Legal Challenge
launched against South West Trains "Monopoly Rises"
When I heard about the plans to increase train fares from stations like
Kingston and Surbiton - with a peak return from Surbiton to
Waterloo rising a massive 36% this January - I was outraged. Despite
all Labour's rhetoric about social justice and flexible working, these
rises would particularly hit part-time workers in my constituency who
can't benefit from seasonal discounts and who tend to be on lower
incomes and are more often than not women.. So last October I tabled a
parliamentary motion and wrote both to the Minister for Transport,
Doulgas
Alexander MP and to London's Mayor, but they were both less than
helpful. It was particularly ironic that Ken Livingstone should allow
this given his campaign in the early 1980s for "Fares Fair", so I
called my campaign "Fares Unfair".
When South West Trains went ahead with the rises this January, I looked
around for other ways to protect my constituents from these astonishing
rises - and hit upon the idea of a legal challenge. Then followed a
huge amount of detailed research to put together a case. What I wanted
to do had not been done before - and no MP had launched such a test
case.
On 24th April along with Dr Tim Leunig,
a transport economist from the London School of Economics, I took my
campaign to fight these unfair fares to the Office of Rail Regulation
(ORR). We had assembled a case to show that with these rises South West
Trains were abusing their monopoly position from Surbiton to Waterloo
and under competion law should be forced to cut their fares.
In our research we also uncovered the fact that the
Department of
Transport itself had given specific permission for these rises, waiving
the legal protection for commuters of a cap on fare rises of 6% plus
inflation. That alone showed we were on to something.
What happens now? The Office of Rail Regulation will need
to decide if
there is a case to answer, and to decide whether or not to launch an
investigation. I will be meeting with them shortly to press home my
constituents' case.
It would be great if you could support this campaign - by signing this
online petition and perhaps by writing to the regulators at ORR
yourself.
I agree with Edward Davey MP's campaign against the
unfair rail fare increases for journies from Kingston and Surbiton to
Waterloo implemented on the 2nd January 2007. I back Edward
Davey's call
on the Office of Rail Regulation to commission a full
investigation into these increases and his request that legal powers
are used to force a cut in these fares.
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