Will rail nationalisation make a difference? Experts weigh in

The Labour government has promised to absorb these franchises – such as Avanti West Coast, C2C and Southern Rail – into a new body, Great British Railways, which will take over contracts currently held by private firms as they expire in the coming years.

Campaigners praise the ‘really important first step’ to nationalisation

Campaigners have praised the move as a “really important first step”, but added that it is “just the first step” in nationalising the rail system “in order to get a rail service that fully works for passengers, not for profit”.

Johnbosco Nwogbo, lead campaigner at public ownership campaign group We Own It, said: “Passengers will be hoping that these rail lines coming into public hands will mark the beginning of a long-awaited great railway revival in England.

“30 years of failed privatisation has left us paying more and getting less.”

He told the Big Issue that a railway system “that is able to bring every part of the system together to work toward one objective, which is providing high quality rail services to passengers, will without a doubt produce good results”.

He added that there are still a “good number” of rail operators that will be coming into public ownership over the next five years, and that the campaign group expects the “gradual process” will have a “positive impact on the quality of the service for passengers”.

“There are a number of ways to see that privatisation has had a terrible impact on passengers,” Nwogbo said. “We were told that having private companies run our rail would lead to lower fares for passengers. In reality, over the last 30 years, when our rail has been in private hands, we’ve actually seen our rail fares go up by around 20% over that period.

“Every person who has used our rail system has encountered some kind of nightmare, with long delays, with cancellations, with people having to stand in trains… with the trains themselves being dirty and really not comfortable to use.

“These are things that you could only encounter in the rail system if the people running the rail system are trying to save money on running the system so that they could maximise on paying out dividends. We believe that public ownership will produce a much better resource for passengers because it is focused on producing a better resource for passengers.”

He added that the government nationalising the operating companies would make a difference, “but it’s not going to make all the difference”, and the government must also “invest into the system”, and give passengers a “voice” in how the rail system is run.

“For every one pound you put into the rail system, you produce more than two pounds in economic activity. So rail can be the engine that’s driving the growth the government’s looking for,” he said.

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