Sadiq Khan explains why he has no option but to increase Tube fares next year

Transcript

00:00Now what DFT announced was the national rail fares freeze. What the government didn't announce

00:05was individual cities freezing their fares. So Londoners know that when we had the deal with

00:12the government on the SR, the government gave us £2.2 billion, the biggest ever multi-year deal

00:18we've received in more than a decade. And one of the things the government said was they'd expect

00:23us to raise our fares by RPI plus one, which pays for around £4.5 billion towards capital

00:29investment. And so that was not an unreasonable request from the government because the government's

00:34contributing hugely. They don't unreasonably say as grown-ups we should also contribute. I think that's fair.

00:39So would you be disappointed though if you had to put fares up in London while the rest of the country

00:44enjoyed frozen rail fares? Because it would mean that say the Elizabeth Line fares would go up in

00:50London, wouldn't it? I was quite clear in relation to the multi-year capital deal that fares would go

00:57by RPI plus one and I'll be announcing fares in due course. So are you saying that there won't

01:01be a fares freeze in London then? That's really not on the cards? No, the DFD were quite clear in relation

01:06to the announcement from the government was for a national rail fares freeze. So if you go from

01:12Euston to Manchester, or if you go from King's Cross to Newcastle, that's what the government's

01:20announcement was for. It wasn't for travelling within Manchester, travelling within Liverpool,

01:25or travel within London. What do you think it will have in terms of its impact on travel cards? What's

01:30likely to happen there? So one of the things that we know is because a number of people with a

01:34national travel card travel in London, there can be a knock-on impact on TFL. We've got an agreement

01:40with the TODS. We're talking to DFT, talking to Treasury, just to make sure we can work out whether

01:46there are any knock-on consequences on TFL fares. And the good news is, unlike the previous government,

01:53this government likes to talk to London, we're working with them constructively to make sure

01:57there isn't any adverse consequences on London.