While I was watching Question Time last night the Labour MP John Mann was going on about bringing the railways back into public ownership
I watched that too – dreadful episode – bringing Oakshot onto the programme and not asking her about being at the centre of one of the biggest stories of the week was shameful.
Railways already are nationalised , the DFT are specifying with the aid of taxpayers funding, and at the same time , contracting out services to the private sector and dictating t and C's.
Totally agreed – why would the Government want to change a situation where they control all of the levers but the gullible press/public always blame someone else?
For example, the Government decided that inflation (RPI) would be the level at which fares would rise, fares rise in line with RPI, everyone blames Richard Branson/ the German government.
What we need is *better* Government, not *more* Government. Like a Network Rail that delivered the projects it promised to on time and on budget, a DfT that was more flexible, a Westminster who didn’t blow so hot and cold. About the only bit of Government that comes out of things well are TfL (and the Mayor of London). I’m not sure I’d trust the rest though.
Is it really surprising that people are calling for re-nationalisation of the railways? there are currently 2 large chunks of the network in meltdown, added to that the actions of successive ECML franchisees in handing back their franchise when they find they got their sums wrong... then there are the franchises that are owned by foreign governments... certainly when Arriva had the Welsh franchise there was a perception that all they were interested in was getting as much money from the taxpayer/ fare payer and handing as much of it as possible to the German government as profit without any investment in their network.
In today’s simplistic Canary/Brietbart world, it’s not surprising that people are jumping on simplistic solutions to bigger problems, no.
Two large chunks of the network in meltdown? Government are responsible for the problems on TSGN, the delayed infrastructure, the decision to remove Guards. Everything the TOC has done has been in line with what the Government asked them to (using a private company as a useful Trojan Horse for removing Guards).
Government are responsible for the delays to Manchester – Blackpool electrification too.
In both cases, the Government agreed the paths, the Government felt that the timetable was robust enough. It’s not like bus companies who set their own timetables and deadlines – the Government set the paths for trains and the Government staff the signal boxes and maintain the infrastructure. You can blame Arriva for the lack of Rest Day Working in Lancashire, but the vast majority of the problems on TSGN and Northern/ Trans-Pennine are the delays to infrastructure upgrades and the flimsy timetable that the Government promised to deliver.
The ECML franchise got their sums wrong? Well, yes, since they inherited dodgy data from the (Government) franchise that previously ran the service and were unable to fully implement the improvements they wanted due to Government cuts to promised infrastructure improvements. Stagecoach kept their side of the bargain, paying the premiums (higher ones that DOR managed), but if the Government weren’t going to remove the bottlenecks they promised to tackle then you can’t be surprised if that gave Stagecoach a handy excuse to walk away.
ATW wouldn’t invest in the franchise over and above what they had committed to when they signed up to the franchise? I’m not surprised. It was a heavily loss making arrangement that required massive subsidy, so any operator were never going to start paying for additional improvements (over and above the franchise commitments) without more subsidy. Blame the Government for the lack of additional subsidy – easy for Welsh politicians to complain that Arriva won’t put their hands in their pockets and fund more services to places like Fishguard but if the franchise required something like forty pence per passenger mile in subsidy, the onus is on Government to pay if they want a better service. Arriva were a great scapegoat for Welsh politicians (Plaid and Labour), who could moan about the lack of additional improvements whilst ignoring that they weren’t paying for those improvements. If Welsh politicians weren’t prepared to pay for things then they shouldn’t be blaming Arriva for not paying for those things.
(for the sake of argument, “Government” can be Westminster, DfT, Network Rail, Cardiff Bay, ORR, DOR etc – it’s all different arms of the same beast – I’m not against state control of the railways in theory but the majority of problems in recent years have been the fault of one arm of Government or another – do I trust the people behind the decision to cancel MML electrification to run the MML TOC?)
The biggest issue with direct state operation for me is that it would be subject to annual cuts from the Treasury. With the MOJ and local government suffering huge cuts at short notice, it is fanciful to think that the railways wouldn't. The best part about the current system is that it forces the Government to think long-term.
Excellent points.
A lot of people don't realise how luck the railway has been to avoid the austerity that has hit other public services (because the Government can defeat librarians and other public servants but daren't challenge the likes of Stagecoach?)