Rail review lobby/ Parliamentary report

T HE lobby of MPs coincided with unveiling of the government’s own rail review which recognised that the railways were offering poor value for money in return for increasing taxpayer subsidy. The White Paper contained some welcome proposals such as the abolition of the Strategic Rail Authority and the creation of a national Rail Agency. However, the new proposed structures will leave the network fragmented and the separation of control of track and trains introduced during privatisation. It will also leave the industry hampered by private sector considerations with train operations, train building and infrastructure renewals and freight still driven by profit. Billions of pounds of tax and farepayers’ money will continue to leak out of the industry into the pockets of shareholders instead of being invested into the renewal of the network. Signal failure General secretary Bob Crow said that it was astonishing that after over 10 years of rail privatisation that the government remained wedded to the belief that the private sector can deliver an effective railway. “Record levels of public subsidy are not improving rail services but are leaking out of the industry or being wasted on unnecessary duplication. The review will not change this,” Bob said. He warned that the review also threatened rural rail services and their replacement by buses. “We need to look after the network as a whole, not strip it down to a skeleton service. Main lines feed the smaller regional routes and the other way round, that means cross subsidies should be brought in to provide a social service,” he said. RMT parliamentary group chair John McDonnell MP said that while the review had not delivered what the industry required, there was a sense of “inevitability” that rail will be brought back into the public sector at some point. “Every option that government has employed to deal with the disaster of privatisation has failed. It is becoming increasingly clear that the cheapest and safest way to deal with the problems of privatisation is to reverse it,” he said. Kelvin Hopkins MP pointed out that public subsidy was higher than under British Rail but the service to the public was now considerably worse. He said that during BR days public subsidy was five times lower than the European average yet the nationalised company achieved much higher levels of productivity. Catalyst exposes private sector The lobby of parliament coincided with the launch of centre-left think tank Catalyst’s report on the future of the railways, which reviewed the government’s record on rail and assessed the options for change. It concluded that radical action was needed to reverse the fragmentation of the network and reassert public control if the substantial levels of committed public investment are to produce the hoped for “rail renaissance” in the UK. Catalyst said that the government’s rail review was an inadequate response to structures that left a multiplicity of competing private players at the heart of a heavily-subsidised industry. The government’s failure to overcome these problems was a major obstacle to meeting the objectives set out in the government’s transport ten year plan. The report found: G Private firms involved in the railway industry are currently in receipt of a record subsidy from the taxpayer of £3.8 billion a year and rising Rallying for rail Hundreds of rail workers lobbied Parliament last month to demand a publicly owned and accountable rail network PARLIAMENT: Bob Crow speaking for a publicly-owned rail network with MPs Micheal Meacher and John McDonnell ON THE MARCH: Rail workers on their way to ask their MPs to back the campaign 8 LOBBY: RMT members from SET join Bob Crow outside parliament This campaign would not be possible without the political fund RMT parliamentary column I T HAS been an important few weeks for transport workers. The government’s Rail Review represents the biggest shake up in the industry for years and it brings some welcome decisions such as the predicted abolition of the Strategic Rail Authority and greater control of the network by central government. However, I’m sure that workers in the industry and the majority of public will share my view that the review has not gone far enough and the opportunity to provide a fully integrated, publicly owned and publicly accountable rail network has been missed. The review still leaves the industry in a fragmented state with a web of competing private companies whose overriding priority is to maximise profits. Predictable Tory criticisms that the review should have handed even more power to the private sector just repeats their tired old dogma of private sector good, public sector bad. These doctrines carry no weight with a public that has seen the damage that has been wrought by over ten years of rail privatisation and it’s disappointing that the government remains wedded to the belief that the private sector can still deliver an effective railway. The economic rationale for wholesale private sector involvement in rail was that it would prove to be sufficiently efficient to offset both the expensive dividends that would have be paid to the shareholders and the higher cost of private sector borrowing – it is now self-evident that both theories are false. However, there are attractions in Labour’s plans to create a National Agency to assume responsibilities for train franchises. The fact that South Eastern Trains is already operating in the public sector and that service performance has improved significantly represents a good platform for the campaign to bring other train operations back under democratic control. As a South East MP I am particularly keen to help get RMT’s arguments for the South Eastern Trains campaign across to government and I have joined up with other members of parliament to seek an early meeting with the secretary of state for transport to discuss SET and finding ways of improving the rail network. A S a former seafarer, with more than 25 years’ service, I’ve been pleased to take a leading role in the union’s campaign to link Labour’s tonnage tax regime to the provision of jobs and training places for British Seafarers. I’m grateful to the 148 MPs who have so far backed my Early Day Motion 880 which calls for such a link. This has been followed up with a constructive meeting at the Treasury when Bob Crow, John McDonnell MP, RMT shipping secretary Steve Todd and myself discussed the topic with the Minister, Dawn Primarolo. David Jamison, the shipping minister, has now also agreed to listen to our case and, having persuaded the influential Transport Select Committee to hold its own inquiry into this issue, we eagerly await their report. We can not and we will not stand by and watch the Red Ensign become just another flag of convenience to benefit rogue employers who continue to hand out poverty rates of pay. Many of my Labour colleagues are still battling away in the interests of working people. But recent by-election results painfully remind us that the party needs to focus on the issues that matter to them in their everyday lives if it is to win back their trust and support it needs to win an historic third term and stop the Tories wrecking everything again. GWYN PROSSER MP FOR DOVER AND DEAL A platform for change G Cash injections are being spent on expanding the network but on the increase in maintenance costs following privatisation G Performance levels are still falling, with an average one in five trains arriving late G The government will fail to achieve its targets for rail passenger and freight growth despite their continuing economic and environmental necessity The Catalyst report proposes a number of steps in order to bring efficiency and accountability back to the industry: G Direct public ownership of Network Rail for clearer accountability and better value for money through reduced borrowing costs G Reintegration of track renewals to extend the significant savings and delay reduction already achieved by Network Rail bringing maintenance “in house” G A moratorium on the costly refranchising of train operations to the private sector following the success of South Eastern Trains since the removal of Connex G Regulation of the rolling stock companies that currently convert heavy public subsidies into profit margins of 30 to 40 per cent G Maintanence of tough and independent safety regulation, not the dangerous subordination to questions of cost now proposed in the government’s White Paper Catalyst’s Director, Martin McIvor, said that the government needed to seize the agenda and rescue the Ten-Year Plan. “The appropriate model for ensuring a full social, economic and environmental return on public investment is a railway that is publicly owned and accountable,” he said. Copies of the Catalyst report are available on the RMT website or contact: Catalyst, 150 The Broadway, London SW19 1RX. Tel 020 7733 2111. www.catalystforum.org.uk Summary of government White Paper proposals G Strategic Rail Authority to be abolished and its functions transferred to the Department of Transport, which will also take responsibility for awarding train operating company franchises. Number of franchises to be reduced and aligned more closely with Network Rail’s regional structure. G Some operational responsibility for services, including issues such as timetabling will be transferred to Network Rail. G Some devolution of railway powers to the Scottish executive, Wales Assembly, the Mayor of London and PTE G Responsibility for safety on the mainline railway, the underground and other metro systems will transfer from the HSE to the Office of the Rail Regulator. 9