Labour's Plan for Rail

[12LDA28C]

- The revenue from all of those railcards, which in itself could be substantial.

Which would be counterbalanced by the savings made with said railcards, presumably.

 

[Class83]

How would such a railcard work and who would be eligible for one? If it's everyone, then surely it's pointless and it would be better to simply reduce fares.



And how would that be done? Are Labour prepared to provide the funds to purchase all rolling stock from the ROSCOs outright? I very much doubt it.

A universal railcard (on the Bahncard model) is useful as it creates a sunk cost for the traveler with the railway, reducing the marginal cost of additional rail journeys. Car owners already have this, once you've bought (or at least committed to lease payments) and insured a car then the marginal cost of additional use is much lower.

The big challenge is to create a railway (or integrated public transport system) which enables people to give up on car ownership, or at least go from 2 to 1 cars, currently outside major cities this isn't particularly realistic.

 

[yorksrob]

Which would be counterbalanced by the savings made with said railcards, presumably.

Well, maybe, maybe not.

If the people using the railcards are buying more tickets as a result.....

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Sadly, the gist of Labour's concept - to bring back a national network without TOCs, etc., has been made almost impossible to achieve by the Tories' 'scorched earth' policies approach (it's just too expensive to buy everything back) - just like their HS2 pruning and deliberate lack of safeguarding will make it all-but-impossible to reverse.

Taking the remaining private TOCs back into public ownership shouldn't be too difficult - simply do it as their National Rail Contracts expire. Fortunately the recently awarded Avanti and XC ones have break clauses so do not have to run the full term. The ROSCOs can be left to wither on the vine, for new stock can be bought directly as replacement becomes due. The big question, left unanswered today, is what the new structure will look like - integrated BR, regional devolution etc?

 

[yorksrob]

The big challenge is to create a railway (or integrated public transport system) which enables people to give up on car ownership, or at least go from 2 to 1 cars, currently outside major cities this isn't particularly realistic.

I remember growing up in Kent, we had one family car. This was shared between my father and two older sisters at various times. As a result, our transport was shared to varying degrees between the Vauxhall Chevette and Network SouthEast.

 

[contrex]

Should the words Labour and plan for even be in the same sentance?

I wonder if I actually need to explicitly comment on this?

 

[Sonik]

The ROSCOs can be left to wither on the vine, for new stock can be bought directly as replacement becomes due.

It's perfectly possible for government to wind down the ROSCOs fairly quickly, should they wish to.

They have a captive market and if the government start buying all new stock directly, the ROSCOs will simply be left with stranded assets at end of term.

So if the government really wants to, it wouldn't be too difficult to force the ROSCOs to sell their stock at a reasonable price.

 

[adamedwards]

It helps for us who know the railways in the UK to remember that most of the public, especially those who never travel by train, think the rail companies are genuinely private concerns making vast profits at the expense of the fare payer. So Labour know full well all they need to do is let the contracts run out and hey presto "nationalised" in the minds of those same poeple.
I would expect the freight companies to be left private along with Lumo, Hull Trains etc. so as to enable the "nationalised" rail companies to have someone to benchmark against. Some of them will then be contracted out like the Overground on a concession basis.

 

[irish_rail]

If Labour are serious about bringing it all under one banner, then there are many cost savings to be had. Economies of merging train crew , plus not needing every individual TOC needing its own HR, PR, management, directors etc etc will all produce savings. In fact (and Aslef won't like this) but I can forsee fewer train drivers being employed and needed by allowing (say) a GWR Plymouth driver to be able to take a XC voyager from Plymouth Station to Laira depot, or further afield. Take out the ideology of "competition is the be all and end all" and suddenly money can be saved. Provided fares are regulated properly without competing franchises. It will certainly be interesting to hear more.....
Ps, anyone that mentions 1997, its ancient history and not worthy of comparison in 2023.

 

[physics34]

It's worth noting that Rachel Reeves is proposing to introduce a new definition of government debt, to be offset against the value of publicly owned assets.

This allows government to borrow without nominally increasing debt to GDP etc. and it's a step change from the Brown era policy of minimizing national debt by moving everything off-balance sheet via private sector (e.g. PFI, ROSCOs)

So I wound't rule anything out. It would certainly be much cheaper overall for government to finance & own stock directly, vs ROSCOs at commercial loan rates.

Rachel Reeves to be fair is an impressive individual..... out of an average bunch.

 

[Geeves]

As said by others in the thread the big ticket items are not too hard to bring back like the ROSCOs and the TOCs how ever on the TOC side you have some franchises with 30 odd years worth of different terms and conditions and different wages

At some point Labour would be at the rath of ASLEF and RMT unions when it comes to potentially reducing traincrew wages, either that or everyone goes up to Avanti level wages.

Certainly would be interesting

 

[Mikey C]

The Gordon Brown era hid borrowing in PFI type schemes to ensure they met their self imposed borrowing rules, whereas at the moment the country has a horrendous level of borrowing and a horrendous interest bill, so what Labour won't be doing is spending large sums on nationalising anything if they can avoid it.

I always look at London's buses as a clever "political" model, as all the buses and operators are private, but to the public it's just "London buses", just like the London Underground. The London Overground and DLR again have private operators without any controversy.

 

[Irascible]

'simplified, unified' is good. But as with everything else, how radical is Labour really going to be? I have me doubts.

Depends how much they listen to Mandelson - of all the people to criticize Blair's govt for being too much like Tories. PFI was certainly a very Tory idea, has to be said ( I won't go into a public risk/private reward rant again ) so if they really think they can do some long term borrowing without wrecking everything then that does open the door to longer term planning without being at the mercy of private investors/markets. We'll see. They're inheriting a complete wreck anyway, so even just righting the ship is going to be herculean.

 

[Sorcerer]

I'm not necessarily against Labour bringing the railways back into public ownership, but unless it includes a proper restructuring and management overhaul then it won't fix many of the problems already faced except for removing any obligations to shareholders of private companies. I can't fully advise on how they should be, but I think any renationalised network should simply be a state-owned enterprise in which the UK Government owns all of the shares but is otherwise merely for checks-and-balances, and the Department for Transport should be a representative for railways in Parliament but not the ones dictating most of the day-to-day running operations. Let the railwaymen (and women) run the railways and keep the politics out. You wouldn't ask someone without a licence how to drive a car, therefore we shouldn't expect politicians who barely if ever ride trains to manage the railways.

 

[JonathanH]

At some point Labour would be at the rath of ASLEF and RMT unions when it comes to potentially reducing traincrew wages, either that or everyone goes up to Avanti level wages.

Is that strictly true? It stands to reason that driving a 125mph train on a busy mixed traffic route is a different job to trundling up and down a suburban or rural railway at 70mph, and therefore might attract different conditions and pay.

 

[DLAYKEGER]

You only need to look at nationalised TFW that makes Arriva Trains Wales look like a world class rail operator. I have given up on my line and can only hope my line gets integrated into Merseyrail through Battery 777s We've ended up with refurbished D stock not fit for purpose meanwhile South Wales gets its new fancy Metro with its overspends. what next is cuts as people have found alternative ways to travel as their services can't be relied on

 

[JonathanH]

Let the railwaymen (and women) run the railways and keep the politics out.

That would happen if the politics wasn't the source of part of the money needed to run the railway.

You seem to want something owned by the state, which is answerable to the state, over which the state has no control?

 

[Geeves]

Is that strictly true? It stands to reason that driving a 125mph train on a busy mixed traffic route is a different job to trundling up and down a suburban or rural railway at 70mph, and therefore might attract different conditions and pay.

Yes its a different job but is no less challenging or worthy of being paid the less. With different wages you lose the flexibility and you are still needing to train folks who you've lost to that particular wage grade.

In the past a depot would have a mix of local and express work with drivers doing local in the morning and maybe a longer job later on. That's the flexibility they need now.

I guess we will see when Labour get in how it pans out. The other option is you have Blackpool N situation where by you have folks in the same uniform, driving on the mostly the same routes, but only driving certain types of train on different wages from each other

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Rachel Reeves to be fair is an impressive individual..... out of an average bunch.

Ex BoE economist though who is paranoid about spending money yet without a liberal dose of cash to restore goodwill of majority of public sector workers can't see Labour being able to make progress anywhere fast

 

[Peter Sarf]

That would happen if the politics wasn't the source of part of the money needed to run the railway.

You seem to want something owned by the state, which is answerable to the state, over which the state has no control?

This is why the railways will never be independent of government interference.

 

[WAO]

Labour's fundamental error is equating public ownership with Government ownership and therefore civil service and hence treasury control. They made the same mistake with the NHS, producing a civil service led bureaucracy that hounds ethical staff who blow whistles on bad practice.

Labour spoiled the railways in 1948 by producing a Railway Executive with a Chairman not a General Manager, who would be constantly snookered by a superior British Transport Commission Chief (a sinecure for an ex MoT Permanent Secretary). The Tory creation of the BRB did work after a fashion with some very able managers, until wrecked by weak John Major (against his better judgement).

Equally privatisation in present conditions doesn't work as directors are motivated to polish up a highly leveraged company balance sheet and then jump ship, with bags of loot.

WAO

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Taking the remaining private TOCs back into public ownership shouldn't be too difficult - simply do it as their National Rail Contracts expire. Fortunately the recently awarded Avanti and XC ones have break clauses so do not have to run the full term. The ROSCOs can be left to wither on the vine, for new stock can be bought directly as replacement becomes due. The big question, left unanswered today, is what the new structure will look like - integrated BR, regional devolution etc?

How does all that stack up with Kier's "business friendly" model?
You can't butter up the City on the one hand while destroying their legitimate transport interests with the other.

Fares reform has an important place in the future, but surely the critical thing is to get the railway off life support and trusted again by the politicos and civil service.
There is absolutely no model at the moment of an arms-length organisation with powers to make the railway work commercially.

 

[Sorcerer]

That would happen if the politics wasn't the source of part of the money needed to run the railway.

You seem to want something owned by the state, which is answerable to the state, over which the state has no control?

The idea I suggested was to have the railways own the company operating the railway (let's say Great British Railways for argument's sake) and collect revenue and profits generated but otherwise allow proper experienced management to run the railways and have the Transport Secretary speak in Parliament on their behalf. The state will still be able to have some level of control over the railways, but they should be the ones trying to run it on a day-to-day basis. Part of why HS2 has become such a mess is because of all the politics surrounding it compared to HS1 which was left to the people who know what they were doing and turned out much better. The Swiss model of a special stock corporation where shares are held by the federal and cantonal governments works very well.

 

[Snow1964]

So if the government really wants to, it wouldn't be too difficult to force the ROSCOs to sell their stock at a reasonable price.

That sounds like a variation of Liz Truss approach, upset the ROSCOs which are part of big financial institutions, which the Government needs to keep on side so they continue to buy Government debt.

Upsetting the financial markets will soon cost the Government £billions in extra interest payments.

 

[Meerkat]

The ROSCOs can be left to wither on the vine, for new stock can be bought directly as replacement becomes due.

Why on earth would you want to do that!
Then new trains become a capital expense requiring government borrowing, and therefore strictly controlled by the treasury. Even if the new trains could make money the Treasury might well say “sorry, can’t borrow any more money this year”.
Also the railway is stuck with the turkeys for life, instead of just not renewing the lease.

Has Labour ever done well for the railways? All I link them with is a calamitous nationalisation and a refusal to electrify.

 

[Thirteen]

I always look at London's buses as a clever "political" model, as all the buses and operators are private, but to the public it's just "London buses", just like the London Underground. The London Overground and DLR again have private operators without any controversy.

The Elizabeth Line is operated by MTR as well. I wonder if that might be Labour's preferred option rather than having everything under public control especially with the devolved nations, London and Liverpool. I could see a situation where say Northern and TPE are run as a joint venture between the various places in the North with the more suburban routes in Greater Manchester are run by TfGM.

 

[JamesT]

The idea I suggested was to have the railways own the company operating the railway (let's say Great British Railways for argument's sake) and collect revenue and profits generated but otherwise allow proper experienced management to run the railways and have the Transport Secretary speak in Parliament on their behalf. The state will still be able to have some level of control over the railways, but they should be the ones trying to run it on a day-to-day basis. Part of why HS2 has become such a mess is because of all the politics surrounding it compared to HS1 which was left to the people who know what they were doing and turned out much better. The Swiss model of a special stock corporation where shares are held by the federal and cantonal governments works very well.

Government control tends to be cyclical. The structure of the industry took day to day control away from government, limiting them to franchise specifications. But then after Hatfield people demanded something be done about Railtrack, so regulation was brought back into government instead of being independent.
Or consider the NHS. Day to day control was spun out into NHS England. But during the pandemic it was perceived that the Health Secretary couldn’t get things done as he didn’t have direct control. So now there’s more central planning.

I think you’re looking at the Swiss with rose tinted glasses. Consider Rail 2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_2000
A big new line and other upgrades. Had to get approval through the political process, not just the railway getting on with it.
Costs ballooned, so the politicians demanded it be rescoped with sections cut to save money. Is that really any different to here?

 

[Irascible]

Why on earth would you want to do that!
Then new trains become a capital expense requiring government borrowing, and therefore strictly controlled by the treasury. Even if the new trains could make money the Treasury might well say “sorry, can’t borrow any more money this year”.
Also the railway is stuck with the turkeys for life, instead of just not renewing the lease.

That's working out just great isn't it. Yes, I live in GWR land. And hey, instead of servicing it's own debt borrowed at rates only governments get, we get to service someone else's debt taken at commercial rates! but who cares, it's just tax money.

Has Labour ever done well for the railways? All I link them with is a calamitous nationalisation and a refusal to electrify.

We could play what-if all year, but while that Labour govt did a lot of dumb things and some great ones, just handing the shattered railway companies a giant wodge of cash & not expecting anything in return wasn't going to happen. Successive Tory govts had plenty of time to sort both the railways and the rest of industry out and instead sat back on pre-war laurels, and we're paying for it. Blaming absolutely everything on the post-war Labour govt is naive revisionism.

The last Labour govt got in a generation ago. They weren't remotely like the previous one which I can just about remember and good grief there's no wonder Maggie got in, and to be honest were more like a Tory party that cared a bit at first.

 

[Blindtraveler]

I'm not necessarily against Labour bringing the railways back into public ownership, but unless it includes a proper restructuring and management overhaul then it won't fix many of the problems already faced except for removing any obligations to shareholders of private companies. I can't fully advise on how they should be, but I think any renationalised network should simply be a state-owned enterprise in which the UK Government owns all of the shares but is otherwise merely for checks-and-balances, and the Department for Transport should be a representative for railways in Parliament but not the ones dictating most of the day-to-day running operations. Let the railwaymen (and women) run the railways and keep the politics out. You wouldn't ask someone without a licence how to drive a car, therefore we shouldn't expect politicians who barely if ever ride trains to manage the railways.

Totally agree

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

'...How will it work in Wales and Scotland?'
Scotrail renationalised on 1 April 2022

What is the current thinking of the Welsh Government on transport matters? Will that be the same as stated in the Labour shadow minister's statement?