Trade unions, climate campaigners and environmental organisations sent this joint letter to Fiona Hyslop MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Transport, calling for peak fares on Scottish railways to be scrapped permanently.
15th March 2024
Dear Cabinet Secretary for Transport
We are writing to you as the peak train fares pilot draws to a close.
We pay tribute to the introduction of the pilot in the first place. As trade unionists, environmental campaigners, and passenger champions we are clear however that peak train fares must be scrapped permanently.
This is a position that we have taken since the start of the pilot. The overall approach by the government must be to make fares as affordable as possible. This is what will encourage and incentivise the Scottish travelling public onto trains and away from private car travel.
Let us also be clear, peak fares are another unfair tax on workers. They make trains expensive and are an impediment to rail travel for many. If you were to restore peak fares it would send a strongly negative signal to the Scottish public that Scotland is not serious about tackling climate change.
Your own national transport strategy has committed to reducing car kilometres by 20% by 2030. You recognise just as we do that given transport is the biggest emitter of carbon emissions and that road travel is by some distance the mode of travel that emits the most climate/carbon pollution.
Set against this context it is imperative to shift mindsets and behaviours when it comes to modes of travel. This must mean making rail fares cheaper and more affordable overall and it must mean scrapping peak fares permanently.
Making fares more affordable will help people in poverty and help the wider economy. Individuals who benefit will have more money in their pockets to spend. And, as you acknowledged in your answer to Alex Rowley MSP on 8th February in the Scottish Parliament this saving is significant for rail travellers. You said:
“Those who travel the line from Cowdenbeath to Edinburgh three times a week, from October at the start of the pilot to June at its end, will have saved £680; those who travel five times a week will have saved £1,134. There have been savings for many workers in Cowdenbeath, in Fife and across Scotland”
As well as the net gain for individuals using trains, the benefit to the economy is considerable. As the Railway Industry Association research evidenced in 2021, for every £1 spent on rail travel £2.50 is generated in the wider economy.
Scotland must play its part in tackling climate change, as your government acknowledges. Your Government also has a duty to help grow the economy and protect the citizens of this country when it is able. Scrapping peak fares, for whatever the limited initial costs are, is a clear step in the right direction on all those fronts.
If you were to restore peak fares it would be a retrograde step that would send exactly the wrong message at the wrong time. We urge you to do the right thing, scrap peak fares permanently to help Scotland meet its climate targets, grow the economy sustainably and help workers by ending this unfair tax on them.
Yours Sincerely
Kevin Lindsay ASLEF,
Gary Kelly TSSA,
Michael Hogg RMT,
Pat Mcllvogue UNITE,
Dave Moxham Assistant General Secretary STUC,
Imogen Dow, Friends of the Earth Scotland Head of Campaigns,
Matthew Crighton Secretary Just Transition Partnership,
Mike Robinson, Chair of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland
Colin Howden, Director Transform Scotland