Before I move on to the detail of the motions before us, may I welcome the Minister back to his place? I know it has been a particularly busy couple of weeks in the Department for Transport, especially as Ministers from both parties race to catch up with Labour’s rail policies. First, we learned in The Times that the Liberal Democrats now apparently support a public sector operator, even though they have rushed through the privatisation of East Coast trains in this Parliament. Then we heard the Chancellor say that rail fares would be capped at the retail prices index in January, just three weeks after the Transport Secretary said that the policy would result in
“more debt than our children and grandchildren could ever hope to repay.”
Last year, the Chancellor waited until Christmas to say there would be a freeze. This year, the very next day he took it away. Evening rail fares rose yesterday in the north by up to 162%—