Rail renationalisation- do you support it?

[aylesbury]

Governments do not like funding services ,it costs money ,from 1948 until privatisation money was in short supply for railways the list of cheap alternatives and reduced number of trains built is well detailed.My experience on the telephones showed me that the customer was considered a nuisance plus you were told that a six month wait for a phone was the norm.Remember the ECML wiring it was done on the cheap and a slight breeze and it all falls down ,government cuts again .Any government will have one problem that transcends all the others ,the NHS this is the organisation that has to be sorted not nationalising railways.

 

[NSEFAN]

There you go again: Imagining the worst-case scenario and presenting it as inevitable. The railways depend on government funding irrespective of who owns them. That's no reason not to move to a more efficient public ownership model; in fact it's another good reason in favour of doing so.

Why do you assume that funding will remain at the present level indefinitely if the railways aren't renationalised? Ownership and funding are two separate matters.

It is prudent to be skeptical and pessimistic in politics. If a competent left-wing government came into power then I would maybe share your optimism. At the moment, governments make short-term decisions that screw over the railway in the long term, because they feel they have to be seen to be doing something. They don't care if it makes it harder and more expensive in the long term, as that will be the problem of someone else.

In a way, the current political climate means that the railway is more likely to get the money it needs, simply because the government can be seen to let their "free market'll fix it" ideology fail. On the other hand, a state-owned railway risks falling into the same political football as education and the NHS, being in a constant state of "crisis" (indeed this is exactly how BR was being presented in the media by the 1990s) and constantly being told how to do its job (which already happens to the raikway; see IEP and the overambitious electrification projects that were promised just to win an election). Now that the DfT inherently distrusts NR, its hard to envisage it both creating an even larger entity and handing the bank account over.

 

[Railsigns]

It simply isn't sustainable for the government to go on growing the national debt and throwing public money at the railways at a level far higher than what B.R. ever needed, in the hope of fabricating an illusion of a successful privatisation. Particularly after promising that subsidies would fall. With three quarters of the population supporting renationalisation, this government isn't fooling anyone but the most gullible in society.

 

[Domh245]

Particularly after promising that subsidies would fall

The main reason (as Roger Ford explains) that subsidies have risen is down to infrastructure costs, and whilst subsidies have grown, they've risen far less slowly than the infrastructure costs have. I don't see how a nationalised railway would fix that.

 

[The Ham]

It simply isn't sustainable for the government to go on growing the national debt and throwing public money at the railways at a level far higher than what B.R. ever needed, in the hope of fabricating an illusion of a successful privatisation. Particularly after promising that subsidies would fall. With three quarters of the population supporting renationalisation, this government isn't fooling anyone but the most gullible in society.

There's a few reasons that support has gone up:
- passenger numbers have gone up and so the cost of running the network had gone up (if you have more people in you house your household bills will be higher).
- the population has increased and so although the real terms costs have gone up the amount of each person's tax hasn't gone up as fast.
- the government has invested a LOT in the railways in terms of things like Thameslink, Crossrail and electrification. Crossrail was adding to the government's bill about £1 billion a year or about 40% of the £2.5 billion of extra subsidy (when you look at the peak subsidy under privatisation Vs the last years of BR.
- when taking inflation into account the extra subsidy (when comparing the peak before privatisation and the current figure) the difference is about £800 million, or slightly less than what is being paid for HS2 during the current year.

Yes there was a big problem circa 2006 when the figure hit something like £7.5 billion, however where we stand now isn't too bad. However that doesn't mean that we shouldn't look at ways of improving things.

As I've suggested before we should look at nationalisation lite by having a government owned TOC which is free to bid on franchises much as any other company. In doing so if it wins any franchises the profit would be returned to the government, and if not it would ensure that the private companies are likely to have to work hard to keep their margins tight to win.

 

[Domh245]

Interesting to see that Andy McDonald MP clarified (parts of) Labour's view on renationalisation this morning and argued "for the government to interfere less in the railway, not more." and that "would investigate "better solutions" for rolling stock procurement & confirms that bringing ROSCOs into public ownership would not be a priority - but not ruled out over longer term."

It is nice to be able to debate facts rather than speculation.

 

[northwichcat]

The RMT say they support nationalisation, but wait

Rail union RMT confirmed today that it will be balloting NEMOL members on Tyne and Wear Metro for both strike action and action short of a strike over the imposition of the Government’s 1% pay cap.

https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-to-ballot-for-action-on-tyne-and-wear-metro/

And unlike some other RMT disputes they have a genuinely good reason for balloting members.

 

[Moonshot]

The RMT say they support nationalisation, but wait



https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-to-ballot-for-action-on-tyne-and-wear-metro/

And unlike some other RMT disputes they have a genuinely good reason for balloting members.

So IF private sector operators like my employer Northern were returned to a state run operation, I would have to endure a 1% pay cap.......no thank you , I will gladly have my private sector employer continue to implement 3% pay rises per year

 

[B&I]

Governments do not like funding services ,it costs money ,from 1948 until privatisation money was in short supply for railways the list of cheap alternatives and reduced number of trains built is well detailed.My experience on the telephones showed me that the customer was considered a nuisance plus you were told that a six month wait for a phone was the norm.Remember the ECML wiring it was done on the cheap and a slight breeze and it all falls down ,government cuts again .Any government will have one problem that transcends all the others ,the NHS this is the organisation that has to be sorted not nationalising railways.

But everything you have said applies to at least some private railway operations in this country. Where do you think the money for their 'investments has come from?

 

[AndrewE]

So IF private sector operators like my employer Northern were returned to a state run operation, I would have to endure a 1% pay cap.......no thank you , I will gladly have my private sector employer continue to implement 3% pay rises per year

That's an argument for throwing out the current government policies (public sector pay rises limited to 1% when inflation is 3% - or 4.1% by the old measure) rather than against ending the current shambolic franchised railway.

 

[B&I]

It is prudent to be skeptical and pessimistic in politics. If a competent left-wing government came into power then I would maybe share your optimism. At the moment, governments make short-term decisions that screw over the railway in the long term, because they feel they have to be seen to be doing something. They don't care if it makes it harder and more expensive in the long term, as that will be the problem of someone else.

In a way, the current political climate means that the railway is more likely to get the money it needs, simply because the government can be seen to let their "free market'll fix it" ideology fail. On the other hand, a state-owned railway risks falling into the same political football as education and the NHS, being in a constant state of "crisis" (indeed this is exactly how BR was being presented in the media by the 1990s) and constantly being told how to do its job (which already happens to the raikway; see IEP and the overambitious electrification projects that were promised just to win an election). Now that the DfT inherently distrusts NR, its hard to envisage it both creating an even larger entity and handing the bank account over.

Wouldn't a left wing government then have an incentive to pump money into a nationalised railway?

 

[B&I]

No one can be sure (although if you talk to people who have worked in both, the ones I've heard aren't in the rail industry, and it didn't take long before you find stories of inefficient practices that wouldn't be tolerated in the private sector).

Can you be sure that a nationalised organisation would be better?

As that's the key point, yes there's problems with the way the trains are run now. However would changing it just result in other problems and mean that overall we were no better or worse off?

I work in highways in the private sector and often companies will not consider employing public sector staff of they have a suitable alternative because they have come across too many incidents of government employees being inefficient when dealing with their projects. That is a now problem and not just something that happened 20-30 years ago. In fact back then council staff tended to be well trained and it was the best route into the industry, since then things have changed and I would suggest the private sector will provide you with a better start and give you better long term prospects.

As I've said before, make little step changes (i.e. a government owned TOC and ROSCO) to fix some of the problems and see how that goes before making wholesale changes.

It's not often I can respond to a post in one word, but this time I can. That one word? Carillion.

 

[matt_world2004]

It's not often I can respond to a post in one word, but this time I can. That one word? Carillion.

Another one Railtrack.

 

[Oxfordblues]

To renationalise the UK's rail freight business would be a disaster for the industry. Its main competition is a cut-throat free-market road haulage operation that ruthlessly undercuts rail for lucrative flows. It would only be acceptable if at the same time the UK's road freight industry were nationalised (anyone remember British Road Services?). Being state-owned it would be obliged to strictly adhere to drivers' hours, maintenance and safety standards and operate under a fair and proportionate road-pricing regime.

Of course a revived BRS would soon lose most of its traffic to private competitors from the European mainland thanks to EU open-access rules!

 

[Railsigns]

To renationalise the UK's rail freight business would be a disaster for the industry.

Has anybody actually suggested doing so?

'Disaster' is probably something of an overstatement.

 

[Agent_Squash]

As I've said before, nationalisation is not the answer - in fact, I'd probably be in support of privatising major roads as well. What needs to be done is reduce the huge amount of interference the DfT currently wields - and move towards long term franchises. Franchises which have been around the longest have often seen the most private investment (see Chiltern, SWT etc.)

Projects like Evergreen (funded by Chiltern and NR) work best for the industry.

 

[Wychwood93]

Wouldn't a left wing government then have an incentive to pump money into a nationalised railway?

Hmmm... some years ago I stumbled across the truism that socialism (left wing government) works fine until they run out of other people's money.

 

[The Ham]

As I've said before, nationalisation is not the answer - in fact, I'd probably be in support of privatising major roads as well. What needs to be done is reduce the huge amount of interference the DfT currently wields - and move towards long term franchises. Franchises which have been around the longest have often seen the most private investment (see Chiltern, SWT etc.)

Projects like Evergreen (funded by Chiltern and NR) work best for the industry.

Roads have been privatised, take for instance the 7 crossings when they were built. There's also a lot of companies who maintain our motorways, including the M25 who are under contract to do so from Highways England (note that is a contract to maintain not just bring contacted to fix items when they are told to).

 

[The Ham]

It's not often I can respond to a post in one word, but this time I can. That one word? Carillion.

Just because a private company had gone bust (which as far as I can tell had little to do with their rail projects) it doesn't mean that a nationalised organisation would be cheaper or even better overall.

It is known that BR contacted out work, even if they existed now chances are they would have contacted work to Carillon and so the situation would likely be similar. Yes the Carillon projects will cost more for a time whilst they are sorted, however chances are over a longer time period (say 5+ years) the use of contractors has been of net benefit to NR (likewise to BR if they had still existed).

I would also like to point out that in my post I didn't say that I would like things to stay as they are and that there could be a case for small steps towards nationalisation (i.e. suggesting a government owned TOC) so that we don't rush from a building that's got a leaking roof to one that's potentially got no windows.

As things stand, can you be sure that having the whole industry nationalised would result in a net improvement over the current situation?

Then, even if you can be sure if that, can you be sure that we couldn't fix more of the problems with the industry by taking small steps towards nationalisation than going for full nationalisation?

Even after that can you be sure that it would be better value to do so?

I would guess that is possible that there many on here who would have no doubts about moving on from the first question, many would struggle with an answer on the second and although some would like to be able to pass the final question there would be enough reasonable doubt that many wouldn't.

 

[B&I]

Just because a private company had gone bust (which as far as I can tell had little to do with their rail projects) it doesn't mean that a nationalised organisation would be cheaper or even better overall.

It is known that BR contacted out work, even if they existed now chances are they would have contacted work to Carillon and so the situation would likely be similar. Yes the Carillon projects will cost more for a time whilst they are sorted, however chances are over a longer time period (say 5+ years) the use of contractors has been of net benefit to NR (likewise to BR if they had still existed).

I would also like to point out that in my post I didn't say that I would like things to stay as they are and that there could be a case for small steps towards nationalisation (i.e. suggesting a government owned TOC) so that we don't rush from a building that's got a leaking roof to one that's potentially got no windows.

As things stand, can you be sure that having the whole industry nationalised would result in a net improvement over the current situation?

Then, even if you can be sure if that, can you be sure that we couldn't fix more of the problems with the industry by taking small steps towards nationalisation than going for full nationalisation?

Even after that can you be sure that it would be better value to do so?

I would guess that is possible that there many on here who would have no doubts about moving on from the first question, many would struggle with an answer on the second and although some would like to be able to pass the final question there would be enough reasonable doubt that many wouldn't.

Clearly more words were needed in that reply.

Your post to which I replied was predicated on the basis that the private sector is inherently more efficient than the public sector. I was giving an example of a private company whose ignominious demise, despite colossal state subsidy, would tend to contradict that belief.

Greater private sector efficiency may be the case in some economic sectors, most noticeably manufacturing. The picture is a lot more mixed when it comes to public services, particularly those giving rise to difficult questions about control of infrastructure.

For example, things may have improved since the days of Post Office Telephones (a Department which was, it seems, specifically set up to allow people to use it as an example of the ills of nationalisation, over 3 decades.after it was privatised). Yet when I complain about my rubbish broadband, my provider inevitably points out that the problems are the responsibility of Openreach, the private monopoly in charge of the infrastructure@, who in my experience take 2 weeks to fix anything. Then we wonder why we have the worst broadband coverage in the developed world.

With our post-Beeching rail network, someone has to take control of the infrastructure as it's not feasible to hive control of bits of it off to train operators. Our experiment with Railtrack has shown that, for all Network Rails faults, the private sector alternative is much worse.

That leaves us with continued fragmentation between infrastructure management and train operations, giving rise to much if the excess cost, and many of the practical problems, arising in today's railway. Why are you so reluctant to tackle this fragmentation? Your proposals seem designed to maintain it.

BTW, it's not true to suggest that any change to the status quo would be a complete leap in the dark. We had a unified nationalised railway for 45 years in this country, and we can learn from that. We can also look to other countries across the developed world which still have something similar. Why do we always think in this country that we are unique, and that only our way of doing things could possibly be right?

 

[B&I]

Hmmm... some years ago I stumbled across the truism that socialism (left wing government) works fine until they run out of other people's money.

As the banks showed in 2008, or Carillion last week, this 'truism' might be better applied to modern capitalism.

 

[B&I]

As I've said before, nationalisation is not the answer - in fact, I'd probably be in support of privatising major roads as well. What needs to be done is reduce the huge amount of interference the DfT currently wields - and move towards long term franchises. Franchises which have been around the longest have often seen the most private investment (see Chiltern, SWT etc.)

Projects like Evergreen (funded by Chiltern and NR) work best for the industry.

How many other infrastructure improvements have TOCs funded? And where has the money come from to fund any improvements that have been made?

 

[B&I]

To renationalise the UK's rail freight business would be a disaster for the industry. Its main competition is a cut-throat free-market road haulage operation that ruthlessly undercuts rail for lucrative flows. It would only be acceptable if at the same time the UK's road freight industry were nationalised (anyone remember British Road Services?). Being state-owned it would be obliged to strictly adhere to drivers' hours, maintenance and safety standards and operate under a fair and proportionate road-pricing regime.

Of course a revived BRS would soon lose most of its traffic to private competitors from the European mainland thanks to EU open-access rules!

I rather like the sound of all this. As with so many things blamed on 'Europe', the damage inflicted on this country by limitless road freight is really a result of domestic policy. A government not in hoc to the Frieght Transport Association could regulate to create a level.playing field for rail freight, with huge public health and environmental benefits, ic it wanted to.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I rather like the sound of all this. As with so many things blamed on 'Europe', the damage inflicted on this country by limitless road freight is really a result of domestic policy. A government not in hoc to the Frieght Transport Association could regulate to create a level.playing field for rail freight, with huge public health and environmental benefits, ic it wanted to.

Could you enlarge on how any government can be "in hoc" to a trade body that operates across all modes? The majority of rail freight is from FTA members IIRC.

 

[B&I]

Could you enlarge on how any government can be "in hoc" to a trade body that operates across all modes? The majority of rail freight is from FTA members IIRC.

It is primarily a lobby group for freight hauliers, and has in the past made substantial donations to the Tory Party.

 

[Dr Hoo]

^^^^^^
Are you sure that you are not confusing the multi-modal Freight Transport Association with the uni-modal Road Haulage Association?

The latter has indeed made significant donations to Conservative MPs.

Whether this makes an entire government 'in hock' to a particular interest any more than a party accepting funds from any source, such as trade unions, is another question.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

There you go again: Imagining the worst-case scenario and presenting it as inevitable.

Yes, it's called arguing rationally. I do quite a bit of it! It involves putting forward plausible possibilities and supporting them with facts and logic. You're wrong in believing that's a worst case scenario. Far worse is quite possible.

Why do you assume that funding will remain at the present level indefinitely if the railways aren't renationalised? Ownership and funding are two separate matters.

I don't assume that funding will remain at the present level if the railways are not re-nationalised. ​

 

[B&I]

^^^^^^
Are you sure that you are not confusing the multi-modal Freight Transport Association with the uni-modal Road Haulage Association?

The latter has indeed made significant donations to Conservative MPs.

Whether this makes an entire government 'in hock' to a particular interest any more than a party accepting funds from any source, such as trade unions, is another question.

Sorry, I think you're right. And I don't hold with political parties being dependent on massive donations from any source. They should learn to spend less, in the same way some of them expect the rest of us to.

 

[LateThanNever]

Governments do not like funding services ,it costs money ,from 1948 until privatisation money was in short supply for railways the list of cheap alternatives and reduced number of trains built is well detailed.My experience on the telephones showed me that the customer was considered a nuisance plus you were told that a six month wait for a phone was the norm.Remember the ECML wiring it was done on the cheap and a slight breeze and it all falls down ,government cuts again.Any government will have one problem that transcends all the others ,the NHS this is the organisation that has to be sorted not nationalising railways.

Like virtually all the financial suggestions on here this is plain wrong. Money is not in short supply. The UK has a sovereign currency and it prints the stuff. We created £435 BILLION for the banks and the City and how many taxes were raised to create it?
None.
(It is a political decision as to whether we want to allocate the resources to nationalise something - and if private industry can pay for it and then make money out of it then the state can do the same.)
If you can do it you can afford it - as Keynes said. We can afford the NHS (though we may be short of those finite resources that are doctors and nurses) and the railways. We cannot pay tax unless the government first creates the money with which to pay the tax so we spend and tax not tax and spend - that's just logic.
See also, for example
http://www.progressivepulse.org/economics/deceit-not-ignorance

 

[Agent_Squash]

Like virtually all the financial suggestions on here this is plain wrong. Money is not in short supply. The UK has a sovereign currency and it prints the stuff. We created £435 BILLION for the banks and the City and how many taxes were raised to create it?
None.

Two words: hyper inflation. The 5 billion on the GWML electrification would barely be able to afford a loaf of bread if we just kept creating money.