This week Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander unveiled plans for a landmark new bill, which will set up a powerful passenger watchdog that will ‘give passengers a voice and hold train operators to account’. The new independent watchdog will be tasked with ensuring Great British Railways (GBR), the state-owned railway company that will oversee passenger rail transport in Great Britain, addresses the issues that consistently rank highest in passenger complaints. The bill represents the latest legislative development in the government’s wider overhaul of Britain’s railways, which promises to be the most significant in generations.
The mission facing GBR is undoubtedly daunting. Reversing three decades worth of the privatisation experiment is already proving challenging, especially when industry leaders are far from convinced that this direction is the right one to be taking. Critics suggest that Alexander and her predecessor Louise Haigh have listened more to activists and trade unionists than industry leaders and have not leant upon the 30 years’ worth of management and marketing expertise that the private sector in the UK has accumulated.
By rejecting the input of industry experts, critics caution that the government risks making the same mistakes made by the SNP-led Scottish Government earlier this decade. Back in 2022, the company that had previously run ScotRail services, Abellio, was replaced by Transport Scotland, an arm’s length company owned and controlled by the Scottish Government. Earlier this month, The Herald revealed that compensation claim payments to Scots over the poor performance of the services have risen under government control, whilst overall operation costs have climbed by over £600 million.
There can be no doubt that the success or failure of nationalisation will be a crucial measure of the current government’s effectiveness in office. With Labour making rail nationalisation its flagship policy change during its first seven months in power, the pressure is on for Alexander and her department to make it work and make it work fast. The promise that these reforms will ‘sweep away decades of failure’ will not be forgotten.
Plans for the landmark bill were announced alongside an industry consultation. The consultation will look at how to overcome what the government considers to be a broken rail system and how passengers can be at the forefront of all decisions made. A railway fit for Britain’s future consultation opened on Tuesday and will last for 8 weeks.