The closure of ticket offices in England will lead to a railway where people will “not want to travel once the sun’s gone down”, the union leader Mick Lynch has told MPs, describing a recent consultation as a “sham”.
Speaking to the Commons transport select committee, the general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, said the government was trying to force through job cuts and it was “nonsense” to suggest ticket office staff would be redeployed.
Disability campaigners told the committee the consultation itself had been inaccessible for many disabled and vulnerable travellers, while the proposed staffing levels would threaten their right to travel.
The consultation on shutting most of England’s 1,000 offices, which closed on 1 September after being extended after protests, received more than 680,000 responses.
The replies are being reviewed by the watchdogs Transport Focus and London TravelWatch, which will assess plans for each individual station closure and can refer the decision to the transport secretary if they uphold public objections.
Lynch told MPs: “We think the whole thing has been a sham designed to be rammed through while people were looking the other way.”
He said the transport secretary, Mark Harper, had initiated the plans through contracts with the train operating companies: “He directs everything they do these days … If the watchdogs object, the decision will end up with him as well. It’s a controlled show.”
The RMT leader said the plans were designed to save £95m, and the industry had “spent £1.5bn fighting this dispute”.
He said passengers would be “left to fend for themselves”, with 2,800 jobs likely to go, adding: “They’re not taking them out of the ticket office to work on the platforms. They’re taking them out of the ticket office to cut the jobs out of the system. It’s just a nonsense that these people will all be redeployed.”
Lynch said ticket offices were vibrant, and people were angry about losing what were “community centres in many towns and villages”.
He added: “If we want an accessible railway that’s friendly for everyone – for disabled people, for foreign visitors, for women who are fearful about travelling … why have we not got a proposal on it?
“Even the hours they’ve got are cuts to hours, and it’s every person for themselves on the railway. And once the sun’s gone down, many people will not want to travel on this railway in the future.”
Katie Pennick, the campaigns manager for Transport for All, said that several train operators’ consultations had been inaccessible for many people with disabilities such as visual and hearing impairments until legal action was threatened. She said: “Disabled people have not had a fair opportunity to comment.”
In one case, Pennick said she “asked for British Sign Language and was offered braille instead”.
Pennick said that many equality impact assessments had been “copy and paste jobs”, while there was no overall assessment for travel across the railway. She said: “It demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the barriers that disabled people face along the railway.”
Louise Rubin, the head of policy at Scope, said that trying to find the details of proposals in the consultation had been “beyond challenging” and had “left disabled and elderly people feeling overlooked from the start”.
The proposals will leave hundreds of stations unstaffed much of the time, with many only having “weekly visits” from mobile teams, according to consultation documents.
Rubin added: “Disabled people cannot plan their lives around weekly visits … It throws our right to turn up and go into doubt.”
The regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, said it had communicated numerous concerns about the proposals. Stephanie Tobyn, the ORR’s director of strategy, policy and reform, told MPs there were “multiple questions” about how accessible travel would be protected: “It’s not obvious how it would operate … I can’t understand how a team could turn up at a station once a week and facilitate turn-up-and-go assistance.”
Train operators said that the proposals reflected the changing world. Simon Moorhead, the chief information officer of the industry body the Rail Delivery Group, said “80% of our customers [are] not going anywhere near our ticket offices”, including vending machines, and were instead buying tickets online or using contactless payments.
Asked twice if the proposals came from the government or train operators, Moorhead did not directly answer but said there was “consensus that there is need for reform”, adding: “We’re always asked to manage costs to the industry tightly.”
The Avanti West Coast managing director, Andy Mellors, denied claims that some offices were already earmarked for commercial use. He said: “There are no plans at all in terms of existing ticket office spaces being repurposed.”
Mellors said Avanti would cut staff numbers at Glasgow Central station by more than a third by closing its ticket office, adding that it sold tickets for only 1% of the operator’s journeys from there.
In a separate Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday morning, MPs urged ministers to reverse the programme of closures.
Numerous Conservative backbenchers were among the objectors. Martin Vickers called the move “complete madness”, while Priti Patel said she and her constituents were “absolutely flabbergasted by these proposals … We’re frustrated and we’re deeply angry.”
Mark Francois told the rail minister, Huw Merriman: “Take the hint. Drop it. Get rid of it. Retreat gracefully … The Commons doesn’t want it. And neither do our constituents.”
