I don't think it is either. The main thing they want to stop is "petty spat" competition like TPE/Northern, Gatwick and Avanti/LNR from MKC south - those cases where it doesn't add any benefit because the fares are pennies different. Price differentiation to split markets is actually quite effective.
I am pretty sure that the government's
starting point with be that there is one single fare from London to Birmingham, with a different level in a blanket peak. It would certainly make sense with HS2 on the horizon. Why not take the opportunity now to simplify the fares, rather than when HS2 is launched? Whether they are encouraged to retain some of the differentiation is the next step. I am sure that if you had a focus group on railway fares in the general population, they would state that they want there to be one fare without any of the complexity.
That seems to fit with the idea that Grant Shapps talked about of "Our new deal for rail demands more for passengers. It will simplify people’s journeys,
ending the uncertainty and confusion about whether you are using the right ticket or the right train company.".
You could argue that Chiltern / LNR / Avanti offering three fares very much is a "petty spat". The displacement from Birmingham to London is the same in each case. Why not the same price? That is what the (some of the) general public don't understand.
The media have a field day with stuff like this (pages and pages of multiple fares and options)
http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=EUS&dest=BHM
especially when compared to something like this (straightforward peak and off-peak fares)
http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=NCL&dest=SBS
or even this (of comparable distance, actually shorter, and more expensive than London to Birmingham)
http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=STP&dest=LEI
Note that I don't necessarily agree with this - I am lucky not to suffer from uncertainty and confusion about using the right ticket or train company - indeed, a flat fare of, say, £35 off-peak single (and maybe £90 peak single) to travel from London to Birmingham any route as the only fare, would be enough to make me think twice about making a discretionary journey that I might previously have made on Chiltern or LNR - but I think it is the simplicity that people claim to want and the government know that. I don't think it could be argued that £35 single for London to Birmingham is far off what the economic cost is, perhaps it is even a bit cheap.
In any case, I think the Treasury also wants shot of £5, £6 fares from London to Birmingham in the light of what has happened this year to try to increase the yield. They are going to have to have a lot of encouragement to allow fares at those sort of levels to persist.
After all, market differentiation by product (e.g. RE, IR, IC, ICE etc) is more common than not across Europe - at least half of the nationalised operators do that, and there's no particular reason a UK one shouldn't. In essence, HS2 would be ICE, residual Avanti services IC, and Chiltern and LNR both RE. That's also not a very complex thing to clearly print on tickets - much less complex than specific TOCs and routes via places you've never heard of.
We don't have, and will never have, that kind of demarcation as has been noted in the past. It is too complicated for people to understand, especially where the IC train becomes the RE service. I don't see how it satisfies the bold text above.
So, on the topic of enhancing the Chiltern line, yes, it needs electrification in due course but it also needs to scale back ambitions on being a link between London and Birmingham, concentrate on the intermediate journeys (which of course aren't so cheap) and remove the cheap fares from London to Birmingham is part of that.
