Private sector’s role in a publicly-owned railway

Labour has rowed back from a plan for new rolling stock to be procured and owned in the public sector - with the party’s rail spokesman saying it is not a priority.

Labour’s opposition White Paper GB Rail, drawn up by ex-Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald, set out the “guiding principle” of “a railway that owns its rolling stock”. Rather than nationalising existing rolling stock, the paper instead advocated a “co-ordinated long-term programme of rolling stock procurement” which would “enable rolling stock assets to be specified, manufactured, deployed and maintained with maximum efficiency for the whole railway”.

But asked by RAIL whether this commitment remained, rail spokesman Tan Dhesi said it would depend on the state of the economy at the time Labour enters government.

“The last Labour government wasn’t able to bring it in to public ownership, whether it was the rolling stock companies or the railways more generally,” he said at a Labour conference fringe event organised by Rail Partners.

“Our priority is not about the ROSCOs - it’s about the network and the operators. The rest of it will depend on where we find the economy [at the start of a Labour government]. If the economy has tanked… then we don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver.”

At another conference event, co-hosted by Rail Partners and the Railway Industry Association, Dhesi described the role of the private sector as “central” in Labour’s vision of a publiclyowned railway.

“We rely on you for technology, for some of the expertise - which, by the way, we want to be helping you to develop,” he said.

“And then not only are we using them in the UK, but we are then exporting that expertise to other parts of the world. That’s where we should be as a nation we should be at the forefront as the UK, rather than constantly looking to others.”

Dhesi also said that Labour would outline “exactly how we would be viewing the role of open access operators, and certain places where certain operators could enhance the overall operation”, adding that this announcement would come “in the very, very near future”.

The GB Rail paper had proposed that “a value-for-money assessment will consider whether it would be cost-efficient to purchase all or some open access passenger operators and rail freight firms”, but did not make a firm commitment in this area.