A
BILL
TO
Require train companies to offer customers the cheapest available fare as a
first option; and for connected purposes.
Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and
consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present
Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
(1)
The Secretary of State shall make regulations requiring train companies to offer
customers the cheapest available fare as the first option.
(2) The regulations shall include provisions—
(a) 5specifing what “the cheapest available fare” is to be taken to mean;
(b)
providing that when the cheapest available fare is not offered as a first
option, that the customer shall be entitled to a refund of the difference
in fare;
(c)
providing penalties for train companies which have been found to be
10contravening the regulations.
(3)
The regulations shall also provide that the Office of the Rail Regulator shall
monitor, and report annually on, the operation of this Act and the level of
compliance of train companies with it.
(4)
Regulations under this section shall be made by statutory instrument, and no
15such instrument shall be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid
before, and approved by resolution of, both Houses of Parliament.
(1) This Act may be cited as the Train Companies (Minimum Fares) Act 2013.
(2)
This Act shall come into force at the end of the period of two months beginning
20on the day on which it is passed.
(3) This Act extends to England and Wales, and Scotland.