationalized under the Conservative government due to performance failures of the former owners of these franchises.
West Midlands Rail services will be the next to be nationalized on 1 February 2026.
Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) services will start on 31 May 2026, while Chiltern Railways and Great Western Railway services are expected to start later and final decisions on dates have not yet been made.
