Here’s how to make sure Great British Railways stays on track
If Labour must steam ahead with its plan to renationalise the railways, there’s a few things it must do to make it a success, says Emma Revell
One of the least surprising and most ideologically consistent aspects of Labour’s first year in office has been the impetus behind Great British Railways. The new body, which will oversee and eventually run the majority of passenger rail services in Britain, doesn’t actually exist yet – nor has the government been entirely clear when it will be operational. But seizing control of the railways seems to be one area where Keir Starmer is willing to let his party’s zeal for state ownership out into the open. So far, so predictable.
What is also sadly foreseeable though, are the myriad of ways this new operating model could destroy the only part of our railway network that consistently delivers for customers.
Those of you who regularly travel outside London, say to Manchester and Edinburgh, will know those two journeys can be very different. A trip to Manchester, if you’re lucky enough not to have your train cancelled in the first place, involves taking your life in your hands with a platform stampede at Euston then squeezing into an overcrowded Avanti West Coast service for which you’ve paid a small fortune.
If you’re going to Edinburgh (or York, or Doncaster) on the East Coast Main Line (ECML), you have a choice of three private operators, competing with state-run LNER services. As a result, you’ll be able to choose from more services, faster trains, and benefit from cheaper pricing. Crucially, that competition has driven improvements to the state-run service so much that the amount of subsidy it receives from the government has fallen dramatically and LNER is on track to be subsidy-free in the near future.
Despite this success, Great British Railways, under the direction of the secretary of state for transport, seems likely to quash any chance of seeing much more open access rolled out beyond the ECML.
Why not replicate the East Coat Main Line?
Indeed this direction of travel seems even more baffling given that, according to a new report from my colleagues at the Centre for Policy Studies, European railways that are copying Britain’s existing open access model have seen a 40 per cent increase in passengers and fare reductions of 20-60 per cent.
Far from scaling back, rail expert and report author Tony Lodge argues that Great British Railways should aim for a minimum of 10 per cent open access on all intercity routes by 2030, to replicate the East Coast’s success across the network.
Ministers should also take the opportunity, if they insist on pushing ahead with Great British Railways, to capitalise on the enormous missed opportunities for the rail estate to generate wider ancillary income. The report highlights commercial and residential development, renewable energy generation, and light parcel freight as underutilised sources of income for the railways. Japanese railways earn one-third of their revenue from non-ticket sources, such as high-quality retail offerings, whereas in Britain retail income in the 20 large stations that Network Rail manages declined by 21 per cent between 2019 and 2023.
There is also a real opportunity for our railways to contribute to our energy security. Ministers estimate the Network Rail estate – over 52,000 hectares – has the potential capacity to generate 188 MWp (Megawatts peak) of solar power. This could power the equivalent of between 140,000-180,000 homes and earn the railway tens of millions of pounds in new revenue.
As a believer in free markets, Great British Railways and the nationalisation of the network is not a plan I would be pushing ahead with. But with Labour’s majority being what it is, there needs to be a strong, customer-focused plan to boost the elements of the network that deliver and revitalise the parts that don’t.
Otherwise ministers are merely resurrecting the ghost of British Rail under a different name.
Emma Revell is external affairs director at the Centre for Policy Studies