RIGHT DIAGNOSIS-WRONG MEDICINE

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2011 :: RMTnews 14 Who said this about the UK’s railway at the start of the 21st century? “Lack of clear industry leadership”, “weakness in planning” “short term”, “duplication” “decision making is slow and ineffective due to the need to reach agreement with numerous parties”, “levels of trust and collaboration in the industry are low.” It could have been RMT describing how the privatisation and fragmentation of the railways by the Tory government back in the mid 90s is still having disastrous consequences today. In fact it was some of the key points made in the interim report by Sir Roy McNulty, appointed by the government to examine how to achieve better value for money in the rail industry. McNulty’s interim report also admitted that “costs have increased significantly since privatisation”, with the Secretary of State for Transport describing our railways as “the most expensive in Europe”. While McNulty has identified many of the problems of the UK rail industry his interim report seems to be arguing that the UK should continued with the failed policy of fragmentation and privatisation. McNulty says that the industry could be saving between £600 million - £1,000 million per annum by 2018-19, without cutting services or lowering quality, and that this can partly be achieved through “a cross industry focus on reducing costs and improving value for money” and adopting new structures for the industry to “assist more effective partnership between Network Rail and Train Operating Companies”. Options for this new structure range from “informal joint working to full vertical integration, plus several intermediate options”. Accompanying McNulty’s interim report was a statement to parliament by Transport Secretary Philip Hammond. In a no doubt unwitting indictment of the privatised rail network, Hammond, like McNulty, also bemoaned the lack of leadership and whole-industry strategy that now prevails. “There is no cross-industry focus on the fundamental purpose of the railway – moving people and goods efficiently across a network while securing the best long-term value for money for fare payers and RIGHT DIAGNOSIS- WRONG MEDICINE RMT News assess the implications of the interim report by Sir Roy McNulty on the government’s review of the railways STOP THE GREAT EU RAIL SELL-OFF: Thousands of rail workers marched in Lille, France last year against the EU-led privatisation of rail networks. Rail workers from countries gathered outside the headquarters of the European Rail Agency, an EU institution that oversees the opening up of rail services to the private sector. The European Commission is now proposing a ‘single European railway area’ by ‘recasting’ the first rail package. This ‘recast’ represents a drive to completely “de-structure” (ie break down) public sector, state-owned rail monopolies and to use EU competition rules to create corporate, transnational EU transport and logistics monopolies.