The nationalisation of South Western Railway this weekend will likely be accompanied by much fanfare from the Government.
No doubt the messaging will emphasise how this nationalisation — the first since the passage of the Public Ownership Act — is a critical step towards creating a better rail network, one that, free of private business, can now work for passengers (rinse and repeat as appropriate, with an obligatory Plan for Change reference tagged on).
Unfortunately, although nationalisation works as a comms soundbite, it is rather less viable as a practical solution to our rail woes.
Certainly, returning the railways to state control is a popular policy. Polling by YouGov suggests that approximately two-thirds of Britons support rail nationalisation. Drilling deeper into the polling data, it appears that nationalisation attracts support because of the perception that the issues with Britain’s railways are by-products of privatisation.
Even the claim of greater investment in the rail network under a nationalised set-up is a misnomer
The underlying assumption amongst supporters of nationalisation is that the public sector is better placed than private companies to run the railways. This assumption is highly dubious, as recent history proves. The Govia Thameslink/Great Northern timetabling fiasco of 2018 and ongoing morass in delivering the High Speed 2 programme hardly present our bureaucracy’s administrative or commercial management abilities in the most flattering light.
As such, the question of who runs the railways under the Government’s nationalisation plans warrants close consideration. It is no secret that the rail sphere, at both a public sector and industry level, is somewhat monocultural, with a fair degree of personnel stasis or cyclical churn. That dynamic makes robust challenge difficult. In some instances, you have high-ups effectively marking their homework from prior roles. At its worst, this has embedded a culture of buck passing — a world away from the “black box” approach of the aviation sector.
Alongside this, you have the spectre of the rail unions and where they will fit into governance structures. The Government’s recent consultation, “A railway fit for Britain’s future”, skirted around the issue. Whichever way rail unions are eventually accommodated within these structures, chances are that they will continue leveraging veto power over reform.
The wider conclusion that emerges here is that placing the railways under the control of bureaucrats does nothing to address the problems with the parts of the network that are currently nationalised. For example, approximately 60 per cent of delay minutes experienced by passengers are caused by infrastructure (run by the non-departmental public body, Network Rail). Meanwhile, the four train operating companies currently run by the Government face the same reliability and industrial relations challenges as their privately operated counterparts.
Even the claim of greater investment in the rail network under a nationalised set-up is a huge misnomer. As my former bosses, Grant Shapps and Mark Harper, regularly pointed out, the railways were already heavily subsidised by British taxpayers (in 2023, that level of subsidy hit an eye-watering £12 billion per year). At the same time, it is by no means guaranteed that nationalisation will reduce this level of subsidy, or even bring down fares. Under a nationalised system, rail will be competing against other public services (including our secular religion, the NHS) for funding.
So, while the Government pays lip service to the proposition of a continued role for the private sector, its actions to date suggest it is prepared to debar the one aspect of the network that succeeded in driving passenger growth, investment, and innovation. British rail users may want to hold onto the handrails, as the next few years might get slightly bumpy.
