Rail ticket office closures – yet more managed decline of our public services

By Claudia Webbe MP 

The government’s goal is to cut staff and maximise profits at the expense of those who most rely on public transport, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE MP

DESPITE some rumoured wavering among some train companies, the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) and the government are pushing ahead with their plan to close down almost every station ticket office — over 1,000 in all — in a demonstration of corporate and governmental contempt for the wishes and wellbeing of passengers, especially vulnerable travellers.

Rail unions have seen huge support from the public in their campaign to prevent the closures that will surely have been reflected in responses to the consultation, but the government’s readiness to enable privateers to fatten profits over the wellbeing of the public is well known, despite a large majority of the public favouring the renationalisation of public services, including two thirds for rail.

The privatisation of the British rail industry has been a source of contention since its implementation in the 1990s. The closure of railway ticket offices is yet another example of this managed decline away from public ownership and accountability of our public services.

The RDG/government plan is based on the claim that ticket offices are no longer vital for the travelling public — passengers can be expected to use automated ticket machines at stations or book online, leaving the way open for reducing the rail workforce, by around 2,000 staff, and fattening dividends.

But ticket offices and staff remain a vital resource for many passengers who might otherwise struggle to manage online booking processes and for the security of children, women, disabled and vulnerable passengers on the rail network.

And when it comes down to it, many people simply find it both easier and more reliable to deal with other people, as the RMT’s daily social media posts showing ticket offices with queues out of the door even outside peak periods demonstrates.

Nor is it simply a matter of preference. For many, a ticket office is essential.

Ticket office staff provide immediate and responsive travel advice without technological or ability barriers and, even more importantly, are there in person to provide assistance if someone is taken ill or needs help finding the right platform if they are struggling with signs and displays.

Yet when I asked Transport Minister Huw Merriman last month whether the government has conducted an analysis of the impact of the plans on women, children, disabled people and other vulnerable groups, it was absolutely clear from his response that the short answer is No — the government has not even taken that most basic step.

And it’s not hard to understand why the government would not want proper analysis of the impact of closing ticket offices, because it will be enormous.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People has said that the closures would be hugely detrimental to blind and partially sighted people, while the elderly and disabled people would face obstacles to their mobility that make many more housebound and less able to live a full life.

More than 50 organisations representing blind, deaf, disabled and autistic people have signed a letter objecting to the planned closures because they will make rail travel “inaccessible” to the people they represent.

The idea that ticket offices are no longer needed or justified is debunked daily. Since news of the impending closures broke, images circulate every day of long queues at ticket offices, even in larger and more fully equipped stations.

Even in these days of online everything, people like to deal with people, especially when there is uncertainty about the best transaction and the wrong outcome can have quite serious consequences.

The presence or absence of a ticket office, to quote Transport for All, “impacts everything from the ability to buy tickets, receive assistance, access site facilities, navigate the station, plan routes, and feel confident in making journeys … we believe [these plans] will severely curtail disabled passengers’ ability to turn up and go.”

And the government’s claim that no currently staffed station will become unstaffed as a result of the closure plans is simply untrue — in reality, the plans involve a shocking level of destaffing.

In the Midlands where my constituency of Leicester East sits, for example, the East Midlands Railway plan means 16 stations will become unstaffed, while in the West Midlands it will be 78 — these unstaffed stations would have only brief daily or weekly visits from mobile teams, but the rail companies and government are using this kind of arrangement as cover to claim the stations will be “staffed.”

Despite these cuts to staffing, the train operators claim there will be “greater visibility of staff on concourses and platforms”!

These plans are not only an insult to the travelling public, they are a clear demonstration of the deep contempt in which capital — and its many servants in the political class — hold the safety, wellbeing and quality of life of ordinary people and those who work hard to provide the services they need.

They are also part of a clear trend of greater profiteering. In 2019, while fares rocketed, services deteriorated and the government provided huge subsidies, the train companies were revealed to have issued over £1 billion in dividends to shareholders over a six-year period.

Just last year, one operator group, First Group, paid shareholders half a billion pounds in a single year — while its CEO took a 6 per cent pay rise and asked workers to take a cut in wages.

In the same year, Avanti paid out £33 million in dividends despite receiving a £343m government bailout.

All this is going on against a background of continual worsening and attrition of services, while Britain’s already grossly expensive fares continue to rise — a process that has gone on relentlessly since privatisation.

In contrast, many European countries have seen ticket prices rise by a fraction of British fare inflation — and many have actually been reducing prices for years.

Furthermore, in a complex web of different privatised rail companies, the closure of rail ticket offices will make it even more difficult for passengers to hold anyone accountable for poor service or infrastructure failures, some would argue deliberately so.

The future of ticket offices is a key issue in the ongoing rail worker dispute. For the government to be pressing ahead with this so-called “consultation” is a display of contempt for rail workers, who were designated as key workers during the pandemic, and a clear signal that the government has no intention of seeking a constructive resolution of the dispute, despite its rhetoric in public.

While the government and much of the media present the dispute as the unions’ disregard for the wellbeing of passengers, it’s abundantly clear that, as usual, the interests of workers and the interests of the general public and consumers are far more aligned than those of the profiteers and the politicians, to whom so many hefty donations are made.

The narrative of the government and rail operators seeks to mislead the public, but even a cursory analysis of the facts makes it clear that the goal of this plan is to cut staff and maximise profits at the expense of those who most rely on public transport.

It is clear that for the good of the nation the safety of the public and the future of workers must be put unequivocally ahead of corporate profits and neoliberal ideology — corporate profits must not be put above the lives and wellbeing of the many. But this is a government that has shown precious little interest in the wellbeing of the many.

The consultation closes on Friday September 1. We will see whether the government has any interest in the views and welfare of passengers or is simply going through the exercise as a prelude to a predetermined outcome for the benefit of a handful of shareholders.

Based on the Tories’ track record so far, one is far more likely than the other.

Claudia Webbe MP is the member of Parliament for Leicester East. You can follow her at www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and twitter.com/ClaudiaWebbe