Will ‘NatRail’ be superior to ScotRail? Passengers will certainly take some convincing
WELL, it couldn’t be any worse could it? Under the private operator Abellio, Scotland’s rail service had become synonymous with fare increases, delays, cancellations, and industrial disputes. So, what can the hard-pressed passenger look forward to now that the rail service is back in state hands in Scotland? Well, how about fare increases, delays, cancellations and industrial disputes.
This is not an auspicious moment to be nationalising ScotRail, or “NatRail” as it will inevitably be called. The rail service is in crisis. Passenger numbers have been falling are currently down 40 per cent on 2019. People have been forced into their cars by the pandemic and it will not be easy to get them back out again.
Even before the pandemic only around 6% of commuters took the train to work, according to Transport Scotland, against 66% who went by car. The new trend of working from home will mean a further cut in numbers letting the train take the strain.
Fare increases above the rate of inflation – 3.8% last July – don’t make rail any more attractive as services are reduced and lines axed. This year’s increase is likely to be around 8%, a crippling hike just as the state takes over. Rail transport is already absurdly expensive.
Drive down costs
THE marginal cost for one person driving a Mercedes S Class from Glasgow to Edinburgh is significantly less than a standard day return ticket. Indeed, my Skoda Octavia does the 82-mile round trip for 30% less than the off peak fare, even with petrol prices at their current record high. And I can carry four passengers for nothing. For a family, rail travel is prohibitively expensive anywhere you travel.
Before the pandemic there was evidence that people were keener on using the train at weekends, but that was trashed by the rail strikes which led to the scrapping of Sunday services through most of 2021. Abellio’s passengers suffered endemic strikes, mainly led by the rail union RMT. These were over pay and staffing cuts which that company insisted were necessary to make the service more efficient.
We’ll see now how the Scottish Government handles industrial relations, but they are unlikely to be tougher negotiators. After the unions threatened to strike during the COP26 climate summit, the Scottish Government stepped in and forced a deal which gave them more pay and cancelled planned efficiency savings. Look, I don’t want to be too negative. The history of rail privatisation has been an unmitigated disaster over 25 years, with private bosses essentially harvesting public subsidies while they treated passengers like cattle. Rail is a natural monopoly and competition is not possible. It becomes a licence to print money. It should arugably be in public hands. Nationalisation could be an opportunity to create an integrated transport system with computerised through ticketing, linking bus services and trains. With the cost of motoring going up, an imaginative government could alter the terms of trade by introducing something similar to the road equivalent tariff that applies on ferries to the islands. It should never cost more to go by public transport than to go by car.
However, it is going to be a massive job forcing people not to use their cars. Indeed, in a democratic society it is probably impossible. There are more than three million licensed vehicles in Scotland – that is a huge constituency and one which is largely silent on Twitter (the politicians’ medium) where cars are regarded as the spawn of the devil.
Electric dream
THE vast majority of Scots commute by car, not just because it is cheaper, but because it is more flexible and a lot more comfortable. Once cars are electrified, in eight years’ time, the environmental case against private transport will be less easy to make, especially once a new generation of lightweight vehicles takes over from the monstrous SUVs of today.
Face the reality: our railways are old, smelly, expensive. Planes flying at 30,000 feet can have clean toilets but not railway carriages on the ground.
Many women find trains a threatening environment because of gangs of boozing blokes.
Draughty platforms, old-fashioned carriages and unhelpful staff have contributed to the image of rail as being
This is going to be the biggest test of public enterprise in our times and we can only hope ScotsGov can avoid the mistakes of the past
something from the last century – or the century before that. Scotland is not in a position to introduce fast rail, the technological development that saved the train in Europe. French TGVs beat road and air travel on their own terms. But Scotland does not have the resources to introduce fast rail here, and anyway the distances are too short. And would anyone trust this Government to manage a transformative investment of this scale?
The SNP nationalised Ferguson Marine, Scotland’s last commercial ship builder, to great fanfare in 2019. We all know what happened then. Public money was thrown at the company as it failed to deliver and no-one took responsibility for the mess.
The ferries are five years late and two-and-a-half times over budget – a loss of £150 million which is expected to rise to nearer £300m. Nicola Sturgeon says it was worth it because 300 jobs were saved. But at what cost? It would have been cheaper to give each worker half a million and invite them to retire.
Transport Secretary Jenny Gilruth insists that public ownership is better than private ownership because there are no shareholders to pay and profits go to the public purse.
But that assumes there are profits in the first place. Indeed, if this is the case, why has she just agreed for the stateowned ferry service, CalMac, to buy its next two ferries from the Cemre Shipyard at Altinova in Turkey? Possibly because the Cemre yard has reportedly launched 22 ferries in the time Ferguson has taken not even to complete one. They will be delivered at or near the £100m cost because that is the deal and they have to stick to it.
Taxpayer risk
MS Gilruth told the BBC that it is time to “move on” from Ferguson – well, she would, wouldn’t she? State-owned ScotRail will be “more accountable”, she says. But it is actually harder to hold politicians and civil servants to account for financial disasters when all the risk is transferred to the taxpayer, who has no option but to pay for the mistakes made.
No politician or civil servant will lose their jobs, or end up in court, because of mismanagement at Ferguson Marine.
The unions rather gave the game away on Friday holding a day of action for better pay on the very day ScotRail became publicly owned.
When unions strike and disrupt services, it is always easier to pay up than to hold out for efficiency savings and the introduction of new technology – as was advised by the Docherty report last year which envisaged a 20% reduction in ScotRail jobs.
The Scottish Government has taken on a heroic task here trying to bring this creaking outdated service into the 21st century. I wish them luck, I really do. This is going to be the biggest test of public enterprise in our times and we can only hope that they manage to avoid the mistakes of the past. The omens are not good.