IT’S OUR RAILWAY

Parliamentary column IT’S OUR RAILWAY RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: june 2009 :: RMTnews 9 John Major’s “big idea” for the 1992 election was one last piece of privatisation: a sort of virility symbol of Thatcherism, when he pledged to privatise the railways. Never a great student of history, Major had failed to appreciate that the railways were fully nationalised in 1947 and were broke in every sense of the word and needed massive investment to survive. They never really got what they needed from successive governments and even after the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, and the partial electrification, they were always expected to achieve miracles without the support required to deliver the service. Thatcher initially shied away from privatisation and wanted more “self sufficiency”, often ignoring the environmental and community benefit of the railways over roads. She was stopped in some of her closure plans, most famously on the Settle to Carlisle line, which is now a crucial part of the network. After Labour won the 1997 election there were many pledges about the need for investment in the railways but never any commitment to return them to public ownership. I remember discussing this with John Prescott shortly after the election. We discussed why taxpayers’ money should be spent on compensation when it was needed for investment. Sadly, twelve years later we have poured more money into unaccountable private sector companies than we ever would have in renationalising the whole system in 1997. Stephen Byers recognised the failings of the regulatory system and the train operating companies and created Network Rail: not really nationalisation but a wholly owned private sector company that is vulnerable to sale in the future. Huge subsidies to train operating companies mean that more public money is being invested in railways than ever were when they were publicly owned but the elusive control is simply not there. As the recession bites we now have the bizarre sight of the train operating companies all knocking on the door of the Department pleading that they are having trouble. National Express, for example – who run the East Coast franchise – wer e committed to repaying the government £1.4 billion over an eight year period up to 2015. The company claims falling revenue will mean this cannot be done and they are demanding change. The danger is that the gover nment will allow them to become contracted operators in which they are paid to run the railway but not required to make the franchise repayments they entered into in 2007. They are not the only ones: other train operating companies are eyeing the situation up and looking for a way out of the bind they have put themselves in. This ought to be the golden opportunity to return the railways to public ownership. The whole ideological debate that franchised the railways was conducted on the basis that it brought private sector investment and risk into the service. We now see that it has become a Frankenstein’s monster in which the public subsidise the symbols of privatisation. New labour was always obsessed with being the closest to market business systems and methods and they now expect us to pay the price. It is past time that the railways should be fully publicly owned and run. If anyone needs just one lesson in the waste of public money by pursuing these hybrid and private sector solutions just look at the disaster of the PPP (Public Private Partnership) of London Underground. Tubelines is now showing a £1.4 billion funding gap. And they have a dispute that is still to be resolved and could have been avoided. Also there are the massive contract costs if in 2000 the Treasury had not forced London Underground to enter the partnership. The railways are an intrinsic part of our lives; the most sustainable and environmentally conscious form of mass transport. Public ownership and control is the best way of developing and sustaining them. Jeremy Corbyn MP (Jeremy is MP for Islington North and a member of the RMT Parliamentary group. He often takes up railway development issues.)