Lord Anthony Berkeley has blasted the current situation with cross-Solent ferry travel in an address to the House of Lords and has called for the Government to introduce regulatory oversight on Isle of Wight ferry companies, ensuring they behave and provide the lifeline services they have committed to.
It was on Monday evening that Lord Berkely raised a ‘Motion to Regret’ in relation to the changes to the Competition Act 1998 during the coronavirus pandemic, stating that it provided an opportunity to discuss the role of competition in ferry services, particularly here on the Isle of Wight – as well as in the Isles of Scilly.
Addressing the House of Lords, Lord Berkeley questioned whether competition laws incentivise or even allow operators to compete and what the difference is between when the temporary coronavirus regulation was in force and now, when it is not.
Lord Berkeley explained the situation Islanders face:
“[There are] two monopolies to the Isle of Wight, providing what the Government seem to agree are lifeline services. There is not much monitoring going on as to whether these are effective. You have to ask what customers can do when these services are seen to be failing. You can ask the carrier, but it will say that it is not interested. You can ask the Department for Transport that will say that these are commercial services that they cannot influence. Customers may then ask what the remedies are if companies are seen to fail. After all, rail services are tightly controlled, as are many bus services, and there is generally competition for air travel in most places.
“Where is the community bit? What about affordability, service quality and frequency, for the NHS and other emergency services? There seems to be no pressure on operators to reduce costs or improve services. Where does the pressure come from? It could come from competition or from a government agency. After all, the Government control rail fares.
“In Scotland, something called a road equivalent tariff is generally applied on fares and charges. To Islay, this is 29 pence per mile. For the Isle of Wight, on the Southampton to Cowes route, it is 96 pence per mile, which is three times higher. The train fares in the UK are very similar, between 10 pence and 30 pence per mile. Unlike rail, the ferry fares are not regulated. There is no transparency about the ferry company costs, what might be a reasonable profit or the use of the Covid-related grant. What can people do?”
It is not just Lord Berkeley who has views over the lack of transparency when it comes to Isle of Wight ferries. Councillor Phil Jordan, the Cabinet member for transport on the Isle of Wight Council, has been quoted as saying:
“We have great concerns over the transparency of the operational factors of ferry companies that, in turn, lead to commercial decisions that take little account of the lifeline service the ferry operators provide, or the human cost involved with such commercial decisions.”
Lord Berkeley noted that Bob Seely MP has voiced support for a public service order and that the Isle of Wight Council has committed in its corporate plan to achieving a public service order on the Solent ferry operators, but not much is known about this. He called on the Minister for Transport to inform where that has got to.
Without mincing his words, Lord Berkeley concluded by saying:
“I do not think that the competition on the Isle of Wight works properly. This failure of competition and governance is clearly having an adverse effect on the economy. Scotland recognises this, but in England I think the Government hope it is all going to go away.
“I would like to hear the Minister’s response to the proposal that there needs to be some kind of regulatory oversight to make sure that the companies behave and provide the lifeline services to which they have committed themselves.
“We have the Office of Rail and Road for the railways and part of the road network; perhaps the remit of that could be expanded to cover ferry services. Maybe it is time for the CMA [Competition & Markets Authority] to be given a remit to examine these issues afresh and, most importantly, keep them under regular surveillance.
“I believe that some urgent action is required to make competition work for the benefit of consumers”.
Baroness Randerson agreed with almost everything said by Lord Berkeley but noted that the Isle of Wight is much closer to the UK mainland than any other Island. She noted that Isle of Wight ferry operators are “proud of the special prices they provide for many local people and for people travelling to health appointments”. However, Baroness Randerson had a warning for cross-Solent operator saying “they probably need to do a great deal more if they are to continue in their situation, because there is talk of a new operator to be set up, run by a local consortium”.
At last hopefully something will be done ! not sure how they are working out the price per mile
but an average fastcat return ticket is about £18 so on an approx 5 mile journey that works out to around £1.80 per mile .if you take the car ferry a day return is approx £60 so £6per mile UNBELIEVABLE !!!
I remember not too many years ago I could take my motorcycle across, anytime, for £8.00 Now it is near 5 times that much… why?? Price seems to double every two years. Can get about 4 motorbikes in a car space, (plus all the areas a car would not fit…) so why not charge one quarter of price of a car? Also, in a car price, you can have up to five passengers, on motorbike passenger( pillion) has to pay !!
same for me, no justification.
The only answer is a fixed link, as regulating them will not solve all the constant delays and cancellations
Totally agree. The time has past when RF & WL offered the islanders cheaper tickets. The only think of money, Jack up the fares at school holidays & public ones. Unless your willing to cross between 3am-6.30 then they rise up to most popular crossing times. The leaflets we all get are like:-
“Here you go island mugs, have a little sweetener to stop you moaning”
When will people wise up & go against them, because our MP won’t!
What makes you think the mainland councils will accept and want a tunnel dug under their houses etc? Not going to happen.
correct – no council on the mainland wants its greenfields turned into a large car park and on/off ramp to a tunnel to the island, which has no economic benefit to that council and its residents. Just more pollution and mess. Never going to happen.
There’s no car park, or ramp, at the end of any mainland tunnel that I know of! No 30 minute check-in! No queuing at all, unless you count the Dartford Crossing at peak times but then the queueing is all on the road, not spilling out over the countryside! Use automatic toll collection and there’s no queuing for toll collection either. IOW resident = low/no cost perhaps!
But then where would we want to pop up? In the middle of Fareham/Gosport or in the middle of the New Forest? Perhaps they could have used the Fawley power station site instead of building more houses to fill up the A326! :-))
Seems the only competition the ferries have is whom can charge the highest per vehicle in the height of summer season.. it mentioned about cheaper tickets at certain times for Island residents.. why do they only give Island residents 10% discount..? Yet NHS and other companies get 40% + discount, when not residing on the Island. Residents should get 50% off all ferries at any time. As it states it is a life line.. this would enable more people to not only get to the mainland but also more could find work there. but again if all the ferries run late and breakdown more often than not, we are stranded, they do not care about Islanders.
A public service order is worthwhile but it doesn’t tackle the issue. The ferry routes need to be licensed with clear service and price conditions. They currently operate without risk of losing anything as customers have no choice, and the refund policy is ineffective. They need to be operating with the risk of losing their license.
I agree but what happens if they do lose their license, or quit because of a large fine?? One would have to give the company at least years’ notice in order to find someone else to replace them.
Who do the ramps and shore facilities belong to???
I think they have us “over a barrel”.
One step closer to a fixed link
Don’t expect Seely to do anything, he has a family member (Patrick) who is a non exec director of Red Funnel. When I emailed him a few months back about the poor service I was getting from Red Funnel, I got an email back from his office giving me loads of waffle about Wightlink.
May I make a suggestion LOOK AT Tha Malta to is baby Island GOZO very very simular to Us BUT THE PRICE. !! WELL i WILL SUGGEST NOT ME
Baroness Anderson needs a geography lesson. Anglesey or Skye for example.
For far to long all the ferry companies have been ripping people off. Why do fares at certain times cost more than others? There is no reason for them to charge so much for such a short journey, the most expensive water crossing on the entire planet. They need seriously looking into to see who is creaming off the profits, they are certainly not putting into anything to help the islanders who are virtual prisoners because of the ridiculous car ferry charges. About time there should be an investigation, bring it on.
Think called supply and demand. Same as hotels and holiday parks and flights. Make money when demand is high and most lose money or almost no profit when there is low demand. Even if lower prices demand doesn’t increase in off peak due to the nature of the island.
How much profit is acceptable to you given money needs to be spent on new ferries etc?
That’s right. I bet almost no one on here has been on an early morning ferry. It costs them a lot of money to run these almost empty services, so they have to recoup that somehow. They’re not charities
And the late night ferries! I’ve been on the main deck with just a few other cars, just one or two supermarket trucks. Clearly not economical but it would be interesting to know what the costs and receipts are for those services.
Shareholders
There’s little point in discussing ferry services without considering other options
How can you have “two monopolies” that’s a contradiction it’s actually a duopoly. If you impose regulatory oversight on Isle of Wight ferry companies then that could lead to more problems as the ferry companies could just cut back on the loss making services and just concentrate on those that turn a profit. After all they are a business and need to make a profit, just as any fixed link would need to do which is currently very unlikely to happen. The only way any form of service obligation is going to be possible is if the tax payers subsidise the service much like the £200 million paid to CalMac which are owned by the Scottish government.
Very well said. At long last someone has recognised there is no regulation. On the railways if network rail are doing engineering works outside Waterloo and have possession of the line between 1am and 5am if they do not get the work done in time and the line cannot re open then network rail receive a very heavy fine i think its something like £1000 for every ten mins that pass. It works the other way to, network rail own the stations, signals tracks etc. If the train operator whoever that may be are running late because of say staff issues then network rail fine the operator for running services late again £1000 for every ten mins that pass.
I tried making an official complaint to Red Funnel regarding their inability to sort out customer accounts following a hack over a year ago. They have so far totally ignored the complaint. Says it all really…
Who are these people? She sounds well informed, is someone feeding her the lines?
We are basically prisoners to our own homes & island as the fares are way too expensive we don’t get an islander discount Instead we get vouchers half of which have restricted times, days can be used on and amount of usages which is bloody useless. We have no other way to leave the island apart from a ferry so its about time we get a heavy discount, compensating, treated with respect and not utter rudeness.They have a pointless timetable which is utter joke as they run and leave when they choose too which is comical and a absolute disgrace. Stop this greedy gain and unfairness to islanders.
I don’t want a fixed link but I can not see a better solution. The ferry companies are forcing it on to us with their constant price rises and cancelled ferries. 20 years ago I never needed to book a ticked. I could just rock up, buy a ticket, and be on the next ferry. Now it’s like planning the D Day landings getting to the mainland. it was easier to get across the solent in the 70’s that it is now.
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Good for him. At last someone who obviously cares about the Island and it’s inhabitants