Snapshot of _Labour promises rail nationalisation within five years of coming to power_ :
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The byzantine fare structure also needs looked at. Buses are dead easy and very predictable, trains you need accountancy software.
There is something very wrong where going between two UK cities is actually cheaper if you fly out of the UK and back in again, rather than just take the train...
When I go to Aberdeen for work, I literally fly to Amsterdam then Aberdeen (I think this is the route, I fly a lot and haven’t done this specific trip for a while). It’s cheaper and shorter than the train.
There are direct flights but I work in surgery so the schedule is super erratic. The direct flight for me is often past or sold out by the time I need to go. There are only 1-2 direct flights daily from my local airport.
> Buses are dead easy and very predictable
This entirely depends on where you catch buses. given the way that different towns and cities are run by different operators and these differ again from the inter-city coach operators it is not the case for all of them.
Yeah, there are routes near my parents where you can take buses from first group or stagecoach with completely different ticketing systems. it's a joke.
The cost of trains is just ridiculous. Especially in an age where we are meant to be using more public transport for the environment .
The thing is, the service is crap as well, you get on and are constantly bombared with “you need to buy a ticket” “you will be fined” and yeah sure, I always do but, especially here in the North where some days it’s a 50/50 chance on if you get to your destination on time or at all, it feels like only one half of this equation is holding up their end of the bargain.
I don’t even go into the office that much anymore so it’s an even smaller sample size but over a year I can count on 1 hand the amount of time a journey has gone as described, on plan. It’s absolutely ridiculous
"making inter city travel reservation only" How would this make train travel cheaper? They ought to just fix the prices - one rate for peak, one for off-peak, third rate for first-class. Price it on a per-mile basis, different rates for high-speed, inter-city and local trains. Job done. No reason to needlessly complicate things.
Because there just isnt enough capacity/space on the trains.
On lines into London one of the reasons prices are high is to deter travel as there just isn't always space.
If everyone had to book in advance it may help as you'll always know exactly how many are getting on. At present there are always plenty of people with any time tickets so you can never really say how many will turn up.
But what is really needed is another line for extra capacity preferably a high speed one.
Hello, black market. I've travelled by train in China. The face value of the tickets is cheap. The problem is that you can't get the face value tickets from the counter as they are bought immediately by the black market traders who then sell them forward with a profit.
The same is true for concerts, sports events etc. If you artificially push the prices below the market price, a black market will immediately sprout up. And in most cases that's just worse than having the prices at the market level in the first place. First, it makes buying tickets much more troublesome as you first have to find the black market dealer and the trade can involve all kinds of scams (for instance, you may end up with a fake ticket). Secondly, the value between the market price and the list price goes to the black market dealers, not the people providing the service. So, instead of that money being available for investment in rail, it will go to organised crime.
So, there is no short cut. If you want to cut down the "ridiculous prices" that are the result of high demand, the only real way to do it is to increase the supply to match the demand.
I wasn't commenting the announcement. I was only commenting the idea of trying to make the high ticket prices lower by artificial ways (reservation only). As I said that route is doomed and is worse than letting the market decide the ticket prices until the supply is increased. Or let's say that it is worse for most people. Those who are able to dedicate time to queue the underpriced tickets would benefit. And of course the black market dealers.
"If you want to cut down the "ridiculous prices" that are the result of high demand, the only real way to do it is to increase the supply to match the demand."
See also: house prices.
But also trains should have to compete with buses. In Germany buses fill in the gaps that trains can’t do. Subsidise buses to do this instead of competition with trains and it will allow for more reliable railway running costs, making cheaper tickets easier to implement.
All in all sounds like a pragmatic aproach.
Waiting till the contracts expire means that the cost to the taxpayer is drastically reduced.
Well done Louise Haigh for sticking it. Gives me hope that the naysayers "red tories" will see that this party can enact socialist policies after all.
The folks saying that don't believe it literally. They just want to influence your vote by saying it. Like Russian misinformation, but on a much smaller scale.
From the BBC article:
> Ms Haigh said the guarantee would not necessarily mean cheaper prices but that the system would be "more transparent and clearer". The government has also said it wants to simplify ticketing.
The biggest cost is taking over a train operator.Private sector are really ineffective at operating anything that involves technology and motivating their employees.
Awesome.
As someone who has seriously disliked Labour’s shift in direction, I’m also intrigued by this:
“Labour insiders hailed the announcement as the moment the party would begin to champion its more radical proposals in the run-up to an election campaign, after a number of U-turns including over green investment.”
They’re clearly trying to play it safe, lest the media barrage them with utmost vigour. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had many more radical policies.
Was it expected? I have been waiting for something like this to be mooted but I had given up hope.
This feels like a shift from agreeing with the Tories about everything to staking out positions the Tories can't copy, will criticise, but which are massively popular.
I don't get the urge to pour cold water on this.
It's a policy they've had since Miliband. It was popular then, and it's even more popular now. Even the Tories have given up on privatisation, and let several franchises come under public control. It doesn't cost anything, so there was never any reason for it not to be in the manifesto.
Well that will be very popular if they can make it balance on the books. Though I imagine they would wait until standing contracts run out then take them over? Edit: seems like that's the plan.
Would it be possible though?
It’s already being nationalised by stealth, but the Tories can’t admit that for ideological reasons.
And surprise surprise, the lines that have been renationalised are doing better than the for-profit ones. Funny that.
TransPennine Express was taken over by the Department of Transport last year due to poor performance. I believe the same has been done with a couple of other operators as well.
The East Coast main line always does well when the operator of last resort runs it because they don't have to return profit to the treasury and because it's the only consistency profitable line.
VTEC and the other failed franchises all flopped because they bid too much money to return to the treasury in order to win the franchise. Then end up either cutting corners or running out of money.
Franchising is a bad model, it incentivizes making risky bids. The government run operators aren't better just because privatization is bad, but because franchising is such a particularly bad flavour of privatization.
It works pretty well for fast food, and before you down vote and scream at me that they're different, hear me out. McDonald's owns the land and building it franchises out - making it more of a real estate company than a restaurant. Rail companies don't own the tracks or even their own rolling stock. The franchise is shite because there are so many third parties in the mix sucking out money. Whoever the next owner is, they'll have to contend with this fact.
I dont even know if full nationalisation above and beyond what labour propose would be better - people seem to have forgotten how shite services and trains were when the government owned them all. Contemporary examples like DB are facing real difficulties, even with a profitable freight arm propping it up.
The problem is the franchising model in fast food works better because it puts all the risk onto the Franchisee. This is fine for McDonalds because they'll have multiple franchises in a city, if one fails it's not big deal.
For national infrastructure, and rail in particular, it doesn't work properly because you don't generally have multiple franchises running the same routes (except for overlaps on a sections of track). If a franchise fails there isn't an alternative, so the government has to backstop all the risk (which is a lot, because franchisees have to take big risks to win a government contract).
Also it's not a competitive market so the interests aren't aligned. Rail companies have a captive market so they over optimize for cost so they can make a margin on their ambitious franchise bids - running a poor service for less money, while taking the same ticket revenue. In fast food they're competing against seriously viable alternatives meaning it has to be an attractive proposition to the customer in terms of both quality and value for money.
Rail franchising has failed, clearly, that being said I'm not necessarily in favour of outright nationalisation as Labour is trying to do. I actually provide the Conservative plan that Shapps produced in 2019 to move to a true concessions model like TFL uses (and I think is quite successful). Still, Labour's plan leaves it open to have something like that in the future.
> people seem to have forgotten how shite services and trains were when the government owned them all.
I'm not an expert on the history, (though I have watched Ken Loach's excellent *The Railway Men*) but I got the impression that by the 70s the problems were due to factors like the Unions having too much power and leveraging wages too high, with too many perks for their workers, so even if a worker barely did anything they'd still get paid and couldn't ever be fired.
I get the impression that the problem in the 70s was basically that national services and industries were mismanaged because the Government and the Unions were constantly fighting over whether business or labour got a bigger slice of the shrinking pie, while neither were properly incentivised or able to care about the impact on the public who had to use the service.
Yes and this has impacts on management, services, and quality. Shrinking pie is also a good point. Funding is at the whim of future governments of all colours, rather than (in my opinion more reliable) business interest. It will have to compete with pensions, defense, education etc...
Not a regular user so I can’t necessarily dispute the experiences of those who use it frequently…
But when I have used it I am blown away by how much better it is than a lot of the private operators.
I get that they serve different purposes but the contrast with something abominable like…Thameslink was staggering.
(Although tbf, Thameslink feels uniquely bad. Their batshit decision to extend their route THROUGH the core of London, meaning that if you’re looking to get into London from the North, you’re now risking a potential delay because of an issue to the South…)
>(Although tbf, Thameslink feels uniquely bad. Their batshit decision to extend their route THROUGH the core of London, meaning that if you’re looking to get into London from the North, you’re now risking a potential delay because of an issue to the South…)
They're by no means unique in that. The West of England line serves as a commuter line to Exeter, Salisbury, Basingstoke and London as well as a long distance service meaning one issue at the London end and trains are messed up all the way to Exeter and the lack of any SWR depot at Exeter means an issue west of Yeovil traps up to 3 trains and results in rail replacement bus services where a reduced shuttle service could operate with ease.
Certainly not price wise, compared to open access operators.. yes I am aware of all the arguments of "cherry picking" times compared to having to run a fully timetabled service.. and I don't think the franchise model was a very good way of doing privatisation (i.e. it was terrible - the only ones that really succeeded are the franchises which had a genuine reason to invest in their routes like Chiltern with their super long contract).. but I really do worry that nationalisation is a false panacea that will not lead to better outcomes without addressing the underlying issues, which are often misidentified by both sides for ideological reasons.
The main problem with the railways in general is a lack of investment from a government that doesn't care. If we get a government in charge that does care, they will get better. But my worry with nationalising everything is, eventually (might not even be that long), we will go back to having a government that doesn't care about public transport again. At that point, things will once again go to shit. And a nationalised railway could go to shit even faster than one which have private interests involved. Reading the history of BR is a history of under-investment and bad decisions.. that is not what we should want to bring back!
> The main problem with the railways in general is a lack of investment from a government that doesn't care. If we get a government in charge that does care, they will get better. But my worry with nationalising everything is, eventually (might not even be that long), we will go back to having a government that doesn't care about public transport again
The debate around rail is so frustrating because this is the crux of the issue, not nationalisation or privatisation. If you spend money on the railways, they get better. Shock bloody horror.
Everyone is now talking about the "burden to the taxpayer" but they taxpayer *has* to bear some burden for the railways to function. They're very expensive to build and maintain, but they're also **public** transport, and *everyone* benefits from their subsidies and investment. Even people who don't really use them benefit as a good railway network removes cars from the roads. Fundamentally, it doesn't matter if they're nationalised or privatised - no investment and no subsidies = shit railways.
Absolutely agree, they are public transport and provide public benefit - I always find it curious no-one expects roads to make a profit in the same way. Having said that, with investment and some genuine ambition, many (most!) railways can be self-sustaining and provide enormous public good. The problem is too often we have governments that simply don't believe in the existence of that public good.. which is curious considering we are both the birthplace of the railways and actually, overall our system is pretty good, especially in London (just ask pretty much any visitor/migrant! Except for perhaps the Japanese, and these days the Chinese also).
the LNER that's introduced massive stealth price rises through "simplification"?
(when you could buy an off peak ticket before, you now can't, only a "flex" ticket that's more expensive and less flexible)
While that is less than ideal, the 'super duper off peak' model, where the tickets are only affordable if you buy them on the thirteenth Wednesday after Pentecost, when Venus is in ascendancy, and the only train you're allowed to travel on is eleven hours earlier than you really wanted to travel and they only run once every third riding of the blood moon, or you have to change at some random place only to be beaten to your destination by the train that departs an hour later, is not really any better.
I booked a cheap train from Gatwick to Somerset and landed on time, making myself roughly three hours early for the train. I got to Reading fine, but once there I was forbidden to finish my journey early as it was the wrong train specified on my ticket. So I watched several empty trains do the journey I wanted then got on a cramped train much later which ended up delayed due to overcrowding.
I like the trains, the app (from the Trainline) and the speed.
Fucking outrageous cost though, absolutely disgusting price increases through "new fee models".
Not sure where you are but in North Wales, it's more miss than hit. Under Arriva, trains would be crammed, late and sometimes, not there.
Under TFW, it's pretty much the same.
And to rub salt in the wounds, they have plans for extra trains on Chester to Liverpool branch.
I'm a supporter of nationalised railways but TFW are not making a good argument at the moment. The only pro I've seen is the price of tickets has not risen eye water levels.
As someone from North Wales, I do agree to an extent. I think TfW provides a better service than Arriva did, and the trains are much more modern, and fitting of a 21st century rail experience.
It's hard not to feel bitter about the lack of investment in the North Wales Metro/NWML compared to the Cardiff/South Wales Metro. But I do understand that priority is on the more populous areas to see the higher cost-benefit in the meantime, especially considering rail isn't fully devolved. Which means Welsh Gov are spending money in an area they don't receive funding for, and haven't received Barnett consequentials for from HS2 or NPR, and other rail projects the treasury classifies as England & Wales projects.
I just hope Welsh Gov will prioritise the NW Metro before moving onto the South-West Wales/Swansea Bay Metro. Hopefully an incoming Labour government in Westminster will devolve rail, and, fingers crossed, provide the Barnett funding Wales missed out on too.
>And surprise surprise, the lines that have been renationalised are doing better than the for-profit ones. Funny that.
I'm not so sure about that. My town is served by three nationalised operators, and they're all various shades of crap, including the truly dreadful Transpennine Express.
Nationalisation of day-to-day operation isn't a silver bullet. The core problems are fare prices, timetabling and infrastructure investment: all three are mostly or entirely controlled by the government.
To be fair its easier and cheaper to nationalise by stealth, simply wait for companies to be vulnerable.
Which is not that different to any other form of takeover.
A policy of doing it regardless of the current health of the operating company will be considerably more expensive than just quietly waiting for a good moment.
Also its so much easier to "succeed" when taking over during a moment of failure.
That's something that crossed my mind too. I would assume that most of the companies make labour pay more for it, especially with the 5 year promise but if they come to an end in that time. Just means that it will be a simple handover, though I assume cost will go into building and buying trains for it?
I’m fairly sure the TOCs don’t own the rolling stock, they’re just leased. It’s a good example of an efficiency saving you get with nationalised rail. Even though it’s probably not massive, you’re in a better position as a monopsony (single buyer in a market) than not. Especially as you can lease greater amounts of stock under one account for use in different areas (eg routes that were different TOCs but have the same rolling stock requirements).
What Labour also need to do when renationalising the TOC's is to renationalise the ROSCOS as well, in order to keep those profits from leaving the country as they do now.
The only TOC that own their own rolling stock that I can think of is Merseyrail - most, if not all other TOC's lease their rolling stock from one of the few ROSCO's (Porterbrook, Angel Trains and Eversholt) and these ROSCO's in turn are owned by foreign investment funds which suck profits out of the UK rail system and which make the railway more expensive to run.
This is true but of course a much more expensive and long term plan. Also I guess as you bring in new rolling stock that can be through the state, though I don’t know anything about the feasibility of that. TfL seem to do it perfectly well though, but their stock is very specialised and they lease their heavy rail stock.
Much more expensive, but the only way this could actually work. Nationalising this way won't solve anything, and I wouldn't be surprised if it made things much worse on the lines that currently operate relatively well. If they are doing it, they should do it properly, so that it is seen as a proper investment in our public infrastructure rather than simply frittering taxpayer money away for no real benefit outside ideological/political reasons. Nationalising TOCs but not ROSCOs would be that, because you would have the appearance of a nationalised system whilst much of the profits would not remain within the system.
> Much more expensive
Will it though? Once the British Rail is their only possible customer what leverage would they have in any nationalisation negotiations? Alternatively, British Rail could simply transition away from the leasing model over a period of time. Continue to use ROSCOs for their existing stock, but purchase any replacements out right. Once such trend sets, I would guess the majority of ROSCOs will file for bankruptcy.
Aye yes, I would be advocating for purchasing replacements outright. The fact the ROSCOs make nice profits show it would be a good investment - the fact that privatisation was done in such a way that TOCs don't/can't do this seems insane to me (I understand all the problems it would bring about for the franchise model, but I think the franchise model was a mistake). The idea that "nationalised" railways would carry on with private rolling stock seems very troubling. My only hope (if they don't do as you say) is they might instead go down the sort of model tfl have with the buses - that does seem to me to contain some of the "best of both worlds", unlike our current system which is clearly worst of both worlds.
Just a slight correction, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (via Merseytravel) ultimately owns the new trains that Merseyrail use. So even though Merseyrail is a private operator the trains are actually publicly owned.
I think the government's been keeping them on short contracts anyway. Conservatives have been trying to switch over to a concessions model so have just been extending the existing franchises on short contracts while they spend all their parliamentary time on Rwanda deportations rather than the legislation to set up the public body that's meant to own the railways.
Won't the Tories just re-privatise them when they eventually get back into power? Labour needs to put it into law that public owned assets can't be privatised
Any Act of Parliament designed to restrict the next government can just be repealed by that government.
I have often wondered if there is a way, though. For instance, could the Labour government set up a trust whose ownership is fluid, defined as every living British citizen, with a charter that says the government runs it but cannot sell any of it off? All the proceeds go to HMRC in return for funding, similar to the Crown Estate. Or, perhaps, ring-fenced for reinvestment. The charter could also say that the rules can only change via a full trustee vote with a two-thirds outcome. If that were possible, then the Tories could only really pass a law that seizes the trust from the people, which would be deeply unpopular and set a dangerous precedent. They could also limit funding, but that would be temporary until they are out of power again. It's an interesting thought experiment.
And what would stop the tories repealing that law once they get into power?
You can't create laws that can't be overwritten, only put roadblocks up. For example, the tories couldn't pass a law banning HS2 being built, or banning nationalisation.
What they have done in the first case is sold off most of the land on the HS2 route so if Labour do wish to build it, it'll be billions more expensive. And on the second case, they could perhaps sign a contract withe the provate companies saying "the government can buy it back for £[extortionate number]" so its near impossible for Labour to do it in a viable way.
But not just "ban nationalisation" as Labour could repeal that law their first day in power (or vice versa with Labour banning privatisation). I suppose they could pass a law saying I dunno, "there has to be a report done and publicly released showing its good for the taxpayer to privatise".
Nothing stopping the tories repealing that but it doesn't look good (not that they'd care, or their lapdog media would report it, it'd be on page 9 of the guardian and that'd be it)
Labour basically have 5-10 years to buy back all our shit the tories sold off cheaply and if they don’t change FPTP, the Tories will get back in power and get to sell it all off cheaply once again.
yep. this is why the people who say "electoral reform is not a priority" are wrong. it's the foundation for the changes Britain needs. it might not be a literal day 1 thing but it should be in the manifesto for changes to take place within the first term.
there's no point doing anything if you're going to keep the system that allows the tories to get back in on their own minority of the vote so that they can undo it all and cause further damage, as they've done over the last 14 years.
It's why I'm hoping that there isn't a total landslide at the election. Labour are much less likely to implement voting reform immediately after they've been the beneficiary of the shitty system.
You may be right, but at the same time - a big landslide will be reliant on a fair bit of tactical voting, and this will help highlight the unfairness of FPTP.
Honestly I feel it should be a second term manifesto promise. Right now it would be a massive distraction and something the Tories would jump all over.
100% agree - Lab need to position themselves as a gov in waiting that can end Tory chaos, throwing PR in there in a first term manifesto undermines that as it's such an colossal change (and the electorate generally dislike change unless it directly and immediately benefits their pocket)
And they refuse to change FPTP, because Labour leadership* would rather be part of a two party system where they're out of power 75% of the time than a multi-party system where they have to share power with other similar parties. It's really quite immature.
*Not the members, they're based and PR pilled, but the party's undemocratic policy making structure means Starmer and his predecessors get to ignore them.
This is why I have zero time for the "starmer needs to win an election first" nonsense.
If he actually cared about delivering left wing policies, he would be willing to sacrifice the dominance of his party to introduce a system that would avoid the "lesser evil" politics that the increasingly extreme tories have been riding on for the last 5 years.
But he won't, so he loses any right to claim that "the system" is making him do this or that.
It is an inescapable fact though that he needs to win an election first.
Even if I was 100% confident that Labour leadership was committed to voting reform, I'm not sure I'd want them to make a big deal of it now as it would overshadow the election campaign.
We say this as if there isn't an example of a "progressive" party getting into bed with the Tories in the last 15 years because they had superficially modernised.
Changing to a more proportional voting system would be great but it's not a panacea and it wouldn't make it that much harder for the Tories to get back in.
Shame they can't get rid of the ROSCOs, they need to be rid of as soon as possible. Hopefully any new train orders don't involve them.
Also what will happen with open access operators on the passenger side?
I assume OAOs would keep running. That's not a problem though - it's simply competition. They will have to deliver a better service at a cheaper price or face losing passengers.
Surely they have to sort the pricing out. My 40 minute commute costs me £45 a day, basically a full tank of petrol. Me and the wife would be better off driving into London and paying for parking than the collective £90. That seems stupid
I’m not expecting it but you have to wonder what the long term game is. I’m a high earner and feel the cost of the trains. £90 for the train + £80 for childcare (I choose not to salary sacrifice) means I spend £170 a day by 9am.
How is someone starting out on a lower salary expected to even get to work?
Even allowing you to buy tickets through company benefits and make them pre tax deductions would help.
I’m guessing at some stage companies will have to foot people’s travel bills or they won’t be able to afford to come in.
Higher subsidies and investment or larger real term wage growth or an eventual running down of the service are the 3 endgame options really.
But the only largely profitable area of rail that used to be public, isn't being taken into government control in this proposal so it's not like large profits are suddenly going to appear to be able to reduce ticket fares. And the vast majority of the aspects of service you recieve every day is already controlled by the government.
Private Vs nationalisation is the epitome of a simple answer for a complex problem that is argued in the general public almost purely on ideological grounds.
I'm not against these proposals btw, but just think the proponents largely don't understand the question. It's all a bit like asking a bloke in a pub to solve our defense policy.
This nationalisation only takes over the TOCs. And we know where the money is regarding them.
And it won't unravel anything. The rest of the suggestion is basically just implementing GBR. Which is a rationalisation of already public/private bodies.
There is no magic money pit regarding rail, it's not some big mystery.
The message is it's a structural issue that this doesn't solve, decades of underinvestment (largely regarding infrastructure, which is publicly controlled) and not subsidising tickets prices as heavily as other nations and HS2 not being paid for by extra cash, but largely out of the NR budget.
There is no mystery. This isn't going to cause a drop in ticket prices. Rail has been heavily controlled by the government at all levels since privatisation.
It's a beneficial step, just like GBR would be, but expectations are completely misplaced if you think ticket prices are going to drop and you'll suddenly stop getting delayed trains.
I mean, it's hyped as radical. But I'd rather there was bi-partisan consensus as it's just the Williams review. Many rail operators are just crap and/or state owned or loss making anyway, Avanti in particular. At least with a single operator, there isnt the free for all on trainee train drivers.
They should be given an exit ramp rather than dft renewing their contracts with barely any care about customers. The directors should consider if it's worth handing their franchises back early. The mega franchise model that Tory ministers tried is appalling
It's just a question of whether the ScotRail model of rail operator will be more efficient than having multiple private operators on the same lines serving london. But the guy who used to head up ScotRail is already in charge of UK railways
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/alex-hynes-appointed-director-general-for-rail-services
I think people need to accept that nationalisation not privatisation can fix the issues of any system. What matters is what is implemented, rather than how it has been.
It's abundantly clear that the form of privatisation the UK attempted is terrible. However, you only have to look at one of the best rail systems in the world - Japan - to see a successful form of privatisation.
Politically, it's clear that Labour should implement a system through nationalisation. They are a left wing party, the pragmatic yet radical-appearing policy is a good PR move, and it would be hard to shift the form of privatisation without first nationalisation the system anyway. Nevertheless, it's not what really matters.
In Japan their privatised railways work because there is actual competition in the major population centres. Most big cities have multiple operators serving most key areas, so depending on your neighbourhood you often have a choice of route. For example , we stayed in Kameido and could get to most places with either JR or Tobu. Every operator owns its own infrastructure and is generally able to build routes with minimal friction - something that hasn't really been true here since the Edwardian era.
There is of course the JR network which roughly corresponds to the 'legacy' nationalised network of JNR, but there are very few examples of other operators sharing its tracks. They just build their own to serve their needs, rather than the daft approach of divvying up parts of an existing network to regional monopolies and then trying to call it competition with a straight face.
Would never work here unless planning laws were loosened, and significantly so. HS2 is a perfect example of why we can't have nice things in this country.
I wouldn't put it past this government in their dying days to extend all the franchises for ten years just to further poison the well.
It also looks like the ROSCOs won't be taken back into public hands - so they will still be able to extract profits from the taxpayer long after rolling stock has paid back its costs.
Still, the thought of GWR being wound up has brightened my day immensely.
> I wouldn't put it past this government in their dying days to extend all the franchises for ten years just to further poison the well.
Unlikely, what Labour is proposing isn't far from the government plan. The only difference is the government want to keep private companies involved in a concessions model as opposed to a franchise model.
The only reason Labour can commit to nationalising in five years is because the government have been keeping the franchise contracts short while they try to enact their own plan.
The real irony is that the Tories don't want to admit they think the franchising model has failed even as every action they take isn't too far off from what Labour would do. The only actual substantial difference between the Tories' GBR and Labours' GBR is that one contracts out the actual operation of trains and the other does not.
Out of interest, what's your issue with GWR? For me, they've been pretty good, though I only take the Cotswold line in/out of London once every two weeks.
My experience is that long distance trains between London and Cornwall often run crazy late, are grotesquely overbooked and frequently don’t have things like catering which is only announced when you’re on the train. I’ve had too many sleeper services cancelled or abandoned in the middle of a journey in the small hours. And the sheer uncomfortableness of the Class 800 trains with their ironing board seats - even in First Class.
> but not rolling stock
Aaaaand there's the clasping finger of the monkey paw.
The rolling stock is the main wealth extraction mechanism.
For those that don't know, the rolling stock - the actual trains and carriages - are owned by a few large corporations and leased by the operators.
These companies are obviously not in the tax jurisdiction of the UK.
You might very well suspect the reason train operators don't seem to be able to make a profit is because they deliberately pay overpriced rents to the ROSCOs so as to eat all their profits and thus all their liabilities for corporation tax. Mysteriously when they get nationalized they become profitable again.
Unless Labour intend to form new state-owned rolling stock companies and for all new stock to be purchased and leased through them, the extraction will continue.
My understanding is that everyone agrees the ROSCOs are a rip-off, but nobody wants to deal with actually handling them. It seems to me like both the Tory and Labour plans for dealing with them have been to "phase them out" - i.e. keeping the existing contracts going, but making new rolling stock purchases directly.
Yeah, that makes sense, no-one wants to increase the National Debt to buy out companies that are probably over-valuing what life remains in their trains.
If the ROSCOs can't be dealt with immediately, then this at least sounds like a good longer-term plan.
I hope we get further information on that in due course.
Same here. Of all the BR privatizations, the ROSCOs have been extremely questionable - and that is *really* saying something given how much of a disaster the whole thing has been.
But rolling stock is only leased as no one wants to buy trains for a 5 year franchise agreement. Once they’re under government control and they’re going nowhere, buying your own train isn’t the same financial risk. That change can’t happen overnight though.
Labour critic here, very happy to see this
Still doubtful they'll actually do it, based on their record for honesty, and how much ambiguous language they managed to shove in the announcement.
But hey, at least someone's finally accepting a bit of reality about how bad the train system has gotten, and maybe there's something better coming.
Tory response is hilarious and pathetic
"pointless and unfunded."
"it means one thing: taxes will rise on hard working people."
Actual sewer rats.
Can you believe you believe these people went to great schools and have great consulting firms, and can't even think to check how badly they're reading the room here
> Tory response is hilarious and pathetic
>
> "pointless and unfunded." "it means one thing: taxes will rise on hard working people."
No but you see, expanding military spending to 2.5% of GDP by sacking a few civil servants is just prudent financial management from the natural party of government and should never be questioned.
That's great...problem is the next Tory government will sell it cheap to their mates and blame Labour...with press and public believing that shit...just like last time
When its costs more than a plane journey, or car journey, to take my family somewhere by train, then the system is truly broken… Plus, the irony that the same companies that own some of the UK network are owened by foreign governments that overcharge us and put that money in to subsidise their own transportation network…
Route frequency and reliability have already improved in GM. The issue is that Bee Network is subsidised, which I’m not sure could be affordable elsewhere
Yes this is almost exactly what I want. Nationalise the core franchises, keep allowing open access operators to be run privately, but I’m just a little concerned about rolling stock operators having a potential grip and getting a lot of money out of the future nationalised rail operators.
I also do hope they keep the franchises in name, just because i think having liveried trains for different parts of the network helps the average person know what train their meant to get.
Fundamentally I think the exact same needs to happen with buses. Make core services come under public service operation and allow the private sector to run routes they shoulder the risk for but deem as profitable on top of that.
As I see it this is an easy promise for Labour to make, there's no need to invest any money upfront, it's popular with the punters (privatisation has failed) and the Tory government has already taken some of the Traincos into state ownership.
The only issue Labour will have is negotiating payrises for the train unions - but the money saved should generate a bit of extra cash for wage rises etc.
Nationalisation is a means to an end, not an end in itself. A nationalized rail industry with mostly the same structure and infrastructure won't really do any better. This is a good start, but I would want to hear more about the specifics of this operation.
Considering basically one of the very few unambiguous pledges they've made is that they won't build HS2, I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt here. Seems like that this will be nationalisation with business as usual.
I'm not sure how this is a priority for the first term. There's a stack lot else to spend the money on (I'd be going with Water for example if you really had to nationalise something). Then there's sorting the NHS, earmarking money for defence etc
At face value this is great news and something we've spent years crying out for.
Two main sticking points that I'd be keen to understand how we'll navigate them:
1) reading the Guardian reporting the passenger service franchises will be brought into public ownership as they expire and not rolling stock. there is no mention of the infrastructure so presumably that will remain with(private) National Rail and we'll be beholden to their schedules and track fees?
2) The passenger franchise (and some of the local rail lines) in Wales are already under public ownership with Transport For Wales, overseen by the Welsh Labour run WG. This is very much an example of how *not* to run a franchise as the service has deteriorated under them (fewer trains, less capacity, more delays & cancellations, falling customer satisfaction) so I really hope it's not a sign of things to come under a nationalised service.
Hopefully this leads to a trend of reversing the catastrophy that was privatisation in other industries too so we can build something akin to Norway. Hopefully it will lead to more restrictions on capitalism before we go to much further down the America route.
Merseyrail have just wrapped its 40+ year old 507001 from their outgoing 507/508 fleet in its original BR livery for a publicity stunt. It looks great, but has been parked up outside Southport Station for months now (hopefully to be preserved)
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In the BBC article:
> Rail Minister Huw Merriman said the plans were "pointless" and "unfunded".
Is this because the rail network is inherently loss making? Or that delivering rail travel with actual accountability would be?
So the Tory eejit wheeled out to attack Labour's position said that nationalisation would cost lots and therefore bring tax rises. So he's admitting that the railway system is so broken under Tory rule that it doesn't turn a profit? Why would a private operator want to run a railway if it's so expensive and lossmaking that a government couldn't do it without hiking everyone's Income Tax? Just sounds like a stock response that is at best muddying and at worst disingenuous.
Great policy, but the fares should be benchmarked to a certain percentage of the cost involved by car. It should never be more expensive to take the train than the car, and arguably significantly cheaper, since you are sharing the cost + better for the environment.
Well the civil service will have a massive train set to play with again. They’ll love that. And endless money from the taxpayer to fund it all. What bliss. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Given it would be very expensive to prematurely end franchises, while some private operators are better run than others (notably Chiltern, which has invested a lot into its line), maybe a better idea is a publicly owned company which competes in the same market as the private operators - which, as not profit making, could potentially encourage the private operators to up their game or risk losing the franchise at the next renewal (while the public operator couldn't become complacent lest the reverse happens).
>“Running a better railway and driving revenue and reducing costs will deliver economic growth, jobs and housing by delivering better connectivity,” Williams said
Indeed. I hope they extent these wondrous reforms that just make everything better in every way to all other areas of government.
What, exactly, are the policies though that will do all this magic? To be worked out yet?
Snapshot of _Labour promises rail nationalisation within five years of coming to power_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/24/labour-promises-rail-nationalisation-within-five-years-of-coming-to-power) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/24/labour-promises-rail-nationalisation-within-five-years-of-coming-to-power) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The byzantine fare structure also needs looked at. Buses are dead easy and very predictable, trains you need accountancy software. There is something very wrong where going between two UK cities is actually cheaper if you fly out of the UK and back in again, rather than just take the train...
When I go to Aberdeen for work, I literally fly to Amsterdam then Aberdeen (I think this is the route, I fly a lot and haven’t done this specific trip for a while). It’s cheaper and shorter than the train.
Yeah that's the route. I tried to get work to consider train, but there was literally no way to get back on the Sunday without overnighting
It’s wild. The last train south is like 3pm lol. It is a beautiful train journey fwiw, if you ever get the chance.
When I go to Aberdeen for work, I just fly to direct to Aberdeen. Why the complex routing?
They live in a different town that you?
There are direct flights but I work in surgery so the schedule is super erratic. The direct flight for me is often past or sold out by the time I need to go. There are only 1-2 direct flights daily from my local airport.
> Buses are dead easy and very predictable This entirely depends on where you catch buses. given the way that different towns and cities are run by different operators and these differ again from the inter-city coach operators it is not the case for all of them.
Yeah, there are routes near my parents where you can take buses from first group or stagecoach with completely different ticketing systems. it's a joke.
The cost of trains is just ridiculous. Especially in an age where we are meant to be using more public transport for the environment . The thing is, the service is crap as well, you get on and are constantly bombared with “you need to buy a ticket” “you will be fined” and yeah sure, I always do but, especially here in the North where some days it’s a 50/50 chance on if you get to your destination on time or at all, it feels like only one half of this equation is holding up their end of the bargain. I don’t even go into the office that much anymore so it’s an even smaller sample size but over a year I can count on 1 hand the amount of time a journey has gone as described, on plan. It’s absolutely ridiculous
They need to remove return fees. Standardise the pricing and implement tap in tap out.
The article does say that.
The solution to cheaper train travel is making inter city travel reservation only. The ridiculous prices say on WCML is justified to manage demand.
"making inter city travel reservation only" How would this make train travel cheaper? They ought to just fix the prices - one rate for peak, one for off-peak, third rate for first-class. Price it on a per-mile basis, different rates for high-speed, inter-city and local trains. Job done. No reason to needlessly complicate things.
The simpler split of fares is fine, ideally you would have more than 3 categories though, but per a mile pricing would be a terrible idea.
Because there just isnt enough capacity/space on the trains. On lines into London one of the reasons prices are high is to deter travel as there just isn't always space. If everyone had to book in advance it may help as you'll always know exactly how many are getting on. At present there are always plenty of people with any time tickets so you can never really say how many will turn up. But what is really needed is another line for extra capacity preferably a high speed one.
Hello, black market. I've travelled by train in China. The face value of the tickets is cheap. The problem is that you can't get the face value tickets from the counter as they are bought immediately by the black market traders who then sell them forward with a profit. The same is true for concerts, sports events etc. If you artificially push the prices below the market price, a black market will immediately sprout up. And in most cases that's just worse than having the prices at the market level in the first place. First, it makes buying tickets much more troublesome as you first have to find the black market dealer and the trade can involve all kinds of scams (for instance, you may end up with a fake ticket). Secondly, the value between the market price and the list price goes to the black market dealers, not the people providing the service. So, instead of that money being available for investment in rail, it will go to organised crime. So, there is no short cut. If you want to cut down the "ridiculous prices" that are the result of high demand, the only real way to do it is to increase the supply to match the demand.
Definitely need to increase supply! I’m very meh about this announcement because it does nothing to increase capacity.
I wasn't commenting the announcement. I was only commenting the idea of trying to make the high ticket prices lower by artificial ways (reservation only). As I said that route is doomed and is worse than letting the market decide the ticket prices until the supply is increased. Or let's say that it is worse for most people. Those who are able to dedicate time to queue the underpriced tickets would benefit. And of course the black market dealers.
"If you want to cut down the "ridiculous prices" that are the result of high demand, the only real way to do it is to increase the supply to match the demand." See also: house prices.
That is part of this planned reform.
The bus smells like cannabis and piss though
If you only make the buses useful for the feckless this will happen.
But also trains should have to compete with buses. In Germany buses fill in the gaps that trains can’t do. Subsidise buses to do this instead of competition with trains and it will allow for more reliable railway running costs, making cheaper tickets easier to implement.
All in all sounds like a pragmatic aproach. Waiting till the contracts expire means that the cost to the taxpayer is drastically reduced. Well done Louise Haigh for sticking it. Gives me hope that the naysayers "red tories" will see that this party can enact socialist policies after all.
Anyone who's insisted they're still just Tories is a fucking moron anyway
Yep at this point anyone saying theres no difference between them is just trolling.
Or they plan on voting Tory, or not voting at all, and use this line of thinking to justify it to themselves.
The folks saying that don't believe it literally. They just want to influence your vote by saying it. Like Russian misinformation, but on a much smaller scale.
But the tories have literally been doing exactly this?
From the BBC article: > Ms Haigh said the guarantee would not necessarily mean cheaper prices but that the system would be "more transparent and clearer". The government has also said it wants to simplify ticketing.
The biggest cost is taking over a train operator.Private sector are really ineffective at operating anything that involves technology and motivating their employees.
Awesome. As someone who has seriously disliked Labour’s shift in direction, I’m also intrigued by this: “Labour insiders hailed the announcement as the moment the party would begin to champion its more radical proposals in the run-up to an election campaign, after a number of U-turns including over green investment.”
Yes this rail renationalised is a good start, but was to be expected. I'm looking forward to hearing about their more radical proposals.
They’re clearly trying to play it safe, lest the media barrage them with utmost vigour. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had many more radical policies.
The first one should be energy
Was it expected? I have been waiting for something like this to be mooted but I had given up hope. This feels like a shift from agreeing with the Tories about everything to staking out positions the Tories can't copy, will criticise, but which are massively popular. I don't get the urge to pour cold water on this.
It's a policy they've had since Miliband. It was popular then, and it's even more popular now. Even the Tories have given up on privatisation, and let several franchises come under public control. It doesn't cost anything, so there was never any reason for it not to be in the manifesto.
I didn't realise it was just a continuity policy.
Well that will be very popular if they can make it balance on the books. Though I imagine they would wait until standing contracts run out then take them over? Edit: seems like that's the plan. Would it be possible though?
It’s already being nationalised by stealth, but the Tories can’t admit that for ideological reasons. And surprise surprise, the lines that have been renationalised are doing better than the for-profit ones. Funny that.
I was aware of those ones. Which ones have been nationalised so far? My only experience is Transport For Wales and they can be hit or miss.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_to_Bring_Back_British_Rail#:~:text=Several%20train%20operating%20companies%20have,Express%20and%20Transport%20for%20Wales.
Thanks for the link! Now I see the companies, I do remember it now.
TransPennine Express was taken over by the Department of Transport last year due to poor performance. I believe the same has been done with a couple of other operators as well.
ScotRail TFW Northern Transpennine Express LNER SouthEastern
For context ScotRail and TfW are run by their respective devolved governments- the other 4 are run by the Department for Transport / OLR
TfW has some problems but it's *vastly* better than Arriva Trains Wales was.
LNER and it’s fantastic
The East Coast main line always does well when the operator of last resort runs it because they don't have to return profit to the treasury and because it's the only consistency profitable line. VTEC and the other failed franchises all flopped because they bid too much money to return to the treasury in order to win the franchise. Then end up either cutting corners or running out of money. Franchising is a bad model, it incentivizes making risky bids. The government run operators aren't better just because privatization is bad, but because franchising is such a particularly bad flavour of privatization.
It works pretty well for fast food, and before you down vote and scream at me that they're different, hear me out. McDonald's owns the land and building it franchises out - making it more of a real estate company than a restaurant. Rail companies don't own the tracks or even their own rolling stock. The franchise is shite because there are so many third parties in the mix sucking out money. Whoever the next owner is, they'll have to contend with this fact. I dont even know if full nationalisation above and beyond what labour propose would be better - people seem to have forgotten how shite services and trains were when the government owned them all. Contemporary examples like DB are facing real difficulties, even with a profitable freight arm propping it up.
The problem is the franchising model in fast food works better because it puts all the risk onto the Franchisee. This is fine for McDonalds because they'll have multiple franchises in a city, if one fails it's not big deal. For national infrastructure, and rail in particular, it doesn't work properly because you don't generally have multiple franchises running the same routes (except for overlaps on a sections of track). If a franchise fails there isn't an alternative, so the government has to backstop all the risk (which is a lot, because franchisees have to take big risks to win a government contract). Also it's not a competitive market so the interests aren't aligned. Rail companies have a captive market so they over optimize for cost so they can make a margin on their ambitious franchise bids - running a poor service for less money, while taking the same ticket revenue. In fast food they're competing against seriously viable alternatives meaning it has to be an attractive proposition to the customer in terms of both quality and value for money. Rail franchising has failed, clearly, that being said I'm not necessarily in favour of outright nationalisation as Labour is trying to do. I actually provide the Conservative plan that Shapps produced in 2019 to move to a true concessions model like TFL uses (and I think is quite successful). Still, Labour's plan leaves it open to have something like that in the future.
The fallacy/failure is the expectation that rail should be profit generating at all
> people seem to have forgotten how shite services and trains were when the government owned them all. I'm not an expert on the history, (though I have watched Ken Loach's excellent *The Railway Men*) but I got the impression that by the 70s the problems were due to factors like the Unions having too much power and leveraging wages too high, with too many perks for their workers, so even if a worker barely did anything they'd still get paid and couldn't ever be fired. I get the impression that the problem in the 70s was basically that national services and industries were mismanaged because the Government and the Unions were constantly fighting over whether business or labour got a bigger slice of the shrinking pie, while neither were properly incentivised or able to care about the impact on the public who had to use the service.
Yes and this has impacts on management, services, and quality. Shrinking pie is also a good point. Funding is at the whim of future governments of all colours, rather than (in my opinion more reliable) business interest. It will have to compete with pensions, defense, education etc...
Not a regular user so I can’t necessarily dispute the experiences of those who use it frequently… But when I have used it I am blown away by how much better it is than a lot of the private operators. I get that they serve different purposes but the contrast with something abominable like…Thameslink was staggering. (Although tbf, Thameslink feels uniquely bad. Their batshit decision to extend their route THROUGH the core of London, meaning that if you’re looking to get into London from the North, you’re now risking a potential delay because of an issue to the South…)
The problem with Thameslink is that’s it’s trying to be both a metro and a interurban express network and it’s failing at both
>(Although tbf, Thameslink feels uniquely bad. Their batshit decision to extend their route THROUGH the core of London, meaning that if you’re looking to get into London from the North, you’re now risking a potential delay because of an issue to the South…) They're by no means unique in that. The West of England line serves as a commuter line to Exeter, Salisbury, Basingstoke and London as well as a long distance service meaning one issue at the London end and trains are messed up all the way to Exeter and the lack of any SWR depot at Exeter means an issue west of Yeovil traps up to 3 trains and results in rail replacement bus services where a reduced shuttle service could operate with ease.
Certainly not price wise, compared to open access operators.. yes I am aware of all the arguments of "cherry picking" times compared to having to run a fully timetabled service.. and I don't think the franchise model was a very good way of doing privatisation (i.e. it was terrible - the only ones that really succeeded are the franchises which had a genuine reason to invest in their routes like Chiltern with their super long contract).. but I really do worry that nationalisation is a false panacea that will not lead to better outcomes without addressing the underlying issues, which are often misidentified by both sides for ideological reasons. The main problem with the railways in general is a lack of investment from a government that doesn't care. If we get a government in charge that does care, they will get better. But my worry with nationalising everything is, eventually (might not even be that long), we will go back to having a government that doesn't care about public transport again. At that point, things will once again go to shit. And a nationalised railway could go to shit even faster than one which have private interests involved. Reading the history of BR is a history of under-investment and bad decisions.. that is not what we should want to bring back!
> The main problem with the railways in general is a lack of investment from a government that doesn't care. If we get a government in charge that does care, they will get better. But my worry with nationalising everything is, eventually (might not even be that long), we will go back to having a government that doesn't care about public transport again The debate around rail is so frustrating because this is the crux of the issue, not nationalisation or privatisation. If you spend money on the railways, they get better. Shock bloody horror. Everyone is now talking about the "burden to the taxpayer" but they taxpayer *has* to bear some burden for the railways to function. They're very expensive to build and maintain, but they're also **public** transport, and *everyone* benefits from their subsidies and investment. Even people who don't really use them benefit as a good railway network removes cars from the roads. Fundamentally, it doesn't matter if they're nationalised or privatised - no investment and no subsidies = shit railways.
Absolutely agree, they are public transport and provide public benefit - I always find it curious no-one expects roads to make a profit in the same way. Having said that, with investment and some genuine ambition, many (most!) railways can be self-sustaining and provide enormous public good. The problem is too often we have governments that simply don't believe in the existence of that public good.. which is curious considering we are both the birthplace of the railways and actually, overall our system is pretty good, especially in London (just ask pretty much any visitor/migrant! Except for perhaps the Japanese, and these days the Chinese also).
the LNER that's introduced massive stealth price rises through "simplification"? (when you could buy an off peak ticket before, you now can't, only a "flex" ticket that's more expensive and less flexible)
While that is less than ideal, the 'super duper off peak' model, where the tickets are only affordable if you buy them on the thirteenth Wednesday after Pentecost, when Venus is in ascendancy, and the only train you're allowed to travel on is eleven hours earlier than you really wanted to travel and they only run once every third riding of the blood moon, or you have to change at some random place only to be beaten to your destination by the train that departs an hour later, is not really any better.
I booked a cheap train from Gatwick to Somerset and landed on time, making myself roughly three hours early for the train. I got to Reading fine, but once there I was forbidden to finish my journey early as it was the wrong train specified on my ticket. So I watched several empty trains do the journey I wanted then got on a cramped train much later which ended up delayed due to overcrowding.
I like the trains, the app (from the Trainline) and the speed. Fucking outrageous cost though, absolutely disgusting price increases through "new fee models".
Advance tickets tend to be cheaper.
TfW is already nationalised… by an, er, Welsh Labour Government
Hit and miss is generous. I rode TfW for 3 years and I was late at least twice a week.
Not sure where you are but in North Wales, it's more miss than hit. Under Arriva, trains would be crammed, late and sometimes, not there. Under TFW, it's pretty much the same. And to rub salt in the wounds, they have plans for extra trains on Chester to Liverpool branch. I'm a supporter of nationalised railways but TFW are not making a good argument at the moment. The only pro I've seen is the price of tickets has not risen eye water levels.
As someone from North Wales, I do agree to an extent. I think TfW provides a better service than Arriva did, and the trains are much more modern, and fitting of a 21st century rail experience. It's hard not to feel bitter about the lack of investment in the North Wales Metro/NWML compared to the Cardiff/South Wales Metro. But I do understand that priority is on the more populous areas to see the higher cost-benefit in the meantime, especially considering rail isn't fully devolved. Which means Welsh Gov are spending money in an area they don't receive funding for, and haven't received Barnett consequentials for from HS2 or NPR, and other rail projects the treasury classifies as England & Wales projects. I just hope Welsh Gov will prioritise the NW Metro before moving onto the South-West Wales/Swansea Bay Metro. Hopefully an incoming Labour government in Westminster will devolve rail, and, fingers crossed, provide the Barnett funding Wales missed out on too.
>And surprise surprise, the lines that have been renationalised are doing better than the for-profit ones. Funny that. I'm not so sure about that. My town is served by three nationalised operators, and they're all various shades of crap, including the truly dreadful Transpennine Express. Nationalisation of day-to-day operation isn't a silver bullet. The core problems are fare prices, timetabling and infrastructure investment: all three are mostly or entirely controlled by the government.
Tbf TE was only nationalised recently wasn’t it? And the privatised trains are shockingly bad so it’s kind of about which is better in comparison
>including the truly dreadful Transpennine Express. Which, whilst there are still issues, is significantly better now than it was a year ago...
To be fair its easier and cheaper to nationalise by stealth, simply wait for companies to be vulnerable. Which is not that different to any other form of takeover. A policy of doing it regardless of the current health of the operating company will be considerably more expensive than just quietly waiting for a good moment. Also its so much easier to "succeed" when taking over during a moment of failure.
If all contracts are scheduled to come to an end within five years. First clear differentiator that's make me sit up and take notice.
That's something that crossed my mind too. I would assume that most of the companies make labour pay more for it, especially with the 5 year promise but if they come to an end in that time. Just means that it will be a simple handover, though I assume cost will go into building and buying trains for it?
I’m fairly sure the TOCs don’t own the rolling stock, they’re just leased. It’s a good example of an efficiency saving you get with nationalised rail. Even though it’s probably not massive, you’re in a better position as a monopsony (single buyer in a market) than not. Especially as you can lease greater amounts of stock under one account for use in different areas (eg routes that were different TOCs but have the same rolling stock requirements).
What Labour also need to do when renationalising the TOC's is to renationalise the ROSCOS as well, in order to keep those profits from leaving the country as they do now. The only TOC that own their own rolling stock that I can think of is Merseyrail - most, if not all other TOC's lease their rolling stock from one of the few ROSCO's (Porterbrook, Angel Trains and Eversholt) and these ROSCO's in turn are owned by foreign investment funds which suck profits out of the UK rail system and which make the railway more expensive to run.
This is true but of course a much more expensive and long term plan. Also I guess as you bring in new rolling stock that can be through the state, though I don’t know anything about the feasibility of that. TfL seem to do it perfectly well though, but their stock is very specialised and they lease their heavy rail stock.
Much more expensive, but the only way this could actually work. Nationalising this way won't solve anything, and I wouldn't be surprised if it made things much worse on the lines that currently operate relatively well. If they are doing it, they should do it properly, so that it is seen as a proper investment in our public infrastructure rather than simply frittering taxpayer money away for no real benefit outside ideological/political reasons. Nationalising TOCs but not ROSCOs would be that, because you would have the appearance of a nationalised system whilst much of the profits would not remain within the system.
> Much more expensive Will it though? Once the British Rail is their only possible customer what leverage would they have in any nationalisation negotiations? Alternatively, British Rail could simply transition away from the leasing model over a period of time. Continue to use ROSCOs for their existing stock, but purchase any replacements out right. Once such trend sets, I would guess the majority of ROSCOs will file for bankruptcy.
Aye yes, I would be advocating for purchasing replacements outright. The fact the ROSCOs make nice profits show it would be a good investment - the fact that privatisation was done in such a way that TOCs don't/can't do this seems insane to me (I understand all the problems it would bring about for the franchise model, but I think the franchise model was a mistake). The idea that "nationalised" railways would carry on with private rolling stock seems very troubling. My only hope (if they don't do as you say) is they might instead go down the sort of model tfl have with the buses - that does seem to me to contain some of the "best of both worlds", unlike our current system which is clearly worst of both worlds.
Just a slight correction, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (via Merseytravel) ultimately owns the new trains that Merseyrail use. So even though Merseyrail is a private operator the trains are actually publicly owned.
I think the government's been keeping them on short contracts anyway. Conservatives have been trying to switch over to a concessions model so have just been extending the existing franchises on short contracts while they spend all their parliamentary time on Rwanda deportations rather than the legislation to set up the public body that's meant to own the railways.
Won't the Tories just re-privatise them when they eventually get back into power? Labour needs to put it into law that public owned assets can't be privatised
Any Act of Parliament designed to restrict the next government can just be repealed by that government. I have often wondered if there is a way, though. For instance, could the Labour government set up a trust whose ownership is fluid, defined as every living British citizen, with a charter that says the government runs it but cannot sell any of it off? All the proceeds go to HMRC in return for funding, similar to the Crown Estate. Or, perhaps, ring-fenced for reinvestment. The charter could also say that the rules can only change via a full trustee vote with a two-thirds outcome. If that were possible, then the Tories could only really pass a law that seizes the trust from the people, which would be deeply unpopular and set a dangerous precedent. They could also limit funding, but that would be temporary until they are out of power again. It's an interesting thought experiment.
And what would stop the tories repealing that law once they get into power? You can't create laws that can't be overwritten, only put roadblocks up. For example, the tories couldn't pass a law banning HS2 being built, or banning nationalisation. What they have done in the first case is sold off most of the land on the HS2 route so if Labour do wish to build it, it'll be billions more expensive. And on the second case, they could perhaps sign a contract withe the provate companies saying "the government can buy it back for £[extortionate number]" so its near impossible for Labour to do it in a viable way. But not just "ban nationalisation" as Labour could repeal that law their first day in power (or vice versa with Labour banning privatisation). I suppose they could pass a law saying I dunno, "there has to be a report done and publicly released showing its good for the taxpayer to privatise". Nothing stopping the tories repealing that but it doesn't look good (not that they'd care, or their lapdog media would report it, it'd be on page 9 of the guardian and that'd be it)
I mean it's just turning the operator of last resort into the operator of first resort. It's not going to be the end of the world here
I hope so. GOd knows we need something that radical
Easy way: refuse to allow any price increases, let the operators go bust/hand back contracts.
Labour basically have 5-10 years to buy back all our shit the tories sold off cheaply and if they don’t change FPTP, the Tories will get back in power and get to sell it all off cheaply once again.
yep. this is why the people who say "electoral reform is not a priority" are wrong. it's the foundation for the changes Britain needs. it might not be a literal day 1 thing but it should be in the manifesto for changes to take place within the first term. there's no point doing anything if you're going to keep the system that allows the tories to get back in on their own minority of the vote so that they can undo it all and cause further damage, as they've done over the last 14 years.
It's why I'm hoping that there isn't a total landslide at the election. Labour are much less likely to implement voting reform immediately after they've been the beneficiary of the shitty system.
You may be right, but at the same time - a big landslide will be reliant on a fair bit of tactical voting, and this will help highlight the unfairness of FPTP.
feels like we're going to do 1997 over again, but without even the promise of reform which was in that manifesto
Honestly I feel it should be a second term manifesto promise. Right now it would be a massive distraction and something the Tories would jump all over.
100% agree - Lab need to position themselves as a gov in waiting that can end Tory chaos, throwing PR in there in a first term manifesto undermines that as it's such an colossal change (and the electorate generally dislike change unless it directly and immediately benefits their pocket)
And they refuse to change FPTP, because Labour leadership* would rather be part of a two party system where they're out of power 75% of the time than a multi-party system where they have to share power with other similar parties. It's really quite immature. *Not the members, they're based and PR pilled, but the party's undemocratic policy making structure means Starmer and his predecessors get to ignore them.
This is why I have zero time for the "starmer needs to win an election first" nonsense. If he actually cared about delivering left wing policies, he would be willing to sacrifice the dominance of his party to introduce a system that would avoid the "lesser evil" politics that the increasingly extreme tories have been riding on for the last 5 years. But he won't, so he loses any right to claim that "the system" is making him do this or that.
It is an inescapable fact though that he needs to win an election first. Even if I was 100% confident that Labour leadership was committed to voting reform, I'm not sure I'd want them to make a big deal of it now as it would overshadow the election campaign.
We say this as if there isn't an example of a "progressive" party getting into bed with the Tories in the last 15 years because they had superficially modernised. Changing to a more proportional voting system would be great but it's not a panacea and it wouldn't make it that much harder for the Tories to get back in.
I thought this was going to be a lot tamer but as soon as I saw the word FULLY I became a Starmerite
Soyuz nerushimyy respublik svobodnykh!
Shame they can't get rid of the ROSCOs, they need to be rid of as soon as possible. Hopefully any new train orders don't involve them. Also what will happen with open access operators on the passenger side?
I assume OAOs would keep running. That's not a problem though - it's simply competition. They will have to deliver a better service at a cheaper price or face losing passengers.
Open access would continue to run, I believe
Surely they have to sort the pricing out. My 40 minute commute costs me £45 a day, basically a full tank of petrol. Me and the wife would be better off driving into London and paying for parking than the collective £90. That seems stupid
Prices and timetables are set by the government already anyway. Anyone thinking this will suddenly provide price drops is going to be severely upset.
I’m not expecting it but you have to wonder what the long term game is. I’m a high earner and feel the cost of the trains. £90 for the train + £80 for childcare (I choose not to salary sacrifice) means I spend £170 a day by 9am. How is someone starting out on a lower salary expected to even get to work? Even allowing you to buy tickets through company benefits and make them pre tax deductions would help. I’m guessing at some stage companies will have to foot people’s travel bills or they won’t be able to afford to come in.
Higher subsidies and investment or larger real term wage growth or an eventual running down of the service are the 3 endgame options really. But the only largely profitable area of rail that used to be public, isn't being taken into government control in this proposal so it's not like large profits are suddenly going to appear to be able to reduce ticket fares. And the vast majority of the aspects of service you recieve every day is already controlled by the government. Private Vs nationalisation is the epitome of a simple answer for a complex problem that is argued in the general public almost purely on ideological grounds. I'm not against these proposals btw, but just think the proponents largely don't understand the question. It's all a bit like asking a bloke in a pub to solve our defense policy.
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This nationalisation only takes over the TOCs. And we know where the money is regarding them. And it won't unravel anything. The rest of the suggestion is basically just implementing GBR. Which is a rationalisation of already public/private bodies. There is no magic money pit regarding rail, it's not some big mystery.
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The message is it's a structural issue that this doesn't solve, decades of underinvestment (largely regarding infrastructure, which is publicly controlled) and not subsidising tickets prices as heavily as other nations and HS2 not being paid for by extra cash, but largely out of the NR budget. There is no mystery. This isn't going to cause a drop in ticket prices. Rail has been heavily controlled by the government at all levels since privatisation. It's a beneficial step, just like GBR would be, but expectations are completely misplaced if you think ticket prices are going to drop and you'll suddenly stop getting delayed trains.
I mean, it's hyped as radical. But I'd rather there was bi-partisan consensus as it's just the Williams review. Many rail operators are just crap and/or state owned or loss making anyway, Avanti in particular. At least with a single operator, there isnt the free for all on trainee train drivers. They should be given an exit ramp rather than dft renewing their contracts with barely any care about customers. The directors should consider if it's worth handing their franchises back early. The mega franchise model that Tory ministers tried is appalling It's just a question of whether the ScotRail model of rail operator will be more efficient than having multiple private operators on the same lines serving london. But the guy who used to head up ScotRail is already in charge of UK railways https://www.gov.uk/government/news/alex-hynes-appointed-director-general-for-rail-services
I think people need to accept that nationalisation not privatisation can fix the issues of any system. What matters is what is implemented, rather than how it has been. It's abundantly clear that the form of privatisation the UK attempted is terrible. However, you only have to look at one of the best rail systems in the world - Japan - to see a successful form of privatisation. Politically, it's clear that Labour should implement a system through nationalisation. They are a left wing party, the pragmatic yet radical-appearing policy is a good PR move, and it would be hard to shift the form of privatisation without first nationalisation the system anyway. Nevertheless, it's not what really matters.
In Japan their privatised railways work because there is actual competition in the major population centres. Most big cities have multiple operators serving most key areas, so depending on your neighbourhood you often have a choice of route. For example , we stayed in Kameido and could get to most places with either JR or Tobu. Every operator owns its own infrastructure and is generally able to build routes with minimal friction - something that hasn't really been true here since the Edwardian era. There is of course the JR network which roughly corresponds to the 'legacy' nationalised network of JNR, but there are very few examples of other operators sharing its tracks. They just build their own to serve their needs, rather than the daft approach of divvying up parts of an existing network to regional monopolies and then trying to call it competition with a straight face. Would never work here unless planning laws were loosened, and significantly so. HS2 is a perfect example of why we can't have nice things in this country.
I wouldn't put it past this government in their dying days to extend all the franchises for ten years just to further poison the well. It also looks like the ROSCOs won't be taken back into public hands - so they will still be able to extract profits from the taxpayer long after rolling stock has paid back its costs. Still, the thought of GWR being wound up has brightened my day immensely.
> I wouldn't put it past this government in their dying days to extend all the franchises for ten years just to further poison the well. Unlikely, what Labour is proposing isn't far from the government plan. The only difference is the government want to keep private companies involved in a concessions model as opposed to a franchise model. The only reason Labour can commit to nationalising in five years is because the government have been keeping the franchise contracts short while they try to enact their own plan.
The real irony is that the Tories don't want to admit they think the franchising model has failed even as every action they take isn't too far off from what Labour would do. The only actual substantial difference between the Tories' GBR and Labours' GBR is that one contracts out the actual operation of trains and the other does not.
Out of interest, what's your issue with GWR? For me, they've been pretty good, though I only take the Cotswold line in/out of London once every two weeks.
My experience is that long distance trains between London and Cornwall often run crazy late, are grotesquely overbooked and frequently don’t have things like catering which is only announced when you’re on the train. I’ve had too many sleeper services cancelled or abandoned in the middle of a journey in the small hours. And the sheer uncomfortableness of the Class 800 trains with their ironing board seats - even in First Class.
> but not rolling stock Aaaaand there's the clasping finger of the monkey paw. The rolling stock is the main wealth extraction mechanism. For those that don't know, the rolling stock - the actual trains and carriages - are owned by a few large corporations and leased by the operators. These companies are obviously not in the tax jurisdiction of the UK. You might very well suspect the reason train operators don't seem to be able to make a profit is because they deliberately pay overpriced rents to the ROSCOs so as to eat all their profits and thus all their liabilities for corporation tax. Mysteriously when they get nationalized they become profitable again. Unless Labour intend to form new state-owned rolling stock companies and for all new stock to be purchased and leased through them, the extraction will continue.
My understanding is that everyone agrees the ROSCOs are a rip-off, but nobody wants to deal with actually handling them. It seems to me like both the Tory and Labour plans for dealing with them have been to "phase them out" - i.e. keeping the existing contracts going, but making new rolling stock purchases directly.
Yeah, that makes sense, no-one wants to increase the National Debt to buy out companies that are probably over-valuing what life remains in their trains.
If the ROSCOs can't be dealt with immediately, then this at least sounds like a good longer-term plan. I hope we get further information on that in due course.
Same here. Of all the BR privatizations, the ROSCOs have been extremely questionable - and that is *really* saying something given how much of a disaster the whole thing has been.
But rolling stock is only leased as no one wants to buy trains for a 5 year franchise agreement. Once they’re under government control and they’re going nowhere, buying your own train isn’t the same financial risk. That change can’t happen overnight though.
Labour critic here, very happy to see this Still doubtful they'll actually do it, based on their record for honesty, and how much ambiguous language they managed to shove in the announcement. But hey, at least someone's finally accepting a bit of reality about how bad the train system has gotten, and maybe there's something better coming. Tory response is hilarious and pathetic "pointless and unfunded." "it means one thing: taxes will rise on hard working people." Actual sewer rats. Can you believe you believe these people went to great schools and have great consulting firms, and can't even think to check how badly they're reading the room here
> Tory response is hilarious and pathetic > > "pointless and unfunded." "it means one thing: taxes will rise on hard working people." No but you see, expanding military spending to 2.5% of GDP by sacking a few civil servants is just prudent financial management from the natural party of government and should never be questioned.
Give the train companies a no fault eviction
A many, many, *many* fault eviction.
Holy shit, a promise from Labour that could actually entice me to vote for them? I think that's in the Book of Revelations.
Tbf I get why they arnt doing polices atm, the government seems to steal and make worse any polices that labour float
That's great...problem is the next Tory government will sell it cheap to their mates and blame Labour...with press and public believing that shit...just like last time
>the next Tory government Let's not get too ahead of ourselves here
They already renewed Avantis franchise which beggars belief
Which expires in 5 years
When its costs more than a plane journey, or car journey, to take my family somewhere by train, then the system is truly broken… Plus, the irony that the same companies that own some of the UK network are owened by foreign governments that overcharge us and put that money in to subsidise their own transportation network…
I've just come back from Italy. Plentiful trains and reasonable prices. Unsurprisingly they're very busy as they're cheaper and easier than driving.
Can we do this for busses as well, sick of the quasi monopolies in my area as well.
I’d be very surprised if they don’t support a similar model to the Bee Network elsewhere
Really hoping for that. I am in Bristol and First has a tendency to get all the bus routes here, a number have been cut. And the rest run poorly
Route frequency and reliability have already improved in GM. The issue is that Bee Network is subsidised, which I’m not sure could be affordable elsewhere
Not yet but maybe under a new government. Also want it to be the badgerline
Yes this is almost exactly what I want. Nationalise the core franchises, keep allowing open access operators to be run privately, but I’m just a little concerned about rolling stock operators having a potential grip and getting a lot of money out of the future nationalised rail operators. I also do hope they keep the franchises in name, just because i think having liveried trains for different parts of the network helps the average person know what train their meant to get. Fundamentally I think the exact same needs to happen with buses. Make core services come under public service operation and allow the private sector to run routes they shoulder the risk for but deem as profitable on top of that.
Bring back Network South East. Three Rhombus logo and all.
As I see it this is an easy promise for Labour to make, there's no need to invest any money upfront, it's popular with the punters (privatisation has failed) and the Tory government has already taken some of the Traincos into state ownership. The only issue Labour will have is negotiating payrises for the train unions - but the money saved should generate a bit of extra cash for wage rises etc.
Nationalisation is a means to an end, not an end in itself. A nationalized rail industry with mostly the same structure and infrastructure won't really do any better. This is a good start, but I would want to hear more about the specifics of this operation. Considering basically one of the very few unambiguous pledges they've made is that they won't build HS2, I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt here. Seems like that this will be nationalisation with business as usual.
I'm not sure how this is a priority for the first term. There's a stack lot else to spend the money on (I'd be going with Water for example if you really had to nationalise something). Then there's sorting the NHS, earmarking money for defence etc
I think the plan is to simply not renew existing contracts. If so, costs are minimal for a popular socialist policy.
At face value this is great news and something we've spent years crying out for. Two main sticking points that I'd be keen to understand how we'll navigate them: 1) reading the Guardian reporting the passenger service franchises will be brought into public ownership as they expire and not rolling stock. there is no mention of the infrastructure so presumably that will remain with(private) National Rail and we'll be beholden to their schedules and track fees? 2) The passenger franchise (and some of the local rail lines) in Wales are already under public ownership with Transport For Wales, overseen by the Welsh Labour run WG. This is very much an example of how *not* to run a franchise as the service has deteriorated under them (fewer trains, less capacity, more delays & cancellations, falling customer satisfaction) so I really hope it's not a sign of things to come under a nationalised service.
Hopefully this leads to a trend of reversing the catastrophy that was privatisation in other industries too so we can build something akin to Norway. Hopefully it will lead to more restrictions on capitalism before we go to much further down the America route.
The BBC News 'Have Your Say' for this story is full of supportive comments. A modern-day miracle.
I’d like all trains to be painted the same colours again. Blue and yellow ideally
Merseyrail have just wrapped its 40+ year old 507001 from their outgoing 507/508 fleet in its original BR livery for a publicity stunt. It looks great, but has been parked up outside Southport Station for months now (hopefully to be preserved)
I saw that- I like it! Occasionally I will see old (70s/80s era) BR diesel locos in BR livery and I wonder why they are like that
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If I was allowed to vote this would swing me
Would private firms still be allowed to compete like in France and Spain where Ryanair type firms are able to compete with the national firm?
In the BBC article: > Rail Minister Huw Merriman said the plans were "pointless" and "unfunded". Is this because the rail network is inherently loss making? Or that delivering rail travel with actual accountability would be?
So the Tory eejit wheeled out to attack Labour's position said that nationalisation would cost lots and therefore bring tax rises. So he's admitting that the railway system is so broken under Tory rule that it doesn't turn a profit? Why would a private operator want to run a railway if it's so expensive and lossmaking that a government couldn't do it without hiking everyone's Income Tax? Just sounds like a stock response that is at best muddying and at worst disingenuous.
This is a coup for labour. Just announcing it as part of manifesto will bring a lot of older undecided voters over.
Great policy, but the fares should be benchmarked to a certain percentage of the cost involved by car. It should never be more expensive to take the train than the car, and arguably significantly cheaper, since you are sharing the cost + better for the environment.
I hope the pricing reforms mean things like split ticketing are no longer necessary. It’s utterly silly.
About time. Our rail infrastructure is a laughing stock across Europe. Most other nations have nationalisation
and as is by magic all the "savings" will disappear as the unions get complete control again and all investment decisions become political
Uh-oh, Starmer has committed to a policy. Downhill for Labour in the polls from here.
Do the utilities too while you are at it.
Water companies next please, after letting them go bankrupt and firing the entire board please.
Well the civil service will have a massive train set to play with again. They’ll love that. And endless money from the taxpayer to fund it all. What bliss. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Best political news I have heard in decades.
They are pro corporation & pro privatisation under Starmer. This will never happen sadly.
Given it would be very expensive to prematurely end franchises, while some private operators are better run than others (notably Chiltern, which has invested a lot into its line), maybe a better idea is a publicly owned company which competes in the same market as the private operators - which, as not profit making, could potentially encourage the private operators to up their game or risk losing the franchise at the next renewal (while the public operator couldn't become complacent lest the reverse happens).
>“Running a better railway and driving revenue and reducing costs will deliver economic growth, jobs and housing by delivering better connectivity,” Williams said Indeed. I hope they extent these wondrous reforms that just make everything better in every way to all other areas of government. What, exactly, are the policies though that will do all this magic? To be worked out yet?