It’s time to end the ferry rip-off punishing coastal Britain
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4 min read
For island and coastal communities, ferries are not discretionary alternatives, but the only viable route to work, education, health services and family
The United Kingdom is a nation of islands, but we rarely speak about the hundreds of thousands of citizens for whom crossing the water is a necessity.
Around 750,000 people live on islands beyond the mainland – from the Isles of Scilly to Orkney – and they all rely on ferries. Commuters on the mainland UK also rely on ferries to cross rivers. These services are lifelines yet, unlike those on land, there is no national framework of regulation. Instead, it is a patchwork from the publicly owned and subsidised Scottish ferries to the entirely unregulated and private equity-controlled Isle of Wight ferries.
This public transport anomaly is why I introduced the Ferry Services (Integration and Regulation) Bill, supported by MPs from five parties, in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
On the mainland, government recognises that transport is a public necessity. Even privately run rail operators must work within defined fare and service expectations, publish performance data, and respect obligations to the travelling public. In fact, the Transport Secretary recently celebrated her rail fare freeze in the Budget. Buses, too, operate under regulatory constraints designed to protect connectivity and are subsidised via the £3 fare cap. Both receive taxpayer subsidy precisely because they underpin social and economic cohesion and both are being subjected to further government intervention to put “passengers above profit” in the words of Heidi Alexander.
There is no ferry fare freeze in the Budget, however. People travelling to the Isle of Wight by car are subject to a dynamic pricing model meaning the prices go up when people want to travel. Up to £400 to take a car back and forth across a five-mile stretch of water. There is no ferry fare freeze because the government has no powers to intervene. That is why I am asking Parliament to legislate.
Fares that rival the cost of international flights for a five-mile crossing
For island and coastal communities, ferries are not discretionary alternatives, but the only viable route to work, education, health services and family. Local economies rely on the movement of people and visitors. I have seen the consequences first-hand. Fares that rival the cost of international flights for a five-mile crossing. Reduced frequency of boats even as prices rise. Indeed it makes business sense to run fewer more expensive crossings where consumers are held captive through lack of choice.
It is not in the interest of those island populations, though. Long gaps between services that have knock-on damage with missed connections on onward public transport. This is sadly a predictable result of a market with prohibitive entry barriers (the Isle of Wight ferry companies own the only viable ports), opaque commercial practices, and no regulatory anchor. It is little wonder then that private equity groups have swooped in and bought up these companies, loaded them with debt and hiked prices. There is a role for private equity in building national infrastructure projects, but they should not be operating small ferry routes in an unregulated market with no effective competition.
My bill proves that this experience is echoed far beyond the Solent. Crucial river crossings across our nation connecting urban centres report the same pattern of unreliable, expensive, poorly integrated ferry services that sit outside the standards expected elsewhere in our transport system. Their ownership structure may vary but passenger experience is often the same. My bill seeks to align ferry regulation with existing principles applied to bus and rail – for many communities, this would be transformative. But I have also presented the government with an alternative: create new powers in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill and hand those powers to Combined Mayoral Authorities within their strategic transport powers.
The government now has a choice – treat ferry passengers as full citizens in our transport ecosystem or continue to leave them as the most overlooked travellers in the UK.
Joe Robertson is Conservative MP for Isle of Wight East
