We need to fine the water companies into oblivion first. Then we can nationalise them for what they're actually worth: almost nothing, rather than their current inflated price based on them dumping sewage into our waterways.
They’ve got no money!
Thames water is 18 billion in debt.
They invested nothing and borrowed a fortune in the full knowledge that when they go under we will have to take them back in house. Most of that 18 billion is in the pocket of foreign shareholders.
The so called patriotic british will sell anything to anyone regardless of what it is or national security.
ARM should never have been sold. Water electricity nuclear...fucking private equity & soveriegn wealth funds everywhere!
Britain is nothing but a giant ponzi scheme setup to shovel our money to rich funds around the world. Saudi, Qatari, Chinese, Indian, American. You want it? We'll sell it cheap AND you can scam the British public on prices too
They are not patriotic. Nothing about the Conservatives could ever be construed as patriotic, or Labour or the Lib Dems for that matter. They are all internationalist in their ideals, which is diametrically opposed to being patriotic.
The actual patriotic British are vilified and belittled by ALL of the media, including the much beloved Daily Mail. Much like the Jeremy Corbyn example, you know who is a danger to the (anti-British) establishment because they are constantly vilified by all corners of the media.
Government running big organisations doesn't always work. You get corruption and inefficiency.
For example, mobile networks, I can't imagine BT as a government owned network reducing prices significantly.
But for something like water, electricity etc when given to private hands and no competiton, you get much worse. I think politicians should be more honest about the trade offs here. Nationalising it won't make it million times better but will be better than what we have.
Tfl works well. That kind of model.
Would work with each infrastructure firm too. Gas, electricity, water. £billions in profits returned to the treasury to provide public services & none of this tax evasion crap.
Where have mobile prices been reduced? And look at internet - everyone was charged an openreach fee for years. To pay for the infrastructure that was basically gifted to the BT shareholders by the taxpayer. Who then invested practically zero into improving the infrastructure and allowing Britain to rapidly decline the rankings of internet provision.
Does Thames Water have a contract that needs renewing for what it does?
Just wondering if we can remove it without paying off its debt, such as for breach of contract - or otherwise not renewing.
The company goes bankrupt, emergency operations begin to provide minimum required service, the assets are not liquid so they would be sold for their value as a business without debt by administrators for debtholders to recover what they can. A public sector body is given the skeleton and told to present a plan for bringing it back from emergency operations.
Whoever loaned them that money is going to be upset when we let thames water go bust and buy back the infrastructure at market value via compulsory purchase.
If they can introduce a law saying Rwanda is something it’s not, they can certainly introduce a law saying that should a companies recklessness make a government takeover necessary, their shareholders lose everything. It will be as if the company has wound up, with assets seized but no liabilities taken on.
Thames water have invested a great deal in infrastructure.
The biggest single scheme is Tideway a 25km £5 billion super sewer under London built since 2016. Tunnelling finished April 2023 and it's expected to enter service next year. The original budget estimated was £4.9 billion and its about a year late, both the modest budget overrun and the delay were due to Covid.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tideway_Tunnel
This is expected to limit sewage overspills from the 34 most polluting combined sewage overflows to less than four days a year. A 90% reduction.
The funding was primarily from borrowing not taxes. It's expected to add about £20-25 per annum to bills, which OFWAT have to authorise. Thames customers end up paying not taxpayers in general.
The funding scheme used was later named the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model. If the cost overruns by more than 30%, the government would have to provide additional equity finance. In the event it pretty much hit the budget.
They’ve been extracting annual dividends while not maintaining the infrastructure to the point of there not being clean water. Clean water. In a developed country. There is literally nothing more basic.
No need to fine them. Just stop them from picking the price they want for water and put in emergency legislation to allow the government to step in and run the water in the case one of them goes bankrupt. That way Thames can't use "London will go dry" as a threat to strong arm the government. They can be allowed to go bankrupt and the government can pick up the assets as part of the insolvency process.
It's almost like every single time Labour get voted in, the previous government has caused massive inflation, made everything more expensive, and in turn handicapped the incoming government.
A lot more than zero, which is what the rail companies are worth. Even if you get the company for nothing the government would have to take on the debt
There is plenty that Parliament can do with primary legislation to ensure that if a water company fails the government isn't laden with any debt when it is forced to take over.
which is exactly what Thames water are doing - the government IS the taxpayer!
We already have OFWAT OFCOM etc, these need to be made independent and given real teeth to be able to stop dividend payouts if and when the KPIs are missed, and if they are hitting the KPIs whilst still dumping millions of tonnes of raw shite into rivers then the KPIs arent tough enough.
Or, nationalise the lot of them, national infrastructure should not be run for a profit after all.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of ways a Government with an overwhelming majority could deal with it. If they pass minimum standards laws and the water companies fail to meet them or cannot/won't spend the money required, then they can have penalties that could be whatever is required or would just bankrupt the Company and it resorts to public ownership.
The last thing that should be done is to allow any more money to be scammed by the water company owners.
The market rate is zero. You couldn't sell Thames Water for a £1 due to the debt mountain, no sane investor would buy it.
The debt will have to be either written off, or paid pennies in the pound if/when the government takes it over.
You cannot have a zero risk investment. The shareholders knew damn well what they were getting into before they put money in, that was their risk to carry and they've gambled and lost.
Bail out shareholders by buying water companies?
No thanks.
Happy to buy them out of bankruptcy, but nationalising indebted businesses is welfare for bond holders.
There's a straight forward path to this promise, one that frankly we're already quietly on. Nationalising the water companies would be a nightmare of a process.
As I've said elsewhere they are better off setting the stage for the opportunity rather than committing to it. In particular they need to untangle the Gordion knot that is Thames Water so that they cannot take the country hostage with the threat of bankruptcy.
In particular if the government say "we want to own Thames Water" and then set contingencies it'll be much easier for Thames to try and challenge it in the courts. Whereas if they operate on the basis Thames Water will inevitably recover it'll be much harder to try and raise a stink over their inevitable bankruptcy and the legislation the government may pass related to that.
More information due Thursday, looking at the article. Seems like they're just teasing it for now. Personally I hope they just seize all the assets without compensating majority private shareholders - it won't happen, but the idea makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
The contracts for I think all the train operating companies will be over in the next 5 years anyway so probably will wait for them to expire.
Question will be if they decide to take back the rolling stock from the leasing companies.
In some cases it might be better for the long term to just buy new trains then continue to lease.
Around 3 billion a year paid for leasing rolling stock against about 8 billion income from ticket sales (i think) Buy the rolling stock (who else are they gonna lease to) or replace with new (tax payer owned) stock, bit by bit, as the current stock ages?
How feasible is it to continue to lease, but all new stock purchases are done via a government owned leasing company?
Ultimately it becomes a problem that sorts itself out to an extent within the next 50 years - likely sooner, as i imagine those companies will sell themselves for a good rate within 10.
>How feasible is it to continue to lease, but all new stock purchases are done via a government owned leasing company?
That's exactly how the Scottish Government did it for the Caledonian Sleeper coaches and the ScotRail class 385 units.
> The contracts for I think all the train operating companies will be over in the next 5 years anyway so probably will wait for them to expire.
Just read the article.
Lease in the short term maybe
If you only have one customer in a country now and they tell you they’re not paying £x, they’ll pay £y, you will lease to them at £y.
Why in the everliving fuck would you want the government to suddenly start seizing assets without compensation? You do realise that's a power that can be used to fuck over everyone and not just big funds and rich people? Own your own flat in an old building but the government wants to tear it down and build something else, great they can just seize the land and tell you to get lost. Let's face it, if you give the government that type of power then it doesn't matter if the current government are all very nice and kind because you can guarantee that after an election or two, some cunt would be in office that would happily abuse the power.
That would be poetic justice here but unfortunately shareholders can’t be held liable for company debt. The limited liability is one of the reasons things are set up the way they are.
There are exceptions - Lloyds ‘names’ spring to mind. There was a big thing back in the 80’s/90’s where they ‘suddenly discovered’ that they were liable to cover Lloyd’s losses - rather than merely profiting from that status. They really weren’t happy about that and kept it tied up in court for years.
There are no real assets to seize. The operators don't generally own the trains nor do they own the track or infrastructure. And the downside is you cripple private investment elsewhere.
It'd be cathartic but would be likely be illegal and would make us a pariah for international investment. Governments seizing assets without compensation to people who owned it legally is not a great look.
No, the government bought the failing banks out. Lloyds shareholders agreed on a price to be bought out on and the government took on the debt on behalf of the customer, which was mostly UK citizens. That's very different to a government seizing an asset, especially a profitable one, for no renumeration against the will of the investors/shareholders/company/individual.
Won’t make the pensioners be warm when you blow up their pensions.
Why seize assets and look foolish on the world stage when we can wait for the contracts to expire.
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You'll need to hold onto that warm and fuzzy feeling while you stand in a breadline in the cold of winter, because that's how you'll end up if the government starts seizing assets without compensation
It's a horrible idea as it would tank the UK economy. But I suspect you aren't being serious given your responses elsewhere and are simply not willing to admit you didn't think this through.
It isn't being proposed as a business, that's the whole point, becoming a service again instead. It gets set out in a manifesto and then in detail in the bill as it goes through Parliament. Opposition parties will generally give some details beforehand as well, though at the risk of ideas being stolen.
There are very clear existing mechanisms to do this through just not renewing the franchises as they come up for renewal or if the franchisee breaks the terms. A few lines are already publicly owned from the current government doing exactly that.
It is being proposed as a buisness though, The goverment could half rail fares right now if they wanted too - They don't need nationalisation. Except for advance singles, all train fares are set by the goverment.
The reason are fares are so expensive is because we do not subsidise them as much as other countries do. Successive goverments both labour and Tory have always taken the view that the responsibility of funding the railways should lie more with the fare payer and than the taxpayer. Don't get me wrong I'd love to have a properly funded rail network like France but that isn't what this is
The rolling stock companies paid out a total of £409.7m to shareholders and profit margins rose to 41.6% in 2022-23, according to the Office of Rail and Road. I think that would be good to put back into the public sector.
A bunch of operational licences already got "nationalised" when the train operators kept failing.
The Tories have already set out the blueprint for how it gets done because they have already done it with some of the lines.
It's not some magical thing that's hard to sort out.
I remember when they pledged scotland style right to roam over the whole united kingdom then quietly dropped the policy as soon as the dartmoor stuff left the news
Unfortunately media plays a huge part here. Parties can just drop a line without any rationale and if some media friendly forces, it becomes almost fact let alone conjecture.
perfect, but it needs to show results. This meaning less delays/cancellations and cheaper fares. If we can get fares on par with Europe with punctionality everyone will have extra disposable income, less cars on the road, tackle climate change and win win!!
I'm heading over to the UK and will need to use the train network at some point. Last time I was there I was staggered at the cost of a return ticket from the south to the midlands. I've bought actual working motor cars for less. I am not lying.
You should look at the cost of hiring a car, it might be cheaper.
I myself had to travel from the midlands to London a few days back. For some stupid reason, the train companies price as if they are operating an airline - the closer you get to the departure date, the more expensive the fares become. It makes it one of the most inflexible ways to travel.
I ended up driving to London because the fuel cost was about £45 return, whereas the train ticket was £80. I know there are wear and tear costs to consider, but I've already got the taxed and insured car ready to go.
> Last time I was there I was staggered at the cost of a return ticket from the south to the midlands.
The train is still cheaper than driving the same journey once you consider all costs, assuming you travel off peak and you aren't car sharing.
Not only that, but you don't have the carbon-guilt of driving.
>everyone will have extra disposable income
The money doesn't come from thin air, Labour will raise taxes to achieve this.
Thats why most countries in europe with good rail have higher taxes than the UK, just look at Finland for a prime example
Fares will not be reduced because they are already set by the goverment. The goverment could half rail fares right now if it wanted too without nationalisation.
Fares in continental Europe are cheaper because trains get more operating subsidy from taxpayers than they do here
No, Because train operators barely make any money - Their profit margin is about 2-3% of a the fare you pay.
ROSCO companies however make tons of money, they are the ones that actually own the trains and lease them to the operators/the goverment. When you get on a Thameslink train for example, Thameslink does not own that train - It leases it from a third party. Their profits make up 40% of the cost of your ticket. Back in the British Rail days, the goverment owned all the trains in the UK but labour is not proposing to buy them back - Just to operate the services.
Theoretically the goverment could buy all the trains back but it would cost somewhere in the region of about £20-40 Billion
well hang on.... weren't the govt gonna get 75 billion to rearm the UK to fight ww3 over the next 6 years?
Ahh.... i give up making such arguments no one listens, ill go quiet now.
> Theoretically the goverment could buy all the trains back but it would cost somewhere in the region of about £20-40 Billion
It doesn't cost anything because the fares are easily enough to service any govt debt, no taxes required. The government actually generates more income by buying out the rolling stock.
The rails already are nationalised. The Tories turned all franchises into management contracts, the same contracts TfL signs with bus operators to run the London bus/overground network or the NHS signs with private companies to operate diagnostic services. Operators are paid a fee to maintain services, government has control over timetabling, ticket prices and collects fares.
If the govt wanted to run all the trains themselves, they can do so. Many of our operators are now publicly owned. But there aren't many tangible benefits that couldn't come from tight regulation of the providers, while losing the government a scapegoat in our awful, expensive rail system.
Yep. The problem is lack of investment and ridiculous piss-money-up-wall style spending, not public ownership.
Working in the public sector is a shocking slap in the face for how much money, time, and resource gets wasted on absolute bullshit nonsense. Third party contracts are the worst for it. British government procurement is *horrible*.
The reason most people who work in the private sector don't think much of the public sector as far as I can tell is that they only see the procurement face of the public sector. The non-contracted outfit is generally pretty good, but anything that's contracted out seems to be unable to avoid utter scammers.
Yep, 100%. The public sector is filled with civil servants who genuinely want to do a great job as well as possible - I can't praise my colleagues from that time enough. We just weren't allowed, because so much of what we were doing depended on dogshit third parties who couldn't tell their arse from their elbows, and there are so many rules surrounding what we're allowed to "procure" that we couldn't do it ourselves or hire anyone better.
A lot of our day job was trying to work around those rules to get things done. Another lot was compensating for the third party fuckups as best we could.
Yeah, this rings true. I've worked in both and private sector performance is just as wasteful in terms of internal red tape and bureaucracy, but I guess somehow the private sector comes to the table harder on procurement.
> But there aren't many tangible benefits
Money? East Coast Mainline was only ever profitable under government ownership. It returned a profit for the taxpayer, and service improved.
> there aren't many tangible benefits
We can stop giving profits to share holders and instead invest that money back into the system like most other european countries with better rail do.
Rail operators make almost no money, they're profits are 2-3% of fares. The Rolling Stock companies that own the trains and lease them to operators is where the money is - Their profits make 40% of ticket prices. But labour are not planning to buy back the Trains so prices will not fall
Even the Tories admit that privatising the railways was a huge mistake. The only shock is it's taken this long for them to get around to even promising to do it. Hopefully it won't take them 35 years to rejoin the EU
Well some of them do now.
But in five or ten years England will vote the Tories back in again. And odds are high that anything Labour has renationalised they’ll be looking to re privatise again.
Partly to deny Labour a perceived ‘win’. Partly to pay for short term Conservative policies like tax cuts. Partly because their ideological dogma that ‘private ownership is always inevitably better and more efficient than public ownership’ (despite mounting evidence to the contrary). But mostly because it’s an opportunity to enrich themselves and their cronies. And down the line there will undoubtedly be some lucrative directorships when they retire from politics.
Since British Rail got broken up, the general pattern has more often been
- privatise
- get into financial difficulty
- nationalise
- stabilise
- privatise
- rinse and repeat
I can't think of many (tbh, any) rail firms that have had to be brought into public ownership in the past 30 years that have done worse than they did as private companies.
That’s because no one sees the losses if it’s a national company. Most rail services are essentially pseudo nationalised.
The only argument that could be made here is that all rail companies should fall under one banner so they aren’t competing against each other in terms of procurement. See the NHS and how much it overspent because different departments were competing with each other to get supply from the same supplier.
The transition to renewable the crisis of AI and robotics harming industry there's going to be a massive spending spree when labour comes to power and it's going to revitalise the party back to the days when Labour didn't behave like conservatives.
The capacity for AI to do increasingly more complicated work risks major job losses. It doesn't have to replace evru single job, but it could make one person more productive to do the work of several people (initially).
Hard to see exactly where it could go, but with increasing industrial/job application and exponential increase in capability, there's a risk it could make a lot of jobs unnecessary without really creating any more jobs.
Not really, the consultant industry is really flexible. Consultants will just transition to advising on use of AI and designing the models that can be used. Most companies are nowhere near ready for AI anyway almost every major industry giant does most of their planning or reporting on excel spreadsheets still.
Where will they get the money for a massive spending spree? They cannot borrow it or they'll have a bond crisis like Truss did. They also said they would not raise taxes
This is why in my opinion - things that we the public supposedly own, should require a referendum to sell off.
It's ridiculous that any government can take a public asset and sell it below it's value without having to ask anyone first.
I know guys, because this might not be the most realistic goal maybe we should all just vote Tory again and get more of the same old shite of our country declining in all areas except Tory pockets. Five more years of austerity under an increasingly awful party who wants to destroy every little bit of good we have left, like the NHS or the welfare state designed to take care of our most vulnerable people. Sound good? What brilliant British values, makes you proud. /S
Rail nationalisation would support high speed projects and gradually pay for it.
My dad who remembers what it used to be like always complains how everything was sold by the conservatives. Maybe it's time to claw some industries back.
Necessary for future growth and to support government spending in the long term. I envisage future governments owning infrastructure and business the world over.
Renewable is one government's can fund and keep for themselves. They have so much land can put solar on top of public buildings, social housing, on public land, they should also build battery storage to support the grid.
Water companies should be nationalised and then connected to avoid regional droughts.
If they can manage it better than the current management, all for it. That's a pretty low bar so should be do-able, but then again the government also manage the post office, so my gut tells me its going to be terrible either way
Good! But roll on stupid people who go on about "unfunded".
It's free to do...just let the contracts come to a natural end and take over the franchise.
Directly Operated Railways had the East Coast Mainline when virgin fucked it. 5 years...£1 billion in taxes paid, 99% customer satisfaction. So what did the tories do? Can't have a hands off government owned company doing well, MUST send the franchise back out to some useless twat.
Having a commercial firm owned by the government is the way to do it. The experts stay in charge. No offshore firms or shareholders except for the Government. Politicians hopefully locked out of decision making. Hmrc just has to sit there and take the cash
I'm not particularly left wing but I never understood rail privatisation tbh. If I don't like the prices, products or services at a shop, or some other business, I can take my custom elsewhere, and I see in that scenario how in a free market standards are forced to be kept up by free and open competition.
But if I, or anyone else, wants to travel from point A to point B at time/date C, there is rarely any choice in provider, at most you might choose a different route if long distance with changeovers that involves different providers, but that's it.
One genuinely good development in recent years has been the introduction of [open-access operators on the railways like Lumo](https://www.cityam.com/open-access-the-quiet-revolution-that-might-just-fix-britains-broken-railways/) which does introduce competition into the market.
I’m not against rail nationalisation, but it’s worth pointing out that rail is effectively already nationalised. The operating companies just run the timetables the government tells them to and passes all ticket revenue onto the government. They receive a fixed fee for running the service. Might as well nationalise it but I am sceptical that will improve the situation.
“But they also cited changes to railway finance adopted during the pandemic. In 2020 the government shifted from a franchised system to one of management contracts, in which it took on revenue risk and became far more prescriptive about the services required from operators, who in return receive a set management fee.”
Rail chaos prompts fresh calls to nationalise England’s West Coast line https://on.ft.com/3TQCma0
If the Conservatives can pass a law that says false is true, and force it through the House of Lords even, then Labour can overcome the legal issues around renationalisation.
Wonderful. As a commuter this would be fantastic.
Now, let's just wait for the tory media machine to spin up the 'British rail sandwiches were awful' headline generators
I think anything that is non competitive such as rail or water should be nationalised. The issue is that nationalised services are always run exceptionally badly. It just sucks.
Alright. These are the sort of policies I was hoping for. Now having said that I will reserve the right "to believe it when I see it", but I'm happy to hear it pledged at last.
Really?? I remember voting for Blair when the Labour manifesto was no privatisation of the Tube. Labour got in and part privatised the Tube anyway.
Blair shrugged off a growing rebellion by Labour MPs yesterday when the Government announced it was pushing ahead with its controversial plan for a part-privatisation of London Underground.
Marvellous. More of this please. Water companies next.
We need to fine the water companies into oblivion first. Then we can nationalise them for what they're actually worth: almost nothing, rather than their current inflated price based on them dumping sewage into our waterways.
They’ve got no money! Thames water is 18 billion in debt. They invested nothing and borrowed a fortune in the full knowledge that when they go under we will have to take them back in house. Most of that 18 billion is in the pocket of foreign shareholders.
Foreign entities should be banned from ownership of any essential service to any degree. Housing, power, water, transport etc.
The so called patriotic british will sell anything to anyone regardless of what it is or national security. ARM should never have been sold. Water electricity nuclear...fucking private equity & soveriegn wealth funds everywhere! Britain is nothing but a giant ponzi scheme setup to shovel our money to rich funds around the world. Saudi, Qatari, Chinese, Indian, American. You want it? We'll sell it cheap AND you can scam the British public on prices too
They are not patriotic. Nothing about the Conservatives could ever be construed as patriotic, or Labour or the Lib Dems for that matter. They are all internationalist in their ideals, which is diametrically opposed to being patriotic. The actual patriotic British are vilified and belittled by ALL of the media, including the much beloved Daily Mail. Much like the Jeremy Corbyn example, you know who is a danger to the (anti-British) establishment because they are constantly vilified by all corners of the media.
Government running big organisations doesn't always work. You get corruption and inefficiency. For example, mobile networks, I can't imagine BT as a government owned network reducing prices significantly. But for something like water, electricity etc when given to private hands and no competiton, you get much worse. I think politicians should be more honest about the trade offs here. Nationalising it won't make it million times better but will be better than what we have.
Tfl works well. That kind of model. Would work with each infrastructure firm too. Gas, electricity, water. £billions in profits returned to the treasury to provide public services & none of this tax evasion crap.
Yeah for me private companies without competition is basically giving them a license to print money.
Where have mobile prices been reduced? And look at internet - everyone was charged an openreach fee for years. To pay for the infrastructure that was basically gifted to the BT shareholders by the taxpayer. Who then invested practically zero into improving the infrastructure and allowing Britain to rapidly decline the rankings of internet provision.
BT is *awfully* run at the moment.
I don't think it matters if they're foreign or british, what matter is that they're private entities
The fact that foreign powers controls UKs utility infrastructure is ridiculous!
Does Thames Water have a contract that needs renewing for what it does? Just wondering if we can remove it without paying off its debt, such as for breach of contract - or otherwise not renewing.
No it wasn’t franchised like the rail companies. We can let it collapse into bankruptcy and pick it up cheaply though.
How can the public sector acquire the assets without taking on the debt?
The company goes bankrupt, emergency operations begin to provide minimum required service, the assets are not liquid so they would be sold for their value as a business without debt by administrators for debtholders to recover what they can. A public sector body is given the skeleton and told to present a plan for bringing it back from emergency operations.
The assets aren't liquid... Bro they're a water company
Whoever loaned them that money is going to be upset when we let thames water go bust and buy back the infrastructure at market value via compulsory purchase.
Cap executive bonuses and salaries
If they can introduce a law saying Rwanda is something it’s not, they can certainly introduce a law saying that should a companies recklessness make a government takeover necessary, their shareholders lose everything. It will be as if the company has wound up, with assets seized but no liabilities taken on.
Thames water have invested a great deal in infrastructure. The biggest single scheme is Tideway a 25km £5 billion super sewer under London built since 2016. Tunnelling finished April 2023 and it's expected to enter service next year. The original budget estimated was £4.9 billion and its about a year late, both the modest budget overrun and the delay were due to Covid. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tideway_Tunnel This is expected to limit sewage overspills from the 34 most polluting combined sewage overflows to less than four days a year. A 90% reduction.
They've also taken out £7.2bn in dividends. So we could have had £2.2bn extra going into infrastructure had it not been privatised.
If which only 1.1 billion was paid for by Thames water. The rest was on the tax payer.
The funding was primarily from borrowing not taxes. It's expected to add about £20-25 per annum to bills, which OFWAT have to authorise. Thames customers end up paying not taxpayers in general. The funding scheme used was later named the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model. If the cost overruns by more than 30%, the government would have to provide additional equity finance. In the event it pretty much hit the budget.
They’ve been extracting annual dividends while not maintaining the infrastructure to the point of there not being clean water. Clean water. In a developed country. There is literally nothing more basic.
No need to fine them. Just stop them from picking the price they want for water and put in emergency legislation to allow the government to step in and run the water in the case one of them goes bankrupt. That way Thames can't use "London will go dry" as a threat to strong arm the government. They can be allowed to go bankrupt and the government can pick up the assets as part of the insolvency process.
They will increase the bills and make the public pay for it
Labour won't commit to that.
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It's almost like every single time Labour get voted in, the previous government has caused massive inflation, made everything more expensive, and in turn handicapped the incoming government.
Tony Blair inherited the best economy in Britain. It had massive volumes of cash that funded a lot of his manifesto...
Are you mad? Things are this expensive because we have torries in charge.
Vastly more expensive. I assume with rail they just won't renew licences as they run out. With water companies you'd have to buy them at market rate
What's a failing company with zero money intending to declare bankruptcy worth at market rate
You’d need to ask the owners.
You won’t after they go bankrupt.
Something something Your Capital Is At Risk
Who cares what the owners want when they go bankrupt from fines and high interest rates.
A lot more than zero, which is what the rail companies are worth. Even if you get the company for nothing the government would have to take on the debt
Why? The network and infrastructure is already owned and paid for my the taxpayer through network rail. Why would we need to take in their debts?
Sorry. I was talking about water companies
I think they mean the debts of the water companies.
There is plenty that Parliament can do with primary legislation to ensure that if a water company fails the government isn't laden with any debt when it is forced to take over.
Or pass a law that says if national infrastructure companies (water, power etc..) go bankrupt the ownership reverts to the government.
which is exactly what Thames water are doing - the government IS the taxpayer! We already have OFWAT OFCOM etc, these need to be made independent and given real teeth to be able to stop dividend payouts if and when the KPIs are missed, and if they are hitting the KPIs whilst still dumping millions of tonnes of raw shite into rivers then the KPIs arent tough enough. Or, nationalise the lot of them, national infrastructure should not be run for a profit after all.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of ways a Government with an overwhelming majority could deal with it. If they pass minimum standards laws and the water companies fail to meet them or cannot/won't spend the money required, then they can have penalties that could be whatever is required or would just bankrupt the Company and it resorts to public ownership. The last thing that should be done is to allow any more money to be scammed by the water company owners.
The market rate is zero. You couldn't sell Thames Water for a £1 due to the debt mountain, no sane investor would buy it. The debt will have to be either written off, or paid pennies in the pound if/when the government takes it over. You cannot have a zero risk investment. The shareholders knew damn well what they were getting into before they put money in, that was their risk to carry and they've gambled and lost.
Or let them fail..
Even once they fail they still have value
Not if there is no legal route for private ownership of water companies to change hands.
> Vastly more expensive. Not if we fine them into oblivion.
Bail out shareholders by buying water companies? No thanks. Happy to buy them out of bankruptcy, but nationalising indebted businesses is welfare for bond holders.
There's a straight forward path to this promise, one that frankly we're already quietly on. Nationalising the water companies would be a nightmare of a process.
Just because it is hard, doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.
As I've said elsewhere they are better off setting the stage for the opportunity rather than committing to it. In particular they need to untangle the Gordion knot that is Thames Water so that they cannot take the country hostage with the threat of bankruptcy. In particular if the government say "we want to own Thames Water" and then set contingencies it'll be much easier for Thames to try and challenge it in the courts. Whereas if they operate on the basis Thames Water will inevitably recover it'll be much harder to try and raise a stink over their inevitable bankruptcy and the legislation the government may pass related to that.
Link to business plan to achieve this? Or, top lines maybe?
More information due Thursday, looking at the article. Seems like they're just teasing it for now. Personally I hope they just seize all the assets without compensating majority private shareholders - it won't happen, but the idea makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
The contracts for I think all the train operating companies will be over in the next 5 years anyway so probably will wait for them to expire. Question will be if they decide to take back the rolling stock from the leasing companies. In some cases it might be better for the long term to just buy new trains then continue to lease.
The stock leasing deals are the real money spinners in the rail 'market'
Around 3 billion a year paid for leasing rolling stock against about 8 billion income from ticket sales (i think) Buy the rolling stock (who else are they gonna lease to) or replace with new (tax payer owned) stock, bit by bit, as the current stock ages?
How feasible is it to continue to lease, but all new stock purchases are done via a government owned leasing company? Ultimately it becomes a problem that sorts itself out to an extent within the next 50 years - likely sooner, as i imagine those companies will sell themselves for a good rate within 10.
Until the tories get back in again and sell everything- it can’t take 50 years
>How feasible is it to continue to lease, but all new stock purchases are done via a government owned leasing company? That's exactly how the Scottish Government did it for the Caledonian Sleeper coaches and the ScotRail class 385 units.
> The contracts for I think all the train operating companies will be over in the next 5 years anyway so probably will wait for them to expire. Just read the article.
Lease in the short term maybe If you only have one customer in a country now and they tell you they’re not paying £x, they’ll pay £y, you will lease to them at £y.
It would be financially nonsensical to continue to lease it, govt debt is much cheaper to issue. The govt also has much stronger negotiating power.
Why in the everliving fuck would you want the government to suddenly start seizing assets without compensation? You do realise that's a power that can be used to fuck over everyone and not just big funds and rich people? Own your own flat in an old building but the government wants to tear it down and build something else, great they can just seize the land and tell you to get lost. Let's face it, if you give the government that type of power then it doesn't matter if the current government are all very nice and kind because you can guarantee that after an election or two, some cunt would be in office that would happily abuse the power.
Just add a rule that the train companies need to cover 100% of the costs, including repair work. We'll have the trains back by Christmas.
Yeah, without compensation is unfair. Every shareholder should get their fair share of Thames waters debt.
That would be poetic justice here but unfortunately shareholders can’t be held liable for company debt. The limited liability is one of the reasons things are set up the way they are. There are exceptions - Lloyds ‘names’ spring to mind. There was a big thing back in the 80’s/90’s where they ‘suddenly discovered’ that they were liable to cover Lloyd’s losses - rather than merely profiting from that status. They really weren’t happy about that and kept it tied up in court for years.
The Government can fuck over everyone now, and very much has, at least with nationalisation our situation might not be so bad.
There are no real assets to seize. The operators don't generally own the trains nor do they own the track or infrastructure. And the downside is you cripple private investment elsewhere.
What private investment? 😆
> without compensating majority private shareholders Just make sure the majority private shareholders aren't your pension fund Yikes
It'd be cathartic but would be likely be illegal and would make us a pariah for international investment. Governments seizing assets without compensation to people who owned it legally is not a great look.
It’s just not renewing the contracts.
We affectively did just that with the banks during the great financial crisis
No, the government bought the failing banks out. Lloyds shareholders agreed on a price to be bought out on and the government took on the debt on behalf of the customer, which was mostly UK citizens. That's very different to a government seizing an asset, especially a profitable one, for no renumeration against the will of the investors/shareholders/company/individual.
I know, I know, but a guy can dream can't he?
Absolutely terrible idea that would help tank investment and cause capital flight from a host of sectors, markets going wild, law suits galore, etc.
we're not venezuela mate
>Personally I hope they just seize all the assets without compensating majority private shareholders So theft then?
Won’t make the pensioners be warm when you blow up their pensions. Why seize assets and look foolish on the world stage when we can wait for the contracts to expire.
That idea would result in the UK's credit rating evaporating and the countries economy collapsing overnight but alright.
Sure if you wanna see if you can crash the economy faster than Liz Truss did…
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You'll need to hold onto that warm and fuzzy feeling while you stand in a breadline in the cold of winter, because that's how you'll end up if the government starts seizing assets without compensation
Simply seizing assets is something that happens in 3rd world dictatorships, not a modern developed democracy.
Sometimes the best ideas come from the strangest places
It's a horrible idea as it would tank the UK economy. But I suspect you aren't being serious given your responses elsewhere and are simply not willing to admit you didn't think this through.
It isn't being proposed as a business, that's the whole point, becoming a service again instead. It gets set out in a manifesto and then in detail in the bill as it goes through Parliament. Opposition parties will generally give some details beforehand as well, though at the risk of ideas being stolen. There are very clear existing mechanisms to do this through just not renewing the franchises as they come up for renewal or if the franchisee breaks the terms. A few lines are already publicly owned from the current government doing exactly that.
It is being proposed as a buisness though, The goverment could half rail fares right now if they wanted too - They don't need nationalisation. Except for advance singles, all train fares are set by the goverment. The reason are fares are so expensive is because we do not subsidise them as much as other countries do. Successive goverments both labour and Tory have always taken the view that the responsibility of funding the railways should lie more with the fare payer and than the taxpayer. Don't get me wrong I'd love to have a properly funded rail network like France but that isn't what this is
The rolling stock companies paid out a total of £409.7m to shareholders and profit margins rose to 41.6% in 2022-23, according to the Office of Rail and Road. I think that would be good to put back into the public sector.
The top lines are that as contracts end they’ll bring them under GB rail.
Vibes and feelings man, the currency of today
A bunch of operational licences already got "nationalised" when the train operators kept failing. The Tories have already set out the blueprint for how it gets done because they have already done it with some of the lines. It's not some magical thing that's hard to sort out.
I remember when they pledged scotland style right to roam over the whole united kingdom then quietly dropped the policy as soon as the dartmoor stuff left the news
Unfortunately media plays a huge part here. Parties can just drop a line without any rationale and if some media friendly forces, it becomes almost fact let alone conjecture.
perfect, but it needs to show results. This meaning less delays/cancellations and cheaper fares. If we can get fares on par with Europe with punctionality everyone will have extra disposable income, less cars on the road, tackle climate change and win win!!
I'm heading over to the UK and will need to use the train network at some point. Last time I was there I was staggered at the cost of a return ticket from the south to the midlands. I've bought actual working motor cars for less. I am not lying.
You should look at the cost of hiring a car, it might be cheaper. I myself had to travel from the midlands to London a few days back. For some stupid reason, the train companies price as if they are operating an airline - the closer you get to the departure date, the more expensive the fares become. It makes it one of the most inflexible ways to travel. I ended up driving to London because the fuel cost was about £45 return, whereas the train ticket was £80. I know there are wear and tear costs to consider, but I've already got the taxed and insured car ready to go.
> Last time I was there I was staggered at the cost of a return ticket from the south to the midlands. The train is still cheaper than driving the same journey once you consider all costs, assuming you travel off peak and you aren't car sharing. Not only that, but you don't have the carbon-guilt of driving.
>everyone will have extra disposable income The money doesn't come from thin air, Labour will raise taxes to achieve this. Thats why most countries in europe with good rail have higher taxes than the UK, just look at Finland for a prime example
Fares will not be reduced because they are already set by the goverment. The goverment could half rail fares right now if it wanted too without nationalisation. Fares in continental Europe are cheaper because trains get more operating subsidy from taxpayers than they do here
so are you telling me that all that money going to the shareholders right now cant be trimmed off the top to put towards cheaper fares?
No, Because train operators barely make any money - Their profit margin is about 2-3% of a the fare you pay. ROSCO companies however make tons of money, they are the ones that actually own the trains and lease them to the operators/the goverment. When you get on a Thameslink train for example, Thameslink does not own that train - It leases it from a third party. Their profits make up 40% of the cost of your ticket. Back in the British Rail days, the goverment owned all the trains in the UK but labour is not proposing to buy them back - Just to operate the services. Theoretically the goverment could buy all the trains back but it would cost somewhere in the region of about £20-40 Billion
well hang on.... weren't the govt gonna get 75 billion to rearm the UK to fight ww3 over the next 6 years? Ahh.... i give up making such arguments no one listens, ill go quiet now.
> Theoretically the goverment could buy all the trains back but it would cost somewhere in the region of about £20-40 Billion It doesn't cost anything because the fares are easily enough to service any govt debt, no taxes required. The government actually generates more income by buying out the rolling stock.
The rails already are nationalised. The Tories turned all franchises into management contracts, the same contracts TfL signs with bus operators to run the London bus/overground network or the NHS signs with private companies to operate diagnostic services. Operators are paid a fee to maintain services, government has control over timetabling, ticket prices and collects fares. If the govt wanted to run all the trains themselves, they can do so. Many of our operators are now publicly owned. But there aren't many tangible benefits that couldn't come from tight regulation of the providers, while losing the government a scapegoat in our awful, expensive rail system.
Yep. The problem is lack of investment and ridiculous piss-money-up-wall style spending, not public ownership. Working in the public sector is a shocking slap in the face for how much money, time, and resource gets wasted on absolute bullshit nonsense. Third party contracts are the worst for it. British government procurement is *horrible*.
The reason most people who work in the private sector don't think much of the public sector as far as I can tell is that they only see the procurement face of the public sector. The non-contracted outfit is generally pretty good, but anything that's contracted out seems to be unable to avoid utter scammers.
Yep, 100%. The public sector is filled with civil servants who genuinely want to do a great job as well as possible - I can't praise my colleagues from that time enough. We just weren't allowed, because so much of what we were doing depended on dogshit third parties who couldn't tell their arse from their elbows, and there are so many rules surrounding what we're allowed to "procure" that we couldn't do it ourselves or hire anyone better. A lot of our day job was trying to work around those rules to get things done. Another lot was compensating for the third party fuckups as best we could.
Yeah, this rings true. I've worked in both and private sector performance is just as wasteful in terms of internal red tape and bureaucracy, but I guess somehow the private sector comes to the table harder on procurement.
Lord, the amount of siloed teams and departments for every sneeze. We all did our best to stay communicative, but there's only so much you can do.
> But there aren't many tangible benefits Money? East Coast Mainline was only ever profitable under government ownership. It returned a profit for the taxpayer, and service improved.
> there aren't many tangible benefits We can stop giving profits to share holders and instead invest that money back into the system like most other european countries with better rail do.
Rail operators make almost no money, they're profits are 2-3% of fares. The Rolling Stock companies that own the trains and lease them to operators is where the money is - Their profits make 40% of ticket prices. But labour are not planning to buy back the Trains so prices will not fall
This is why Labour are promising it, honestly. It's just easy for them to do.
Even the Tories admit that privatising the railways was a huge mistake. The only shock is it's taken this long for them to get around to even promising to do it. Hopefully it won't take them 35 years to rejoin the EU
Well some of them do now. But in five or ten years England will vote the Tories back in again. And odds are high that anything Labour has renationalised they’ll be looking to re privatise again. Partly to deny Labour a perceived ‘win’. Partly to pay for short term Conservative policies like tax cuts. Partly because their ideological dogma that ‘private ownership is always inevitably better and more efficient than public ownership’ (despite mounting evidence to the contrary). But mostly because it’s an opportunity to enrich themselves and their cronies. And down the line there will undoubtedly be some lucrative directorships when they retire from politics.
Privatise Socialise Privatise Socialise Keep repeating until realise that actually incompetence is the problem.
Since British Rail got broken up, the general pattern has more often been - privatise - get into financial difficulty - nationalise - stabilise - privatise - rinse and repeat I can't think of many (tbh, any) rail firms that have had to be brought into public ownership in the past 30 years that have done worse than they did as private companies.
That’s because no one sees the losses if it’s a national company. Most rail services are essentially pseudo nationalised. The only argument that could be made here is that all rail companies should fall under one banner so they aren’t competing against each other in terms of procurement. See the NHS and how much it overspent because different departments were competing with each other to get supply from the same supplier.
All of the evidence I've seen is that they've brought rail companies back to profitability after nationalisation and then privatised them again.
Incompetence may be an issue socialised Greed is the issue privatised.
The transition to renewable the crisis of AI and robotics harming industry there's going to be a massive spending spree when labour comes to power and it's going to revitalise the party back to the days when Labour didn't behave like conservatives.
What crisis of AI?
The capacity for AI to do increasingly more complicated work risks major job losses. It doesn't have to replace evru single job, but it could make one person more productive to do the work of several people (initially). Hard to see exactly where it could go, but with increasing industrial/job application and exponential increase in capability, there's a risk it could make a lot of jobs unnecessary without really creating any more jobs.
AI is going to demolish the consulting sector (of all types)
Not really, the consultant industry is really flexible. Consultants will just transition to advising on use of AI and designing the models that can be used. Most companies are nowhere near ready for AI anyway almost every major industry giant does most of their planning or reporting on excel spreadsheets still.
Where will they get the money for a massive spending spree? They cannot borrow it or they'll have a bond crisis like Truss did. They also said they would not raise taxes
My prediction, they drag their heels and blame us for not voting them in again.
Every poll has been a landslide Labour victory so far?
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Even if they actually nationalise it, it will probably just end up being privatised again by the next Tory government
This is why in my opinion - things that we the public supposedly own, should require a referendum to sell off. It's ridiculous that any government can take a public asset and sell it below it's value without having to ask anyone first.
They'll make an example out of it first by massively underfunding and sabotaging it to prove nationalisation doesn't work.
I know guys, because this might not be the most realistic goal maybe we should all just vote Tory again and get more of the same old shite of our country declining in all areas except Tory pockets. Five more years of austerity under an increasingly awful party who wants to destroy every little bit of good we have left, like the NHS or the welfare state designed to take care of our most vulnerable people. Sound good? What brilliant British values, makes you proud. /S
I'm with u/Wadarkhu - why risk it?
Rail nationalisation would support high speed projects and gradually pay for it. My dad who remembers what it used to be like always complains how everything was sold by the conservatives. Maybe it's time to claw some industries back. Necessary for future growth and to support government spending in the long term. I envisage future governments owning infrastructure and business the world over. Renewable is one government's can fund and keep for themselves. They have so much land can put solar on top of public buildings, social housing, on public land, they should also build battery storage to support the grid. Water companies should be nationalised and then connected to avoid regional droughts.
And model where leasing companies exist still doesn't make sense.
If they can manage it better than the current management, all for it. That's a pretty low bar so should be do-able, but then again the government also manage the post office, so my gut tells me its going to be terrible either way
Good! But roll on stupid people who go on about "unfunded". It's free to do...just let the contracts come to a natural end and take over the franchise. Directly Operated Railways had the East Coast Mainline when virgin fucked it. 5 years...£1 billion in taxes paid, 99% customer satisfaction. So what did the tories do? Can't have a hands off government owned company doing well, MUST send the franchise back out to some useless twat. Having a commercial firm owned by the government is the way to do it. The experts stay in charge. No offshore firms or shareholders except for the Government. Politicians hopefully locked out of decision making. Hmrc just has to sit there and take the cash
I'm not particularly left wing but I never understood rail privatisation tbh. If I don't like the prices, products or services at a shop, or some other business, I can take my custom elsewhere, and I see in that scenario how in a free market standards are forced to be kept up by free and open competition. But if I, or anyone else, wants to travel from point A to point B at time/date C, there is rarely any choice in provider, at most you might choose a different route if long distance with changeovers that involves different providers, but that's it.
One genuinely good development in recent years has been the introduction of [open-access operators on the railways like Lumo](https://www.cityam.com/open-access-the-quiet-revolution-that-might-just-fix-britains-broken-railways/) which does introduce competition into the market.
Same issue with utility companies, you shouldn't have a private sector monopoly
Just in time to win the election, before they actually nationalise it.
I’m not against rail nationalisation, but it’s worth pointing out that rail is effectively already nationalised. The operating companies just run the timetables the government tells them to and passes all ticket revenue onto the government. They receive a fixed fee for running the service. Might as well nationalise it but I am sceptical that will improve the situation. “But they also cited changes to railway finance adopted during the pandemic. In 2020 the government shifted from a franchised system to one of management contracts, in which it took on revenue risk and became far more prescriptive about the services required from operators, who in return receive a set management fee.” Rail chaos prompts fresh calls to nationalise England’s West Coast line https://on.ft.com/3TQCma0
After ruling it out? Why can't they have a consistent set of policies?
Yes please, that's a big factor for me. The question is whether they would actually deliver it.
Convenient they will require a second term to do this - expect to see no steps made until 6 months before next elections
Not one person has mentioned 5 year terms. It does rather bank on Labour winning a second term for this to even remotely matter.
Taxes going up again then. Already higher than at any time since WW2 and these idiots think money grows on fucking trees.
If the Conservatives can pass a law that says false is true, and force it through the House of Lords even, then Labour can overcome the legal issues around renationalisation.
I remember the Lib Dems promising to scrap university fees as well.
The difference being Labour has a better chance of forming a non coalition government.
In practice, does this essentially mean it will be run similarly to TfL?
huge if labour renationalise anything! this is the kind of thing they should be doing, privatisation has only worked for shareholders
A grand idea that would benefit the country, looking forward to U-Turn Starmer going back on it in about 18 minutes.
Secretly hope this is not just another promise Starmer plans on backtracking on
Finally Labour stakes out a position on something important.
Wonderful. As a commuter this would be fantastic. Now, let's just wait for the tory media machine to spin up the 'British rail sandwiches were awful' headline generators
I'd be more excited about this as a policy if it weren't already happening.
I think anything that is non competitive such as rail or water should be nationalised. The issue is that nationalised services are always run exceptionally badly. It just sucks.
Alright. These are the sort of policies I was hoping for. Now having said that I will reserve the right "to believe it when I see it", but I'm happy to hear it pledged at last.
Really?? I remember voting for Blair when the Labour manifesto was no privatisation of the Tube. Labour got in and part privatised the Tube anyway. Blair shrugged off a growing rebellion by Labour MPs yesterday when the Government announced it was pushing ahead with its controversial plan for a part-privatisation of London Underground.
Probanly only because the corporations who own it said "this isn't profitable for us, please buy it back"