Great Western Coffee Shop

Eye-watering rail fares risk undermining the South West economy, an MP has warned.

Alison Seabeck, Labour MP for Plymouth Moor View, said the Government was failing to stop rail companies from setting "unacceptably high" ticket prices.

In a Commons debate, she highlighted the 10% increase in a standard open ticket between London and Plymouth, which now costs ^252, and poured scorn on Government suggestions that people can commute for 90 minutes into work.

"The 90-minute journey out of Plymouth to Taunton is a fair stretch, and a young person doing their first job will have to pay ^170 a week if they cannot afford to buy a season ticket," she said. "That simply is not realistic, and it is certainly not affordable."

Ms Seabeck, who has led the campaign for better rail services in the Westcountry, told MPs: "So much potential could be unlocked if our rail services were efficient, on time and, importantly, affordable.

"In a local government finance debate, we talked about how local authority budgets might grow, such as through increasing business rate revenues. Those revenues will not grow if a decent infrastructure is not in place and if fares are not affordable, as under those circumstances businesses will not want to invest in cities that are distant from the central hub of London."

Her intervention ^ in an Opposition day debate on the cost of rail fares ^ came as the Government will soon decide which firm will run Great Western rail services from 2013.

A public consultation was due to begin at the end of last year, with the lucrative contract taking shape between now and the end of March.

Ms Seabeck said "fares structuring and pricing must be taken into account" under the new franchise.

She went on: "We need a fares structure that is simpler, too. Maria Eagle [Labour's transport spokesman] was right to call this debate, as we should highlight the policies of the Government, which do not tackle the rail companies and therefore, in effect, acquiesce in the unacceptably high rail fares."

Ms Seabeck told MPs that passengers in the South West pay more per mile as a legacy of "botched privatisation".

She said: "There is a deep sense of unfairness. I fully accept that rail passengers have to pay towards the service they use, but there should be fairness in the system and that does not exist."

Despite this, rail travel has "boomed" in the South West, with an 85% growth in journeys in the last 15 years outstripping growth in London and the South East.

She concluded: "Rail travel is vital to the far South West. We have ever-diminishing air travel options ^ Plymouth airport has just shut ^ and only two strategic road routes, and there is no motorway leading down to Cornwall. Rail and its affordability are therefore incredibly important."