What will the railways look like under the next government?

[mike57]

We are now probably 1 year away from a general election, and its anyones guess what the next parliament will look like.

My own guess, Labour will have the most seats, but no overall majority, but this is a very much a guess.

Labour have stated that they wish to bring the railways back into public ownership, how would they do this?

Big bang, much like 1948, all franchises ended, ‘son of BR’ take over or creeping, as franchises run out they are brought into public ownership, and probably with a much firmer attitude to franchises that are not delivering, to accelerate the process.

What would happen to Network rail and open access operators, the OA operators are about the only bit of the original privatisation model that has delivered what it promised.

If the Conservatives are governing with the support of some other parties will we just get more of the same, GBR seems to have died, the OLR portfolio is expanding slowly, and given recent history there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for private operators to bring much to the table, the DfT control just about everything behind the scenes.

And of course the ever present issue of subsidies and funding, as Liz Truss discovered the magic money tree has withered and died, so any attempt by any government to increase spending without increasing taxes is severely limited.

I haven’t considered the ‘what if’ one party had a decent overall majority as I think this is unlikely, nor have I considered the scenario that whilst politicians promise things to get elected they suffer from amnesia once in power (Labour in the 60s regarding Beeching cut backs), and that nothing will actually change.

 

[A0]

We are now probably 1 year away from a general election, and its anyones guess what the next parliament will look like.

My own guess, Labour will have the most seats, but no overall majority, but this is a very much a guess.

Labour have stated that they wish to bring the railways back into public ownership, how would they do this?

Big bang, much like 1948, all franchises ended, ‘son of BR’ take over or creeping, as franchises run out they are brought into public ownership, and probably with a much firmer attitude to franchises that are not delivering, to accelerate the process.

What would happen to Network rail and open access operators, the OA operators are about the only bit of the original privatisation model that has delivered what it promised.

If the Conservatives are governing with the support of some other parties will we just get more of the same, GBR seems to have died, the OLR portfolio is expanding slowly, and given recent history there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for private operators to bring much to the table, the DfT control just about everything behind the scenes.

And of course the ever present issue of subsidies and funding, as Liz Truss discovered the magic money tree has withered and died, so any attempt by any government to increase spending without increasing taxes is severely limited.

I haven’t considered the ‘what if’ one party had a decent overall majority as I think this is unlikely, nor have I considered the scenario that whilst politicians promise things to get elected they suffer from amnesia once in power (Labour in the 60s regarding Beeching cut backs), and that nothing will actually change.

Elephant in the room: freight.

Whenever these threads come up, people always gravitate to talking about passenger, yet what about freight? No doubt Labour's friends in the unions will demand nationalisation of the freight operators, but the problem with that is the private sector have invested *alot* in various pieces of instrastructure for freight - so either the government will have to confiscate - which will destroy their economic credibility in 10 seconds flat - or buy out at an agreed price, which won't be cheap.

 

[43066]

My own guess, Labour will have the most seats, but no overall majority, but this is a very much a guess.

I’d say the same.

Big bang, much like 1948, all franchises ended, ‘son of BR’ take over or creeping, as franchises run out they are brought into public ownership, and probably with a much firmer attitude to franchises that are not delivering, to accelerate the process.

Hopefully some kind of more pragmatic approach to the GBR model - ie longer concessions with commercial and economic freedom. Anything that reduces government interference in day to day operations would enable the industry to move forward from the current mess.

Labour have stated that they wish to bring the railways back into public ownership, how would they do this?

Have they explicitly said this? My understanding is that it’s mixed messages.

No doubt Labour's friends in the unions will demand nationalisation of the freight operators, but the problem with that is the private sector have invested *alot* in various pieces of instrastructure for freight - so either the government will have to confiscate - which will destroy their economic credibility in 10 seconds flat - or buy out at an agreed price, which won't be cheap.

That sounds like 2+2=6. Perhaps you’ve been reading too many “reds under the bed” scare stories again!

 

[A0]

That sounds like 2+2=6. Perhaps you’ve been reading too many “reds under the bed” scare stories again!

Are you seriously suggesting the RMT / ASLEF et al will agree to a situation where their members in the passenger operations are employed by the state, whilst those in freight operations aren't ?

 

[43066]

Are you seriously suggesting the RMT / ASLEF et al will agree to a situation where their members in the passenger operations are employed by the state, whilst those in freight operations aren't ?

This is just paranoia.

You do realise railway staff have been employed by both the private sector and “the state” for much of the last thirty years or so?

 

[mike57]

My understanding is that it’s mixed messages.

Anything where politicians involved tend to be weasel words.

Could freight continue as now and pay access charges. Freight seems to be less in the public spotlight, is it delivering? and does it have the problems that passenger operations have? If there are problems its not making the news.

Are you seriously suggesting the RMT / ASLEF et al will agree to a situation where their members in the passenger operations are employed by the state, whilst those in freight operations aren't ?

They may not have much choice, if an incoming government has promised to bring passenger operations back under state control but leave freight operations as is, then any action to try change government policy would be portrayed as trying to undermine an elected goverment, and would not end well, particularly if this government was Labour led, which seems quite likely.

 

[A0]

This is just paranoia.

You do realise railway staff have been employed by both the private sector and “the state” for much of the last thirty years or so?

Not at all - I do realise that for the last 30 years it has been split.

But both main unions have their stated aim of a 'fully nationalised and vertically integrated railway' (the ASLEF response to the Williams review states that clearly) - note *railway*, not *passenger railway* - so can you provide any evidence the unions wouldn't want the freight operators brought under state control, rather than accusing me of paranoia ?

 

[172007]

Elephant in the room: freight.

Whenever these threads come up, people always gravitate to talking about passenger, yet what about freight? No doubt Labour's friends in the unions will demand nationalisation of the freight operators, but the problem with that is the private sector have invested *alot* in various pieces of instrastructure for freight - so either the government will have to confiscate - which will destroy their economic credibility in 10 seconds flat - or buy out at an agreed price, which won't be cheap.

There is already a state freight operator. DRS are owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. May be that DRS would be encouraged to do more somehow. Maybe DRS is split into two for funding reasons.

 

[Ken H]

What is there to actually nationalise
Network Rail is government owned. Thats 75% of the railway.
Many of the TOC's are. the rest are on tight management contracts and do what the treasury/DfT tells them to do.
ROSCOs are private. But will the Treasury go with bringing back all that debt onto then government balance sheet?

 

[43066]

Anything where politicians involved tend to be weasel words.

Indeed. Frankly nationalisation is something a lot of people seem to be in favour of for purely ideological reasons.

Could freight continue as now and pay access charges. Freight seems to be less in the public spotlight, is it delivering? and does it have the problems that passenger operations have? If there are problems its not making the news.

That seems a fairly likely. Presumably the same would apply to OA operators. It’s by no means certain that the passenger operators will be “nationalised” in the true sense.

note *railway*, not *passenger railway* - so can you provide any evidence the unions wouldn't want the freight operators brought under state control, rather than accusing me of paranoia ?

So this a game of you asking me to prove the unions definitely won’t say something you’ve just made up. I’ll decline, on the basis that it’s a bad faith debating tactic to ask someone to prove a negative!

What the unions’ aims are and what they agree to in practice are very different things. You’re the one suggesting, completely without evidence, that the unions suddenly “won’t agree” to the status quo the railway has existed in for the last thirty years, under both Labour and Tory governments. That seems fanciful in the extreme.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jun 2023 ==

There is already a state freight operator. DRS are owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. May be that DRS would be encouraged to do more somehow. Maybe DRS is split into two for funding reasons.

DRS appears to date back to the original nuclear fuel movements undertaken by BR. Whether it was considered strategically desirable for this to remain in public ownership I’m not sure (but seems likely?).

They do appear to be behaving more and more like a traditional commercial operator, so perhaps there’s scope for them to be hived off to the private sector in future as nuclear flask work diminishes.

 

[alansheppard77]

We are now probably 1 year away from a general election, and its anyones guess what the next parliament will look like.

My own guess, Labour will have the most seats, but no overall majority, but this is a very much a guess.

Labour have stated that they wish to bring the railways back into public ownership, how would they do this?

Big bang, much like 1948, all franchises ended, ‘son of BR’ take over or creeping, as franchises run out they are brought into public ownership, and probably with a much firmer attitude to franchises that are not delivering, to accelerate the process.

What would happen to Network rail and open access operators, the OA operators are about the only bit of the original privatisation model that has delivered what it promised.

If the Conservatives are governing with the support of some other parties will we just get more of the same, GBR seems to have died, the OLR portfolio is expanding slowly, and given recent history there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for private operators to bring much to the table, the DfT control just about everything behind the scenes.

And of course the ever present issue of subsidies and funding, as Liz Truss discovered the magic money tree has withered and died, so any attempt by any government to increase spending without increasing taxes is severely limited.

I haven’t considered the ‘what if’ one party had a decent overall majority as I think this is unlikely, nor have I considered the scenario that whilst politicians promise things to get elected they suffer from amnesia once in power (Labour in the 60s regarding Beeching cut backs), and that nothing will actually change.

if these strikes and cancelations continue i can see many lines and stations closing down,our railway is crumbling mainly in the north

 

[43096]

There is already a state freight operator. DRS are owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. May be that DRS would be encouraged to do more somehow. Maybe DRS is split into two for funding reasons.

There’s two. DB Cargo is state owned, just not the UK state.

 

[172007]

Indeed. Frankly nationalisation is something a lot of people seem to be in favour of for purely ideological reasons.



That seems a fairly likely. Presumably the same would apply to OA operators. It’s by no means certain that the passenger operators will be “nationalised” in the true sense.



So this a game of you asking me to prove the unions definitely won’t say something you’ve just made up. I’ll decline, on the basis that it’s a bad faith debating tactic to ask someone to prove a negative!

What the unions’ aims are and what they agree to in practice are very different things. You’re the one suggesting, completely without evidence, that the unions suddenly “won’t agree” to the status quo the railway has existed in for the last thirty years, under both Labour and Tory governments. That seems fanciful in the extreme.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jun 2023 ==



DRS appears to date back to the original nuclear fuel movements undertaken by BR. Whether it was considered strategically desirable for this to remain in public ownership I’m not sure (but seems likely?).

They do appear to be behaving more and more like a traditional commercial operator, so perhaps there’s scope for them to be hived off to the private sector in future as nuclear flask work diminishes.

Flask work isn't diminishing any time soon I suspect.

It's not my field at all but from what I understand the flask work was fuel rods and highly contaminated components. They also move the containers that contain everything including the protective overalls used by staff cleaning up and this is railed, I immagine if it could be sent by road it would be. I suspect there is probably decades if not 50 years minimum of Decommissioning work for DRS and we still have a few plants that are still operational let alone the new builds.

 

[DanNCL]

Labour's most recent policy is, according to people I know working on the next Labour manifesto, to renationalise all TOCs individually when the existing contracts expire. Labour currently have no plans to make any changes with regards to freight or open access. The end result would effectively be a BR 2.0 (probably with a new name) owning the infrastructure and running the passenger services, with freight and open access paying access fees to the new BR equivalent in the same way as they currently pay Network Rail.

Being politics, we all know this can and probably will change at some point!

 

[Silenos]

Labour’s leadership seem to be trimming back on a lot of their earlier promises, on the grounds that there will be no money available from the public finances. I would not be too surprised to see little change from the present situation, though perhaps with less interference from the government when unions and TOCs are trying to negotiate (even that’s not guaranteed though, if Starmer wants to show the tabloids that he can be tough on the unions too).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Labour’s leadership seem to be trimming back on a lot of their earlier promises, on the grounds that there will be no money available from the public finances. I would not be too surprised to see little change from the present situation, though perhaps with less interference from the government when unions and TOCs are trying to negotiate (even that’s not guaranteed though, if Starmer wants to show the tabloids that he can be tough on the unions too).

The thing is that that policy would cost nowt. You've got nothing to buy and nobody to compensate. That's why it's such a good plan.

 

[43066]

The thing is that that policy would cost nowt. You've got nothing to buy and nobody to compensate. That's why it's such a good plan.

Perhaps that would be no bad thing. Little change and less interference would = a far better system than we currently have!

The obsession with nationalisation is ideological and smacks of the looney left. I’m not convinced that Starmer buys into it, but obviously has to play his cards somewhat close to his chest given his party’s makeup, and the need to present a united front.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Perhaps that would be no bad thing. Little change and less interference would = a far better system than we currently have!

The obsession with nationalisation is ideological and smacks of the looney left. I’m not convinced that Starmer buys into it, but obviously has to play his cards somewhat close to his chest given his party’s makeup, and the need to present a united front.

Sorry, I meant the idea of nationalisation by not renewing franchises. I don't support continuing with any variant of the post 1995 system, it's too inefficient and fragmented. If we had to privatise I'd have gone with BR plc, which would probably now be a world leading logistics company like DB.

 

[Bantamzen]

Labour’s leadership seem to be trimming back on a lot of their earlier promises, on the grounds that there will be no money available from the public finances. I would not be too surprised to see little change from the present situation, though perhaps with less interference from the government when unions and TOCs are trying to negotiate (even that’s not guaranteed though, if Starmer wants to show the tabloids that he can be tough on the unions too).

Likewise I don't see much change with a change of party, there's going to be so many more priorities for whomever takes the reigns after the next GE that the best the industry might hope for is that Labour hand over any dispute negations back to the TOCs if it is still running by then. That won't necessarily means the unions will get their way though, if there's to be up to another 18 months of continuous industrial action, the railways will be in an even worse state by then and money will be even tighter. Some TOCs may well end up doing way better than others in such a situation, which in turn could lead to even more disputes.

 

[Thirteen]

Strikes will occur under a Labour Government but not to the same scale and indeed Labour controlled TfL has seen its fair share of strikes.

Labour's most recent policy is, according to people I know working on the next Labour manifesto, to renationalise all TOCs individually when the existing contracts expire. Labour currently have no plans to make any changes with regards to freight or open access. The end result would effectively be a BR 2.0 (probably with a new name) owning the infrastructure and running the passenger services, with freight and open access paying access fees to the new BR equivalent in the same way as they currently pay Network Rail.

Being politics, we all know this can and probably will change at some point!

It does surprise me that Labour doesn't go for the concessions model like MTR and the Elizabeth Line. I assume that TOCs that are owned by TfL, Merseytravel etc would remain outside of Government control and indeed perhaps some services will end up going to TfL like some of the metro services.

 

[Bald Rick]

Most likely to be GBR, not least because it was their idea that the Conservatives copied.

There’s a chance the name may be changed though, as that was a Johnson / Shapps thing.

 

[yorksrob]

Labour’s leadership seem to be trimming back on a lot of their earlier promises, on the grounds that there will be no money available from the public finances. I would not be too surprised to see little change from the present situation, though perhaps with less interference from the government when unions and TOCs are trying to negotiate (even that’s not guaranteed though, if Starmer wants to show the tabloids that he can be tough on the unions too).

If you think you can still get over the line, it's best to under-promise and pleasantly surprise people.

 

[mike57]

Labour's most recent policy is, according to people I know working on the next Labour manifesto, to renationalise all TOCs individually when the existing contracts expire. Labour currently have no plans to make any changes with regards to freight or open access. The end result would effectively be a BR 2.0 (probably with a new name) owning the infrastructure and running the passenger services, with freight and open access paying access fees to the new BR equivalent in the same way as they currently pay Network Rail.

I would be quite happy with that approach, delivers what we need in a pragmatic way without breaking the bits that arn't broken and without bankrupting the country. If the Labour leadership could deliver that policy and not get into the 'nationalise everything' area they would get my vote. One would hope that the unions would see that it is a policy with a wide appeal and not try and sink it.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

Labour's most recent policy is, according to people I know working on the next Labour manifesto, to renationalise all TOCs individually when the existing contracts expire. Labour currently have no plans to make any changes with regards to freight or open access. The end result would effectively be a BR 2.0 (probably with a new name) owning the infrastructure and running the passenger services, with freight and open access paying access fees to the new BR equivalent in the same way as they currently pay Network Rail.

Being politics, we all know this can and probably will change at some point!

Most likely to be GBR, not least because it was their idea that the Conservatives copied.

There’s a chance the name may be changed though, as that was a Johnson / Shapps thing.

This is my understanding also. I suspect that once all the existing franchises have expired we will wind up with something similar to the government’s proposed Great British Railways an arms length body setting the timetables and fares. It will be interesting to see what impact devolution has and whether Labour devolve regional rail services e.g. Northern and TPE to regional Transport bodies like Transport for the North.

 

[islandmonkey]

Most likely to be GBR, not least because it was their idea that the Conservatives copied.

There’s a chance the name may be changed though, as that was a Johnson / Shapps thing.

Exactly, it's not really Great British Railways when we have already nationalised ScotRail and TfW. I would expect these brands and entities to continue when 'GBR' comes into shape. Elsewhere on this forum there's been a huge (over)detailed debate concerning branding and liveries of future GBR services.

 

[Nick Ashwell]

Exactly, it's not really Great British Railways when we have already nationalised ScotRail and TfW. I would expect these brands and entities to continue when 'GBR' comes into shape. Elsewhere on this forum there's been a huge (over)detailed debate concerning branding and liveries of future GBR services.

Definitely, they won't be reversing devolution.

They would operate to all constituent nations of Britain though, so would still make sense

 

[eldomtom2]

Most likely to be GBR, not least because it was their idea that the Conservatives copied.

There’s a chance the name may be changed though, as that was a Johnson / Shapps thing.

Considering Starmer's proposed Great British Energy, I think the chances of GBR remaining the name are very high.

 

[Bartsimho]

Considering Starmer's proposed Great British Energy, I think the chances of GBR remaining the name are very high.

I'd also state that the name really isn't a big deal as it is easily disassociated with the figures that created it.

Exactly, it's not really Great British Railways when we have already nationalised ScotRail and TfW. I would expect these brands and entities to continue when 'GBR' comes into shape. Elsewhere on this forum there's been a huge (over)detailed debate concerning branding and liveries of future GBR services.

Definitely, they won't be reversing devolution.

They would operate to all constituent nations of Britain though, so would still make sense

I would expect that they might stick a "part of Great British Railways" on the devolved brands and then leave the rest alone.

 

[Kingston Dan]

Labour will win a comfortable overall majority. In addition to bringing the passenger franchises back in house they will also build HS2 in full. Andy Burnham and Tracey Brabin will be key players outside of Westminster with real experience of governing.

 

[urbophile]

No doubt Labour's friends in the unions will demand nationalisation of the freight operators,

Do Labour have any friends in the unions these days?

I wouldn't expect much change from a government led by Starmer, who has already backtracked on most of his election promises. But whether or not the railways are 'nationalised', one would hope that any sensible government would challenge the practice of handing out subsidies for private firms to pass on to their shareholders, rather than investing in the infrastructure, and reverse the fragmentation of the network into competing and confusing disparate elements.