Railcard boundaries in silly places

[AlterEgo]

A change in modal shift would have been one benefit.

However "putting money back into peoples pockets" is another benefit and it has clearly been judged to outweigh the cost.

It is only worth the political capital to “put money back in people’s pockets” if it’s significantly revenue-negative.

 

[Magdalia]

I do not concede that there will be a loss of revenue (although I will run with your argument where necessary).

Various studies have suggested that a national railcard may increase revenue through the purchase of the card and increased travel, however I can't know for sure, so it is prudent to address the scenario in which that new revenue might not quite match that lost from those people who get a cheaper fare.

There will be a loss of revenue. The first effect of a National Railcard is that existing travellers will buy it, use it to get discounted fares, and fare income will fall, by up to 34%, assuming that is the discount offered.

Increased travel will reduce that impact, but it is fantasy to imagine that there will be enough of it to outweigh the substantial loss of revenue from allowing existing customers to travel more cheaply.

Your assertion that "the railway would have already done it" is complete fantasy, as:

- There is a risk element and there has been no one in the fragmented industry with the power to enforce that risk over all parties

- It would fall to central government and we all know how comfortable they are taking such risks

- The railway is in no place to judge or act on the social good that could come from a national railcard, even if the revenue effect is less positive than hoped.

Each TOC could have offered their own railcard if they thought it would make money., or they could have got together through the Rail Delivery Group.

The farebox has been effectively the government's for 5 years now. Given the state of the public finances, they would grasp at anything that reduced public expenditure.

You are right that there is a risk element. It is only a risk about the size of the losses. Both the private sector and the public sector have decided not to pursue something that they know would lose money.

You are right that social good is not an issue for the railway, but it is an issue for the government. However, the government has lots of competing demands for funding social goods. They, and the people who elect them, think that there are other priorities higher in the list.

I remind you of Scotland's experiment with all off peak fares. At first it didn't quite make enough revenue, however it was recognised that the benefits outweighed the cost and now it is policy.

This is not a railcard. Its objective is the opposite to a railcard, encouraging peak time travel in comparison to off peak travel.

No, it’s a political move designed to “put money back into people’s pockets” and has come about because the government coffers are in a stronger position. The Scottish government does not deny that the scheme initially failed in its aim to drive modal shift.

I don't have recent experience of Scotrail, but it suggests to me that the amount of peak travel is relatively small, probably almost non-existent outside of Glasgow and Edinburgh. The Scottish Government is aiming for the social good of helping to "put money back into people's pockets" by reducing travel to work costs. Doing that in England really would blow a hole in railway finances.

 

[yorksrob]

It is only worth the political capital to “put money back in people’s pockets” if it’s significantly revenue-negative.

Eh ? Affordable fares would be a good political story if it ends up generating more revenue, even more so than if it costs some of it.

 

[35B]

Eh ? Affordable fares would be a good political story if it ends up generating more revenue, even more so than if it costs some of it.

If it is not accompanied by overcrowding. If the additional journeys are within the marginal capacity of the existing trains, and people don't suffer worse conditions than before, you may be right.

But where trains are already running very full, the balance will be very different.

 

[yorksrob]

There will be a loss of revenue. The first effect of a National Railcard is that existing travellers will buy it, use it to get discounted fares, and fare income will fall, by up to 34%, assuming that is the discount offered.

Increased travel will reduce that impact, but it is fantasy to imagine that there will be enough of it to outweigh the substantial loss of revenue from allowing existing customers to travel more cheaply.

Given that there will still be people travelling in peak hours, using season tickets, already using one of the existing railcards, not choosing to buy a railcard etc, the suggestion that a loss of revenue on a third off national railcard would be "up to 34%" is mathematically impossible. There will be too many passengers not using the card for a loss of revenue to be anything like the actual discount of 34%.

And this is before we factor in income from increased usage and the sale of the railcard itself.

Each TOC could have offered their own railcard if they thought it would make money., or they could have got together through the Rail Delivery Group.

The farebox has been effectively the government's for 5 years now. Given the state of the public finances, they would grasp at anything that reduced public expenditure.

Individual TOC railcards would have been of limited use and therefore limited appeal to passengers.

It's perhaps understandable that a national railcard wouldn't be a priority for the government whilst the railway was recovering from the pandemic. Times change and so do incentives for governments.

You are right that there is a risk element. It is only a risk about the size of the losses. Both the private sector and the public sector have decided not to pursue something that they know would lose money.

You are right that social good is not an issue for the railway, but it is an issue for the government. However, the government has lots of competing demands for funding social goods. They, and the people who elect them, think that there are other priorities higher in the list.

There are always priorities, but then again governments do lots of things. Right now this government needs visible quick wins that it can point to that won't cost vast amounts. In the scheme of government spending, a national railcard would be very visible and wouldn't cost a lot.

This is not a railcard. Its objective is the opposite to a railcard, encouraging peak time travel in comparison to off peak travel.

No, it's something reducing peak revenue without the same mechanisms to generate new travel, so even more against your arguments, yet it was found to be close to breaking even and is being carried forward as policy.....

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 May 2025 ==

If it is not accompanied by overcrowding. If the additional journeys are within the marginal capacity of the existing trains, and people don't suffer worse conditions than before, you may be right.

But where trains are already running very full, the balance will be very different.

Well the railway will always have busy trains and less busy trains.

We're in danger of not doing anything worthwhile for fear of not achieving perfection.

 

[35B]

No, it's something reducing peak revenue without the same mechanisms to generate new travel, so even more against your arguments, yet it was found to be close to breaking even and is being carried forward as policy.....

You are assuming that the SNP are implementing this policy rationally and on a genuine economic basis. Given the upcoming elections in Scotland, and their woes over the last couple of years, I don't think that can be a safe assumption - especially as the experiment was terminated as "insufficiently successful" when it was reasonable to assume that the decision would be rational, and not party political.

 

[yorksrob]

You are assuming that the SNP are implementing this policy rationally and on a genuine economic basis. Given the upcoming elections in Scotland, and their woes over the last couple of years, I don't think that can be a safe assumption - especially as the experiment was terminated as "insufficiently successful" when it was reasonable to assume that the decision would be rational, and not party political.

You're assuming that a political motivation is more rational than a strictly economic justification.

How economically rational is the freeze on fuel duty ?

In reality most policies are a mixture of the economic and politically rational.

 

[JonathanH]

But the railway isn't crowded all of the time.

No, but the nature of most passengers is that are more likely to want to make a popular journey than an unpopular one. Saturday mornings see plenty of overcrowding on the railway and a railcard is a blunt instrument with regard to ensuring that overcrowding isn't made worse, so the restrictions need to be blunt too.

 

[yorksrob]

No, but the nature of most passengers is that are more likely to want to make a popular journey than an unpopular one. Saturday mornings see plenty of overcrowding on the railway and a railcard is a blunt instrument with regard to ensuring that overcrowding isn't made worse, so the restrictions need to be blunt too.

I disagree that the Railcard is a blunt instrument. It allows you to remove peak travel. You can exclude AP if you wish.

I hate overcrowding, but I hate being price gouged even more.

 

[Kilopylae]

The Network Area boundary is situated similarly on other lines, just short of a more major town/city predominantly served by InterCity services, with Bedwyn vs Westbury, Huntingdon vs Peterborough, and Manningtree vs Ipswich. At the end of the day, no matter where you put the boundary, there will always be a station that is just on the wrong side of it.

I wonder why it doesn't stop at Pinhoe.

 

[Watershed]

I wonder why it doesn't stop at Pinhoe.

Probably because NSE operated all services from there to Exeter, and it wouldn't make sense to stop people from reaching Pinhoe from the west.

More to the point, they could prevent people using Intercity services due to the geographic validity being restricted to the West of England line. The same couldn't be done for the other routes into London, where Intercity and NSE services followed the same routes throughout.

 

[Kilopylae]

Ah, that makes sense. I had a brain fart and didn't think of the fact it wouldn't be valid on trains that left and re-entered the zone.

 

[W-on-Sea]

When the Network Area was introduced, it did not extend all the way to Exeter. I think Honiton was the final stop included within NSE, despite NSE operating the whole service.

 

[MikeWh]

Charging £2 instead of £3 certainly changes my behaviour. If my local journey is £3 instead of £2 I will not travel by train.

You are well known to be the sort of person who tries to extract every last penny of value from any situation. I don't go as far, but I do appreciate where you're coming from. The old adage "if you look after the pennies, the pounds ..." is true today as it ever was. That said, time is also relevant to most people, so if the alternative was going to take significantly longer then the train still has value.

The bus fare cap increasing from £2 to £3 has already resulted in me avoiding the use of bus outside London for certain short journeys.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that a bus journey from York to Haxby was available for only £2.50 single this week. There is a common misconception among opponents to the new cap that all £2 journeys have now become £3 journeys. They seem not to understand exactly what a cap is.

 

[Magdalia]

Given that there will still be people travelling in peak hours, using season tickets, already using one of the existing railcards, not choosing to buy a railcard etc, the suggestion that a loss of revenue on a third off national railcard would be "up to 34%" is mathematically impossible. There will be too many passengers not using the card for a loss of revenue to be anything like the actual discount of 34%.

Peak hour travel fare income, including season tickets, is irrelevant here. The universe is the fare income from tickets that would be eligible for discount with the proposed railcard.

I said "up to 34%", not 34%.

Even if only 30% of undiscounted fare income switched to National Railcard, that would be a 10% loss of income on existing travel that would become National Railcard eligible.

And this is before we factor in income from increased usage and the sale of the railcard itself.

In that scenario the railcard has got to generate an increase in eligible fare income of a bit more than 10% from new journeys, just to stand still. I don't think that's realistic.

In the scheme of government spending, a national railcard would be very visible and wouldn't cost a lot.

I think that you overestimate the visibility, not many people travel by train, and you definitely underestimate the cost.

o, it's something reducing peak revenue without the same mechanisms to generate new travel, so even more against your arguments, yet it was found to be close to breaking even and is being carried forward as policy...

As I have already said, what Scotrail are doing is very different to a National Railcard. The balance of revenue loss and gain for peak time travel in Scotland will be very different to the balance of revenue loss and gain for off peak travel over the whole of the network. Just because the Scottish Government have decided to abolish peak time fares says absolutely nothing about the net impact on revenue of a National Railcard for off peak travel.

Well the railway will always have busy trains and less busy trains.

We're in danger of not doing anything worthwhile for fear of not achieving perfection.

You are right there. But the railway isn't "not doing anything", for example it offers lots of cheap advance fares at the least busy times. It isn't perfect, but it is worthwhile.

With modern technology and big data advance fares are far more effective means of matching supply and demand than the very blunt instrument of a National Railcard. Cheap advance fares target the least busy trains, a National Railcard would mainly encourage more use of off peak trains that are already busy, not more use of less busy trains.

How economically rational is the freeze on fuel duty ?

Very rational.

Fuel duty has a direct impact on "price at the pumps" and cost of living for lots of people. Fuel is a big component of inflation. It also has a big second order effect on inflation because it feeds through into distribution costs.

The government is already over-dependent on fuel duty as a source of tax income, and it is likely to become less lucrative in the next few years because of the switch to electric vehicles. It is very rational for government wean itself off fuel duty, not become even more dependent on it.

 

[Starmill]

Yes, but the number of journeys made need to increase by 50% to make good a 33% discount.

More importantly those journeys need to go on services which have physical capacity.

As there's really almost no demand for trips like Bletchley - Northampton, Petersfield - Portsmouth, Downham Market - Kings Lynn, Battle - Hastings (and so on and so forth) that's not already going by train that could do if it were cheaper then... Realistically these trains in and out of London are at capacity unless you just want a railcard that's only valid for journeys arriving in London before 0800 on Saturdays and between 1100 - 1500 on working days, not valid at all on other days...

Unrelated but some of the above types of fares are well overpriced given the trains are running at such low loads for these journeys. The issue is introducing cheaper tickets would stimulate very limited growth, and would mostl be bought by people splitting.

 

[35B]

You're assuming that a political motivation is more rational than a strictly economic justification.

How economically rational is the freeze on fuel duty ?

In reality most policies are a mixture of the economic and politically rational.

I have many thoughts on fuel duty, but they take us off topic.

Here, we are dealing with a situation in which an experiment was tried, did not justify itself economically, and was dropped. A few months later, with a difficult election cycle looming, the policy has reasserted itself.

There may well be good reasons to reduce fares in this way. But the evidence is that this does not increase custom sufficiently to cover the reduced income per ticket.

You can argue that it’s a reasonable thing to do anyway, for a range of reasons. But what you can’t do is pretend that it’s self sustaining when we have evidence that it’s not.

It’s also worth considering the distribution effects of fares reductions. On average, rail commuting is by the better off. This means that using tax money to reduce fares is a tax cut for the wealthy.

 

[miklcct]

I was pleasantly surprised to find that a bus journey from York to Haxby was available for only £2.50 single this week. There is a common misconception among opponents to the new cap that all £2 journeys have now become £3 journeys. They seem not to understand exactly what a cap is.

A journey as short as Tattenham Corner to Epsom now charges £3. I'll avoid these journeys whenever I can.

I am aware that a lot of bus companies are now charging less than the cap in urban areas, but it doesn't help if your particular short distance rural journey, like the one mentioned above, is £3.

 

[Kilopylae]

unless you just want a railcard that's only valid for journeys arriving in London before 0800 on Saturdays and between 1100 - 1500 on working days, not valid at all on other days...

A national 'trains that don't go to London' Railcard would make some amount of sense to encourage modal shift. Given how much the train is just 'how you get to London' but not a realistic option for local journeys in many areas.

 

[canary fan]

It was a few years ago, and they would say that, wouldn't they? Any pressure group can get a consultant to write a report that gives them the answer they first thought of.


We don't have the levelling up agenda any more. What matters now is economic growth.


They aren't the shibboleths of the political establishment, they are the harsh economic reality of a country up to its ears in debt.


There are, but they pay higher levels of tax to pay for it, and don't have to spend such large chunks of tax revenue on debt interest. Governments in those countries have economic resources at their disposal that the UK government does not have.

That is political choice: this country voted for a government that committed not to raise taxes for working people. There is no prospect of a UK government being able to afford to do this until after growth is restored and debt has started to fall.

It’s interesting that you believe that other major countries don’t have to pay such large interest payments on debt. Whilst UK national debt is approaching 100% of GDP, this is below levels in France, Italy and Spain and less than half of debt levels in Japan.

 

[JamesT]

It’s interesting that you believe that other major countries don’t have to pay such large interest payments on debt. Whilst UK national debt is approaching 100% of GDP, this is below levels in France, Italy and Spain and less than half of debt levels in Japan.

Taking France as the most similarly sized to the UK, their debt interest payments are reportedly “mounting up to a staggering €60 billion” (from https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/202412...costs-as-its-credit-rating-takes-a-double-hit ), whereas the UK “in 2024-25 we expect debt interest spending to total £104.9 billion.” (from https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/debt-interest-central-government-net/ ). £105bn is roughly €125bn, so the UK’s interest payments are twice the French despite the lower level of debt.

 

[yorksrob]

Taking France as the most similarly sized to the UK, their debt interest payments are reportedly “mounting up to a staggering €60 billion” (from https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/202412...costs-as-its-credit-rating-takes-a-double-hit ), whereas the UK “in 2024-25 we expect debt interest spending to total £104.9 billion.” (from https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/debt-interest-central-government-net/ ). £105bn is roughly €125bn, so the UK’s interest payments are twice the French despite the lower level of debt.

National debt interest is related to the inflation rate, so increasing rail fares are contributing to the interest payments.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 May 2025 ==

I have many thoughts on fuel duty, but they take us off topic.

Here, we are dealing with a situation in which an experiment was tried, did not justify itself economically, and was dropped. A few months later, with a difficult election cycle looming, the policy has reasserted itself.

There may well be good reasons to reduce fares in this way. But the evidence is that this does not increase custom sufficiently to cover the reduced income per ticket.

You can argue that it’s a reasonable thing to do anyway, for a range of reasons. But what you can’t do is pretend that it’s self sustaining when we have evidence that it’s not.

It’s also worth considering the distribution effects of fares reductions. On average, rail commuting is by the better off. This means that using tax money to reduce fares is a tax cut for the wealthy.

You make some valid points, which is why I personally would prioritise a national railcard making off-peak travel more affordable over scrapping peak times.

However, I have to applaud the Scottish government for introducing a fares reform that is genuinely beneficial to passengers. Compare that to Whitehall's pathetic attempt at fares "reform" on LNER, which leaves passengers with less flexibility and paying more.

I think it's harsh to say that the experiment didn't justify itself economically when the official record shows that it wasn't far off breaking even - that at a time when demand was suppressed for other reasons.

 

[Starmill]

It’s interesting that you believe that other major countries don’t have to pay such large interest payments on debt. Whilst UK national debt is approaching 100% of GDP, this is below levels in France, Italy and Spain and less than half of debt levels in Japan.

I agree entirely, but it's worth noting the Japanese government and central bank have tacitly admitted they are having issues with their bond market which won't be at all easy to solve. I'm sure Japan will be OK in the end as their economy is very productive in some important ways, especially compared with the UK, but I really don't think Japan are a sensible model to follow for a Western country.

 

[yorksrob]

Peak hour travel fare income, including season tickets, is irrelevant here. The universe is the fare income from tickets that would be eligible for discount with the proposed railcard.

I said "up to 34%", not 34%.

Even if only 30% of undiscounted fare income switched to National Railcard, that would be a 10% loss of income on existing travel that would become National Railcard eligible.

To suggest "up to" 34% is misleading because there's no chance of losses reaching it.

The smaller the gap in revenue (assuming there will be one - that's your assumption), the more politically attractive the reduction becomes and the more likely that natural increases in railway use will eat away at the gap.

In that scenario the railcard has got to generate an increase in eligible fare income of a bit more than 10% from new journeys, just to stand still. I don't think that's realistic.

I'm not sure it is unrealistic. If the Network Railcard were withdrawn, it wouldn't surprise me if the railway in the SE area lost 10% of its income.

Given the cost of walk-on travel these days, railcards make the railway affordable.

I think that you overestimate the visibility, not many people travel by train, and you definitely underestimate the cost.

It's often repeated that supposedly "not many people" use the train. Yet the most recent surveys I can think of suggested that over half use the train at least a few times a year. And its funny how the regular fare increases seem to get reported in the newspapers.

High fares have a real effect on peoples cost of living.

As I have already said, what Scotrail are doing is very different to a National Railcard. The balance of revenue loss and gain for peak time travel in Scotland will be very different to the balance of revenue loss and gain for off peak travel over the whole of the network. Just because the Scottish Government have decided to abolish peak time fares says absolutely nothing about the net impact on revenue of a National Railcard for off peak travel..

It is very different in many ways, however it is an example of Government looking beyond an immediate gap in revenue and making rail travel more affordable for passengers.

For many reasons a national railcard would be easier and more justifiable to implement (not losing the peak fares, not encouraging travel on crowded commuter services etc.

You are right there. But the railway isn't "not doing anything", for example it offers lots of cheap advance fares at the least busy times. It isn't perfect, but it is worthwhile.

With modern technology and big data advance fares are far more effective means of matching supply and demand than the very blunt instrument of a National Railcard. Cheap advance fares target the least busy trains, a National Railcard would mainly encourage more use of off peak trains that are already busy, not more use of less busy trains.

Cheap advanced purchase (although they don't seem as cheap as they used to be) have their place, but they're not the be all and end all. People can't always plan their lives weeks in advance and they shouldn't be expected to. The maun competitor of the railway is the motor car and motorists aren't expected to plan their journeys months in advance.

And what about medium distance journeys where one might make a day trip but which are still extortionate (I find this a lot of times making day trips across the North of England). Forcing people onto particular trains is convenient for the railway, but the railway shouldn't be run for its own convenience.

Very rational.

Fuel duty has a direct impact on "price at the pumps" and cost of living for lots of people. Fuel is a big component of inflation. It also has a big second order effect on inflation because it feeds through into distribution costs.

The government is already over-dependent on fuel duty as a source of tax income, and it is likely to become less lucrative in the next few years because of the switch to electric vehicles. It is very rational for government wean itself off fuel duty, not become even more dependent on it.

If you call encouraging people to use a scarce resource, whose supply is reliant on often untrustworthy governments, and whose price is often dictated by the King of Saudi Arabia and Vladimir Putin, "very rational", then so be it.

 

[Starmill]

A national 'trains that don't go to London' Railcard would make some amount of sense to encourage modal shift. Given how much the train is just 'how you get to London' but not a realistic option for local journeys in many areas.

Worthy of discussion in it's own thread?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 May 2025 ==

Worthy of discussion in it's own thread?

Pasted here https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/non-greater-london-railcard.287160/

 

[35B]

You make some valid points, which is why I personally would prioritise a national railcard making off-peak travel more affordable over scrapping peak times.

However, I have to applaud the Scottish government for introducing a fares reform that is genuinely beneficial to passengers. Compare that to Whitehall's pathetic attempt at fares "reform" on LNER, which leaves passengers with less flexibility and paying more.

I think it's harsh to say that the experiment didn't justify itself economically when the official record shows that it wasn't far off breaking even - that at a time when demand was suppressed for other reasons.

Living on LNER turf, I’m certainly not keen on LNER style fares policies! I also applaud attempts to drive modal shift, and to consider the role of fares.

However, I also think that the Scottish experiment does provide useful insights. In particular, it gives us a controlled experiment on price elasticity of demand, and therefore the ability to predict the impact of changes within a constant context. On those results, if underlying demand were higher, then the same relative change in demand would lead to a greater decline in absolute income. That may or may not be a good thing, but it needs to be allowed for to have honest conversations.

That, coming back to railcards, then raises the question of “who benefits”. Given the socioeconomic balance of rail use, that will mean tax subsidies being weighted disproportionately towards the wealthy - so progressive taxation being required to deliver regressive results.

Again, there may be other good reasons for doing this, but having the poor subsidise the rich isn’t a great look

 

[JonathanH]

Again, there may be other good reasons for doing this, but having the poor subsidise the rich isn’t a great look

Indeed, which lends itself to a means tested solution to this issue.

 

[yorksrob]

Living on LNER turf, I’m certainly not keen on LNER style fares policies! I also applaud attempts to drive modal shift, and to consider the role of fares.

However, I also think that the Scottish experiment does provide useful insights. In particular, it gives us a controlled experiment on price elasticity of demand, and therefore the ability to predict the impact of changes within a constant context. On those results, if underlying demand were higher, then the same relative change in demand would lead to a greater decline in absolute income. That may or may not be a good thing, but it needs to be allowed for to have honest conversations.

That, coming back to railcards, then raises the question of “who benefits”. Given the socioeconomic balance of rail use, that will mean tax subsidies being weighted disproportionately towards the wealthy - so progressive taxation being required to deliver regressive results.

Again, there may be other good reasons for doing this, but having the poor subsidise the rich isn’t a great look

I think as has been said elsewhere, passenger profiles are heavily skewed by wealthy peak hour commuters.

Elsewhere, whilst the very low income households probably can't afford to use the railway, the working class are likely in the bracket that are inclined to use the train for leisure. Using a small (in government spending terms) amount of funding to facilitate this sector wouldn't be particularly regressive IMO. Outside of the London commute, a much broader section of society uses the railway.

There's also the danger that the "funding railways is regressive" argument becomes an excuse not to do anything, or even worse cut the service.

Put it another way, the railway already takes a slice of taxpayer funding. Spending a little more to make it affordable for more people towards the lower income bracket would make it less regressive.

 

[Magdalia]

To suggest "up to" 34% is misleading because there's no chance of losses reaching it.

34% is an upper boundary. If there was 100% take up of the railcard from existing travellers then there would be a 34% loss of income on the railcard eligible travel of existing customers. To be at less than 34% you have to be assuming that some existing travellers do not buy the railcard.

It's often repeated that supposedly "not many people" use the train. Yet the most recent surveys I can think of suggested that over half use the train at least a few times a year.

This actually works against your proposal. It makes for a bigger loss of income from existing travellers and leaves a far smaller proportion of the population who are not rail users and could be attracted onto the railway by the railcard offer.

High fares have a real effect on peoples cost of living.

High fares have a real impact on some people's cost of living. Mainly people travelling at peak times who would not be affected by the railcard.

If you call encouraging people to use a scarce resource, whose supply is reliant on often untrustworthy governments, and whose price is often dictated by the King of Saudi Arabia and Vladimir Putin, "very rational", then so be it.

That applies to gas too, but the government is holding the price of that down through the energy price cap. Are you advocating increasing the price of gas too?

It’s interesting that you believe that other major countries don’t have to pay such large interest payments on debt. Whilst UK national debt is approaching 100% of GDP, this is below levels in France, Italy and Spain and less than half of debt levels in Japan.

Interest payments are a product of outstanding debt and interest rate. France, Italy and Spain are all in the Euro area and have lower bond yields, 10 year bonds yield just over 3% in France and Spain and a bit higher in Italy. Japan is a special case with huge investment in government bonds by households, their 10 year bond yields about 1.5%.

If UK households were prepared to lend £billions to the government at 1.5% interest, then the UK government could have Japan's level of debt.

 

[Kilopylae]

Worthy of discussion in it's own thread?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 May 2025 ==


Pasted here https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/non-greater-london-railcard.287160/

Thank you!