Government does not rule out changing planned rail fares price hike after fall-out

The Government has held out the prospect of a change to a scheduled 3.6% average rail fare rise after coming under fire from the Conservative-leaning press over the impact on commuters' wallets.

A Department for Transport spokesperson told The Telegraph in response to its piece attacking "the dawn of the £10,000 commute," referring to the cost of annual commuting from Birmingham to London from January, while a season ticket from Brighton to the capital would increase to nearly £5,000, that it "carefully monitors how rail fares and average earnings change, and keeps under review the way fare levels are calculated".

In The Sun, similarly, the newspaper raged at the rises, saying it "might have been O.K to allow fare rises in line with the retail price index if the low inflation of recent years had continued...but lower-than-inflation wage rises [would mean] rail users will be heavily out of pocket".

The tabloid quoted a Government insider that changes to current Government policy could be made in the Autumn Budget. A spokesman for the Chancellor Philip Hammond refused to rule out a change, The Sun said.