We could all pay the price of Labour’s trains overhaul

LABOUR was left facing questions about its radical overhaul of the railways after admitting it may not lead to lower fares.

Party transport spokesman Louise Haigh announced it was resurrecting ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn’s policy of nationalising services.

She said this would be done within a first term if Labour wins the election by bringing train operators into public ownership when their contracts expire. A public body called Great British Railways would be created.

But it later emerged that £1.5billion-worth of annual savings that Labour claims will be made depends on workforce reform and closing ticket offices – which Ms Haigh said the party opposes. Industry bosses said Labour’s sums ‘don’t add up’.

In a round of interviews before her speech yesterday, Ms Haigh refused to commit to lower fares under the overhaul.

She could not even guarantee that they won’t go up, only saying: ‘We’ve got absolutely no plans to make them more expensive.’

It comes after warnings that taxes would have to increase or services be slashed to pay for the plan. Industry bosses say transferring the cost of leasing rolling stock from private to public balance sheets would alone cost up to £10billion over five years – with taxpayers on the hook.

Transport Secretary Mark Harper warned there would be more strikes under Labour because of simultaneous plans by deputy leader Angela Rayner to make it easier for union barons to call walkouts.

He said: ‘It’s the same old Labour – handing more power to the unions which will mean worse services for passengers.

‘ Once again Labour have announced an unfunded promise with no plan to pay for it.’

Announcing the plan, Ms Haigh said: ‘ Our railways are broken. We’re not getting good bang for our buck as a taxpayer.’

Mick Lynch and Mick Whelan – bosses of the militant RMT and Aslef unions which have wreaked strike havoc for nearly two years – welcomed the plans.

Ms Haigh gave her speech at the HQ of online ticketing platform Trainline. Shares in the firm fell 12 per cent after her announcement.

WITH train reliability at a dire low, passengers forced to pay extortionate fares and often overcrowded carriages, few could deny that the railways are broken.

Some blame privatisation three decades ago. While this led to a remarkable increase in passenger numbers, the franchising model let profiteering rail bosses get away with running shoddy services.

Labour says the way to improve the network is to renationalise it. If the party wins power, nearly all train operating firms will be brought back into state ownership.

But although this Corbyn-era policy may delight activists, is it really the panacea the Left would have us believe?

Not judging by how Labour transport spokesman Louise Haigh struggled to explain exactly how it would be funded.

Will Labour be prepared to keep shovelling money into the railways at the current rate – at least £12billion a year? Leasing rolling stock would cost another £2billion a year.

In the fight for government cash, railways will always lose to the NHS and schools.

Ms Haigh claims savings can be made by modernising working practices and closing ticket offices. But Labour’s union paymasters oppose such changes. Having punished the public with strikes for two years already, the militants won’t hesitate to push a Starmer government around.

Anyone who remembers British Rail knows what a terrible idea renationalisation would be. Filthy, investment- starved, and even more unreliable and strike-bound than today, the passenger always came last.

As serious as the problems of our railways are, they certainly won’t be solved by a return to the dead hand of state control.