Labour is finding that renationalising rail doesn’t make trains come on time
Since returning to public ownership, delays and cancellations on our commuter trains have got worse, not better. So why is Labour doubling down? Asks Thomas Turrell
When Labour took South Western Railway into public ownership earlier this year, they promised passengers a new era of punctuality, reliability and accountability. They have failed. Within just a few months, passengers have been left to suffer the opposite: delays spiralling, cancellations soaring and services deteriorating at a worrying pace.
The figures are staggering. Since May, cancellations have risen by an average of 50 per cent. Trains are running later than before – with delayed minutes per 100 miles up by 29 per cent. The number of services arriving between 30 minutes and an hour late has more than doubled. Passengers were told nationalisation would fix things; the reality is their journeys have become less predictable and more frustrating.
This isn’t about dry statistics – it’s about people being able to live their day-to-day lives: commuters missing meetings, parents struggling to get home in time for school pick-up and businesses losing productivity at a time when this Labour government is already crippling them with taxes. The impact is even greater because South Western Railway is one of the capital’s key commuter lines, carrying thousands of people into London every single day. Its decline under public ownership strikes at the heart of the city’s economy and the daily lives of working Londoners.
Yet despite these warning signs, the transport secretary used Labour Party Conference to announce the nationalisation of five more railways in the next year. Greater Anglia, West Midlands Trains, and Thameslink are all ones that are set to follow. Given the mess that is being made of Southwestern railways at the moment, the transport secretary should be asking if they can cope with any more services. Instead, she is digging in, being dogmatic and denying reality. Sadly, it is everyday passengers who will pay the price for the transport secretary’s ideological stubbornness.
Shambles
The announcement itself is the trademark shambles which defines this government. I’ve been a Thameslink commuter since 2018, first when working in Canada and now to get to City Hall. The service I use is entirely in London, Labour have hinted these routes are going to Transport for London, but the transport secretary’s announcement suggests this is going to the department for transport’s operator. The lack of press releases and declarations of victory from Sadiq Khan suggests that he isn’t expecting TfL to get control of the suburban routes. It appears that once again Sadiq Khan has failed to get his own side to believe in him.
Rail travel is too important to be treated as a political experiment. Of course, the private system has had its flaws — nobody denies that. But South Western proves that simply switching ownership to the state doesn’t magically fix problems. In fact, it can make them worse if the government isn’t fully prepared to manage the scale, complexity and accountability that comes with it.
The nationalisation of South Western has failed. The government must stop, reflect and fix the problems on South Western before racing ahead with more. Now is time to learn, not accelerate. Otherwise, passengers across the country risk facing the same misery South Western commuters are enduring today. Getting this wrong is just too costly for hard-working people across the country.
Labour may see nationalisation as a political prize. But for passengers, South Western has shown it can all too easily become a costly mistake.
Thomas Turrell AM is the transport and environment spokesman for the Conservative Group on the London Assembly