02.07.12
Labour backing for proposals to begin renationalising the railway
The ‘Rebuilding Rail’ report, which suggests gradual rail renationalisation by not re-letting franchises when they end but instead bringing them back into public ownership, has won a firmer than expected endorsement from the Labour Party.
Shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle told the Observer that the report made a “coherent case for reform” and said Labour agreed with many of its ideas, and attacked the current system in which she said subsidiaries of other European countries’ state railways win franchises in theUK, using the profits to subsidise fares and services back home.
Speaking about the report and Labour’s rail review at the recent Aslef conference, Eagle said: “We need reform to deliver real accountability. When I began this review, I said I would rule nothing in and nothing out. But it is plain that privatisation has not delivered efficiencies. It has delivered higher fares, higher subsidies, excessive bonuses for senior managers, bailouts and declining services. It is the economics of the mad-house.”
The ‘Rebuilding Rail’ report was published by the think tank Transport for Quality of Life, on behalf of the main rail unions: Aslef, RMT, TSSA and Unite. It sets out a strategy for how public ownership of the railway could be restored and how a future Labour government could reintegrate rail operations and infrastructure.
The report calls for Labour to make a number of commitments: use money saved from reintegration to lower fares; award no new franchises; review all existing franchises to assess whether they should be bought out; reduce ‘dividend leakage’; and campaign against the European Commission’s intention for member states to open domestic passenger services to competition.
Transport for Quality of Life director Dr Ian Taylor called for “proper public control” of the railway and said: “Other countries inEuropestill regard it as quite normal that a public service as important as the railway should be appropriately managed through public ownership in order to realise the broad economic, social and environmental gains which rail can deliver. This report documents in some detail a route to achieve that.”
Unite assistant general secretary Diana Holland, said: “It is vital that we bring the rail industry into public ownership. For too long private companies have been profiteering at the expense of the taxpayer and passengers.
“Our railways need to be run in the national interest. This report rightly shows that a publically-owned rail industry serving the needs of communities, businesses, manufacturing and the economy is achievable.”
Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan called the research “policy to be actioned”, and Manuel Cortes, TSSA general secretary, stated that the UK’s railways were more expensive and less efficient that those in Europe: “Germany, Italy, France and Spain run affordable publicly owned railways that serve passengers first and last. We should do the same here in theUK.”
RMT general secretary Bob Crow claimed that privatisation had done “untold damage” to the industry and added: “Bringing franchises back in-house and re-integrating them with infrastructure in a single, accountable structure offers us a way to reverse the damage done and to save taxpayers £1bn a year that could be invested in an expanding network.”
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