The government has been challenged in the Commons over plans to close railway ticket offices, including by the speaker, who told the rail minister that he was being misinformed by train operators.
Labour described the consultation over the proposals to close most ticket offices in England as a “sham” and Conservative MPs also raised concerns, as unions staged demonstrations around the country.
The rail minister, Huw Merriman, sought to reassure MPs over what he said were industry-led proposals to cut costs, with revenue falling after the pandemic.
Merriman said he believed that staff were better deployed on station concourses rather than “behind a glass screen”, adding: “I give the commitment again from the train operators that no currently staffed station will become unstaffed as a result of these changes.”
The comment prompted an unusual intervention from the Commons speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who highlighted issues in his Chorley constituency.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle told Merriman that at Chorley “the proposal is only to have someone available nine until four, which is half the time the ticket office was [open] … What you are being told isn’t the case.”
The Conservative MP Gagan Mohindra read out a constituent’s email, warning: “By closing the ticket office, you have taken away a focal point of contact. Can the minister reassure us both that those that need assistance will be able to easily locate staff?”
Last week, a number of Conservative MPs highlighted the use of ticket offices at their local stations, while the transport committee chair, Ian Stewart, said there was “alarming evidence” that assistance for vulnerable passengers had declined since the pandemic.
The shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, said: “The minister has managed to unite concerns from Labour MPs, his own backbenches, you, Mr Speaker, disability groups, trade unions and consumer groups about these closures.”
She said the consultation was “a sham”, with “just 21 days for people to voice their concerns. No equality impact assessment and no answers on job security, on accessibility, on digital ticketing.”
Campaigners for people with disabilities have protested at the consultation. Sight loss charities including the Thomas Pocklington Trust and the Royal National Institute of Blind People wrote to ministers this week urging a longer period to respond and warning that neither printed nor online forms provided for the consultation were accessible for many blind or partially sighted people.
Elsewhere, unions said plans to close ticket offices were a “fig leaf for redundancies”, as they held dozens of protests outside stations across England on Thursday.
The Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association also took issue with government figures claiming that only 13% of tickets were bought at ticket offices, which it said did not take into account the true impact, including season tickets.
The union’s interim general secretary, Peter Pendle, said the numbers it had uncovered “demonstrate that ticket offices are as popular and vital to the railways as ever”.
He said: “They talk of 13% as though it were a low figure when in fact it relates to hundreds of millions of rail journeys. Talk of modernisation is merely a fig leaf for redundancies and what would be a poorer service for the travelling public at large.”
The Rail Delivery Group, representing train operators, has pledged that there will be more staff outside at stations, and that those with accessibility needs will always be supported, but has insisted that nearly all tickets and services can be bought or accessed online or at machines.
