That is absolutely correct. The staff have the experience and knowledge to do that. It goes back to the points made about human interaction, but it is also about knowledge. Ticket office staff have that knowledge to be able to say, “If you buy a ticket to this place and then this place, that works out much better value for money.”
We have to take into consideration that ticket offices help people who are unbanked—there is still an issue in society around cash. We are having a debate in my constituency about bank closures, for example, and there was a bank closure debate in the Chamber last week. The points raised in that debate could easily be raised here. Ticket offices allow people to make part cash/part card payments because not everybody has online access to make those purchases.
There are real perceptions around how passengers feel safe at stations. Some train stations, sadly, have antisocial behaviour, often requiring police attendance. If there are no staff at the stations, that makes people feel unsafe and they believe it is inevitable that the situation would worsen.
Why, Mr Davies, is the Scottish National party intervening on ticket office closures in England? I know you are asking yourself that question, as many others are. It is because there are threatened ticket office closures in Scotland. Avanti West Coast wants to close the office in Glasgow, and London North Eastern Railway is proposing to close the ticket office in Edinburgh. It is ridiculous, as I heard someone say. The move to close almost all rail ticket offices in England would be disastrous and should be rolled back immediately. The Scottish Government’s advisers on accessible transport have described the move as “entirely unacceptable”. It appears that some Tory Ministers knew how bad the move would be for their constituents because it is reported that the Chancellor tried to protect his own constituency from closures before they were even announced.
Transport for All, a disabled people’s rights group, has called on people to reject the plans in the consultation as they will harm the rights and access of disabled people to transport. I do not believe in the private sector model in rail provision. I think the privatisation
of rail has been a backward step for many people. I hope the Government will consider following Scotland’s lead and bring rail back into public ownership, because it is time we had a rail service for all that was for people, not for profit.
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