I was very intrigued by today’s poll of 1,000 RMT Members which called for the re-nationalisation of the country’s Rail network. 70% of their members are calling for the system to come back under state control, where only 23% were in favour of the current system.
I should explain, that in my opinion, the current system is possibly the most confusing, inefficient network of interests I can think of. The infrastructure (the stations, the track etc) is upkept by Network Rail, a state-owned company which the Department for Transport has influence over. The services are run by Train Operating Companies (ToC) such as First, Arriva and National Express, and finally, the rolling stock is owned by a massive number of different companies, depending on who bought them, which are loaned out to the ToC’s.
If any improvements to services are to be made that involves extra services, newer trains or an update of the infrastructure, then all of these parties must be involved in the talks, where as under a nationally owned system, all of these parties are just simply the state.
And when you consider that the government currently hands out subsidies to services which make a loss, but sees no return in profits from the tickets sold (these go to private shareholders), you can see that the system is unfairly making the taxpayer a loss.
If the government was also receiving these fares to put back into the system, then it could micro-manage how much spending is taken from the Treasury, increase or decrease rail fares or improve services as it saw fit, and if done properly could probably make money on these services which could be put back into the Treasury, or spent to build new lines and stations.
The only downside is the cost of purchasing all the rolling stock and compensating the ToC’s for the loss of losing their franchises. But this would most likely be a hell of a lot cheaper than the estimated £12bn that Labour want to spend on ID cards and renewing Trident, at the same time that they have said they need to cut public spending to balance the books.
I think it is high time that Labour instilled some common sense in its policies before it loses an election. And if they do, and the Conservatives get in, nationalisation becomes a lot less likely, and if we do not have full control of our network, then having a well functioning rail infrastructure to lower our dependence on internal flights and car usage to combat climate change and become zero carbon by 2050 becomes a hell of a lot more difficult.
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Thatcher sold the rolling stock at £10bn in contemporary prices, so is more now, and it was also massively underpriced! I’d guess the going rate for the whole lot now would approach £50bn now..
This needn’t put a block on nationalisation though – if the government just takes over all the franchises at their end of contract, there’s no compensation to pay and can rent the stock from the companies (some nationalised banks) just as the ToCs do now. That cuts out the subsidised profiteering until someone finds a way of buying back the stock.