We won’t solve rail chaos by handing SNP a new train set

LIKE bad Christmas cracker jokes and rows with relatives, train disruptions seem to be part and parcel of the festive season. Passengers travelling between Glasgow and Edinburgh yesterday morning were left stranded after a signalling fault played havoc with the timetable.

On what was for many the first day back at work after the Yuletide period, some commuters will have wished they could crawl back under the duvet and spend another day at home – anything but make the miserable trek to the office amid delays, cancellations and standingroom only.

It was, therefore, an altogether inauspicious moment for Reform Scotland to release a report calling for devolution of Network Rail to the Scottish parliament.

The think-tank’s paper, On The Right Track, is a thoughtful contribution but its problems run deeper than unfortunate timing. For the assumption that more powers is the panacea for what ails Scottish transport is symptomatic of the reigning orthodoxy at Holyrood.

The Scottish Government is already in the driver’s seat when it comes to awarding contracts for the ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper franchises, and ministers even have responsibility for funding the rail network. What is missing is a body running the infrastructure and answerable to Scottish ministers in the way Network Rail reports to the UK Transport Secretary.

Reform Scotland wants to see ‘a new body directly responsible to, and answerable to, the Scottish Government’. The formation of a Scottish Rail Infrastructure Commission ‘would mean a far clearer, more transparent line of accountability’ and could undertake major projects such as a high-speed link to the rural north or overhauling provision across the Borders.

Powers

Kudos to Reform for doing some ‘big thinking’ but its proposals go off the tracks early on. Before devolving yet more powers to the Scottish parliament, we are required to ask what it has done with the powers it already has. Public Performance Measure, which records the timeliness of rail services, confirms that yesterday’s disarray is far from a blip.

This year, almost one in ten ScotRail trains failed to reach their terminating station within five minutes of the scheduled arrival time.

Figures show Abellio-run ScotRail is responsible for more than a third of the delays suffered by its passengers, a rate that puts the company fourth from the bottom of the national league table.

On the plus side, all that standing about waiting means commuters can translate key Gaelic texts such as ‘Alight here for Falkirk Grahamston’.

Reform points out that a majority of delays are caused by Network Rail, but given the Scottish Government’s record on the ScotRail franchise, there are no grounds to assume things will get better with it in charge. They might even get worse.

So if ministers can’t get the train out of the station, why should we be hooking more carriages on to their engine?

One reason, the report ventures, is that a network answerable to Holyrood would be more responsive to Scotland’s needs.

The present set-up prizes the route between Glasgow/ Edinburgh and London over regional services, and Reform calls attention to High Speed North (HS3), which aims to connect cities from Liverpool to Hull. The report author contends: ‘In 30 years’ time, do we want to be in a situation where it could take less time to reach London from Edinburgh than to reach Inverness? What about links between Dumfries and Galloway and Edinburgh? Or airport rail links?’

All well and good, but some estimates put the cost of HS3 at £7billion. Instead of building a quango from scratch, wouldn’t it be more efficient to make Network Rail answerable to the Scotland Office and give the Secretary of State a say over investment north of the Border?

Improvements are certainly needed, but it is foolhardy to think the only way to make them is by layering on yet more strata of bureaucracy.

The Reform Scotland report gets some important things right. It insists that talk of public ownership is a dead end and that policy-makers have to focus on what works.

As the document notes: ‘Who is running one of the franchises should not be the biggest issue facing the rail network… simply bringing ScotRail into public ownership would not make the trains run on time. Instead… the focus of the debate around the rail network should be on Scotland’s poor rail connectivity; on our lack of electrification; and moving away from the obsession of cutting train times to London, when it can take longer to travel shorter distances within Scotland.’

But there is no evidence that devolving Network Rail would slake Labour leader Richard Leonard’s thirst for Clause 4 nationalisation, and the SNP will be sure to chase the latest polls and easiest headlines.

Ownership

Far from deterring a bid to muscle firms out of ScotRail’s tendering process, handing Holyrood Network Rail might embolden proponents of state ownership. Tracks and stations are already Government-owned, why not pick up the trains in the January sales too? To many on the Left, the logic will be irresistible.

There is another problem with these proposals.

Reform Scotland’s report emerges from that vast entanglement of groupthink known as ‘civic Scotland’, an echo chamber in which devolution is practised as a religion.

There are a thousand of reports like this from thinktanks, charities and advocacy groups, all of them macerated in the same heady brew. They are drunk on Holyrood, intoxicated by permanent devolution.

The problem has yet to be invented that can’t be solved by more powers.

This is an enthusiasm not shared by the public. A September poll showed one in five voters wants to abolish the Scottish parliament.

This finding has prompted no evident soul-searching among the political and public policy establishment. No one is making much effort to understand these voters and no one is interested in representing them. They encounter proposals such as these and are perplexed.

Didn’t we say No? Didn’t we win? Why are will still debating what additional constitutional goodies to dole out to the Nationalists?

Devolution is a mechanism, not a mission. It should be used in the best interests of the people and the Union. It must respect the outcome of the 2014 referendum. It is not a consolation prize for the SNP, allowing it to accrue powers and ease the country into an eventual separation.

If transferring powers to Holyrood has become an end in itself, if devolution is nothing more than evolving independence, it has failed.

Rather than rush to send more powers northwards, or devolve yet another British institution into the arms of the SNP, the UK Parliament should consider what Nicola Sturgeon has done with the vast array she currently has.

A First Minister who loudly demands more powers then has to be cajoled into using them is not someone in need of a shiny new train set.