Tommy Sheridan MSP

IN THE course of a two-day marathon involving almost 12 hours of discussion, debate and dissection of financial accounts and projections, the Local Government and Transport Committee unanimously agreed that the provisions contained in the UK Railways Bill to devolve more control over Scottish railways to the Scottish parliament is a good idea. For two days we questioned Network Rail bosses, Office of Rail Regulation chiefs, the soon to be abolished Strategic Rail Authority, the STUC, unions and the Scottish Executive and Rail Passenger committee. I was in information overload. But the facts proved beyond all doubt the unanswerable case for a fully integrated and publicly owned and controlled rail network. The case across the UK is as persuasive but let me present the case in Scotland. According to the high-flying finance outfit, Ernst & Young, the cost of running the railway industry in Scotland for 2004/05 is £519 million. This allows £119 million to be spent on rail maintenance and £120 million on operating costs, including staff expenditure. These and other sources of rail expenditure are met in Scotland by £53 million in passenger charges and a massive £459 million in public grant. Thus, of the £519 million to run the whole rail industry in Scotland this year, £459 million is provided through government grant and underwriting of borrowing. The passenger pays £53 million in ticket charges so the public citizen in one form or another meets over 90 per cent of the costs of the railway industry but doesn’t own it. How ridiculous. With the new arrangements of the Railways Bill, the Scottish Parliament will not only have much more power over the industry but signifi- cantly more money to invest. We cannot continue to pour hundreds of millions of public money into an industry that allows the private train operators to siphon off huge profits, without even delivering the overdue improvements in punctuality, safety and passenger comfort. The figures in the Ernst & Young document, “Scottish Executive Rail Review – a Financial Overview” present detailed expenditure projections for 2005/06 - 2008/09. They confirm each year the public purse bail-out of the privateers (of the £492 million expenditure in 2006/07, £438 million comes from direct grant and £54 million from passengers – the whole year’s expenditure from the public). Bringing the whole industry into public ownership with a dynamic structure that involves the rail unions and passengers representatives in the running of the industry alongside management is now imperative. Even the Ernst & Young representative, Dougald Middleton, had to admit that under the privatised Railtrack, every £1 allocated to maintenance of the track and network resulted in only 30p being physically spent on such maintenance. In other words, 70p in every pound disappeared into the pockets of contractors, sub- contractors, agents and consultants. It was that stark realisation that compelled Network Rail to bring all maintenance in- house to cut costs and spend more on maintaining the track. The problem is it is too timid, too little. Much more is spent every year on renewals of track and infrastructure. That massive expenditure must be brought in house. When you consider the grants to private train operators to pay track access charges, you realise that the whole operation should be publicly owned and integrated to deliver a safe, reliable, accessible and high quality rail service to all in Scotland. We pay for the industry, let’s assume full democratic control and ownership. Renationalise rail now By TOMMY SHERIDAN MSP 27