Newbury MP skips vote on rail fare cap hours after criticising rising prices

Commuters could be hit with a 6.2 per cent increase in train tickets next year, with season tickets Newbury and Hungerford to London expected to rise above £5,000.
To combat this, last Wednesday, Labour put forward a motion to impose a one per cent above inflation cap on future increases in rail fares.
On the same day Mr Benyon (pictured top right) told the Newbury Weekly News he was ‘concerned about the increasing cost of travelling by train and appreciate the burden this has on commuters’, but failed to vote in the motion, which was defeated by 294 votes to 231.
Mr Benyon said: “I didn’t vote on the Labour opposition day motion because I was involved in ministerial business elsewhere.”
The Newbury MP did not divulge which way he would have voted, but went on to praise the government for investing in rail infrastructure.
“The Government has launched the biggest investment programme in the rail sector since the Victorian era. Earlier this year, the Department for Transport published the Rail Command Paper on the structure of the rail industry as well as a fares review. It aims to cut the costs of the rail sector – as recommended by the McNulty Review – with the ambition of putting inflation-busting rail fares behind us,” he said.
Newbury Labour Party spokesman Richard Garvie (pictured bottom right), who started a petition last week calling on Mr Benyon to oppose the hike in rail prices, said: “Mr Benyon has let down thousands of commuters from all over West Berkshire with his failure to even turn up to a debate on the rail fares issue. As somebody who travels by train on a regular basis, I know just how expensive train travel can be. I know how much the quality of service has reduced on Great Western under First Group and I’m also aware of just how much extra it will cost passengers to travel from January.”
Of the 649 MPs that sit in the House of Commons, 525 were available to vote in the motion.