THE COMING BATTLE FOR RAIL

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2023 :: RMTnews 12 Last month the Secretary of State for Transport Mark Harper announced that the government was taking the shambolic Transpennine Express franchise into public ownership. While Mr Harper was at pains to stress that this was a temporary measure it marked a new low for private sector train operation. This is because that private transport companies now run less of the network than at any point since privatisation in 1993. Out of 17 franchises, seven, ie nearly half, will now be run in the public sector by the DfT’s Operator of Last Resort (OLR), or by the OLR in Wales and Scotland. Three more are wholly run by foreign state- owned companies, three more franchises are run by joint ventures including foreign state-owned companies as minority shareholder, leaving only four being run wholly by private companies. The story is the same when you measure the number of Train Kilometres travelled on the rail network. According to ORR data, 40 per cent of all train kilometres run are on franchises controlled by UK State-owned companies. Only 23 per cent are on franchises controlled by wholly private UK companies. So, 30 years after privatisation, the private sector is at its smallest size with its weakest grip since 1993 and this should be the point of no return. The rot started, of course, shortly after privatisation. The infrastructure company Railtrack had to be taken into the public sector after it effectively became insolvent following the series of disasters leading up to the Hatfield crash and the chaos that ensued. Then a succession of passenger franchises ran into trouble over the years. These failures were not just due to management incompetence, they were rooted in the basic economics of franchising and the contradictions in these economics have grown more problematic over the years. Privatisation was sold to the public on the grounds that it would bring in competition, innovation and investment from the private sector. In reality, private sector investment was always minuscule, especially after the nationalisation of Network Rail. Competition among companies was always limited in practice, with a handful of operators carving up franchises between them. The illusion of success relied on two things: the growth of passenger numbers and profits. Passenger number growth has tracked economic growth and re-composition of the labour market around urban centres – especially London in the 1990s and early 2000s. With the onset of economic stagnation and fiscal austerity, The collapse of the private sector in rail opens the way for democratic control THE COMING BATTLE FOR RAIL STRIPPED: Rail privateer First Group has been stripped of the Transpennine Express franchise and brought into the government’s operator of last resort which already runs three other rail contracts