ONE DAY RETURN TO THE PEOPLE PLEASE
Call to rip up Dutch contract
Politicians have called for the Dutch firm who run Scotland’s railways to be axed and replaced with a People’s ScotRail.
They want operators Abellio to be ditched at the earliest opportunity and a publiclyowned Scottish organisation installed in their place.
Figures revealed last week showed a network of services be set by delays and cancellations.
Abellio, a subsidiary of the Dutch state ra i lway company, were awarded the ScotRail franchise in 2014 and took over in April last year.
It ’s been revealed the £7billion 10-year contract has a clause allowing it to be cancelled at the halfway point in 2020.
If activated, it would see the contract expire after seven years in March 2022. Opposition parties have called on the Scottish Government to rip up the agreement after a nightmare start.
Labour transport spokesman Neil Bibby MSP said: “Profits which are going overseas at the moment should be invested instead in services and rolling stock here in Scotland.”
Scottish Green Party co- convener Patrick Harvie MSP added: “We argued before this current franchise was being bid for that the Scottish Government should have tried to ensure a not-for-profit bidder took on ScotRail.
“It is ironic that we now have a public sector rail company from another country running our railways.”
ScotRail statistics show that 24 out of 75 services in the month to August 20 were late more often than they were on time.
The worst-hit stations were Glasgow High Street, where 90 per cent of services were late, Ardrossan Harbour, at 89.2 per cent, and Arbroath, with 88.4 per cent.
Figures show last month around one in f ive services simply failed to run. Around 450 trains were cancelled.
Accounts filed at Companies House show the Dutch firm are raking in £1million profit per month from the deal.
Transport Minister Humza Yousaf confirmed in Parliament on Thursday the Government have written to the ScotRail alliance demanding an action plan. Yousaf admitted: “Frankly, performance has not been to the level that we expect it to be.
“The plan will provide evidence on how the ScotRail alliance intends to return performance to contracted target levels.”
ScotRail said performance statistics ranked them 10th out of 23 train operating companies in the UK.
A spokeswoman said: “We have had a challenging few months due to industrial action, big infrastructure works at Que en St r e et and the programme to electrify the Glasgow to Edinburgh line.
“This has undoubtedly contributed to the fact that we are sl ight ly behind our dema nd ing target for performance.
“We have agreed an action plan with Transport Scotland about how we pull this back up to the level we would expect.”
Transport Scotland say they have no plans to activate the break option.
Scottish Government should have ensured a not-for-profit bidder