Transport secretary Heidi Alexander just let the cat out the bag over Great British Railways

Labour Party transport secretary Heidi Alexander made quite the admission in a speech welcoming the beginning of Great British Railways.

‘Public good over private profit’

Heidi Alexander really let the cat out the bag, saying:

We are really firing this starting gun in that race for a truly 21st-century railway, and that does mean refocusing away from private profit and towards the public good.

So there is a case for modern socialist ownership of public utilities? Someone should tell Keir Starmer who previously called such claims “ideological”, after ditching his leadership pledges to bring water, energy and mail into public ownership.

Yet the argument for public ownership of essentials extends to other utilities as well.

If something is a basic essential, it makes no sense to rent it from the private sector. And the argument is potent for the actual trains themselves, which Labour is refusing to nationalise. That’s right, we will still be renting the trains from ‘rolling stock’ companies even after Great British Railways is established. Labour is only nationalising the operating services.

Heidi Alexander: a new era”?

Heidi Alexander also said:

Today marks a new dawn for our railways. Moving away from 30 years of inefficiency, delayed services and failing passengers, and moving confidently into a new era – the era of Great British Railways.

There is nothing efficient about renting the trains, nor in renting our water or energy. Instead, we should own these utilities and pay cost price for their maintenance.

Eversholt, Porterbrook, and Angel Trains own the majority of the trains that we rent. That’s despite the company shareholders making £3.6bn in the past decade in dividends.

Conservative prime minister John Major sold off the trains when he privatised the railways in 1993. Now we rent them back at higher costs and still will under Labour’s plans.

A report from the RMT union shows privatisation costs £1.5bn per year including profits extracted from rolling stock companies. Saving these profits could fund the cutting of fares by 18%. That’s every person in the country saving 18% on their train fare.

The government passed the Passenger Railway Passenger (Public Ownership) Bill earlier this year and will bring the rail services into public ownership as their contracts expire. On Sunday 25 May, the first nationalised service left London Waterloo is part of South Western Railway. Yet we are still renting the literal train itself.

Bring on Great British Trains

Public ownership doesn’t solve everything by itself – as Heidi Alexander surely knows.

Campaign group We Own It has a series of recommendations to make it a success. One of them is, of course, to nationalise the trains themselves under Great British Trains. Not renting the trains is even normal in the USA. Also, Transport for London and Liverpool City Region have both opted for direct ownership of a new set of vehicles in recent years.

Another recommendation is for the government to reinstate social and environmental mandates for the trains. The trains should be accessible to everyone and harbour commitments to the environment.

A further point is the lack of investment the UK puts into rail compared to countries like Switzerland. Switzerland invests around €477 for each person into its railway system, compared to the UK that puts in €116. That’s despite return on investment (ROI) reaching double what’s put in for the UK – £2 of economic activity for every £1 invested.

Heidi Alexander and the Labour government should go much further, and truly put the railways – and all over public services – into public hands.

Featured image via screengrab