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16
Thirty years ago, on
November 5 1993, the Tories
introduced The Railways Act
which privatised Britain’s
railway and led to at least £31
billion leaking out of the
system since then while
passengers are paying eight
per cent more in real terms to
travel on a deteriorating
system.
Margaret Thatcher’s
previous Tory governments
had already sold off many
public assets such as energy,
water, buses but she believed
that the railway was ‘a
privatisation too far’ and the
public agreed. However, the
Conservative manifesto in
1992 promised to privatise the
railway and the party
unexpectedly won the election
and the new right-wing Prime
Minister John Major moved
ahead with it.
The Act began a process by
which ownership and
operation passed from
government control into
private hands which was
completed by 1997. This
deregulation of the rail
industry was initiated by
European Union Directive
91/440 in 1991 which
demanded among other
things open access operations
on railway lines by companies
other than those that own the
rail infrastructure.
The Railways Regulations
1992 was introduced in Britain
under Section 2(2) of the
European Communities Act
1972 to comply with the EU
directive.
However, the passage of
the 1993 Railways Act was
controversial and there was
much lobbying against it. The
Labour Party was opposed to
it and promised to
renationalise the railways when
it got back into office. The
Conservative chairman of the
House of Commons Transport
Committee Robert Adley
famously described the Bill as
‘a poll tax on wheels’ but he
died suddenly before the Bill
completed its passage through
Parliament.
As a result of the 1993 Act,
rail operations were broken up
and sold off with various
regulatory functions
transferred to the newly
created Office of the Rail
Regulator. Ownership of rail
infrastructure passed to
Railtrack, while track
maintenance and renewal
assets were sold to 13 private
companies across the network.
Ownership of passenger
trains passed to three rolling
stock companies (ROSCOs) –
the stock being leased out to
passenger train operating
THE 1993 RAILWAYS ACT
‘30 YEARS OF WASTE’
New RMT report exposes the three-decade
debacle of rail privatisation