Great British Railways consultation launched

The government has at last launched a formal consultation on the creation of Great British Railways (GBR), several years after the launch of the Williams Review in 2018 that ended up as the Williams-Shapps report in 2021 recommending a GBR.

GBR logo – there are several proposed versions

Although the previous Conservative governments gave oral support to a proposal which bore the name of their transport secretary, the closest they came to implementing it was a dummy Bill, a kind of dress rehearsal for what might become the real thing before the script had been written.

Labour supported Great British Railways in opposition and continues to do so.  An Act to renationalize the railways as franchises come up for renewal has already been enacted.  This should put a stop to the use of government subsidies that create profits and shareholder dividends for the train operating companies, and the absurd  legal costs whenever a train is delayed, as one government-supported body seeks compensation from another also owned by the government The previous Transport Secretary appeared supportive of Open Access arrangements, under which companies like Lumo and Hull Trains offer a very limited form of competition to the government-owned LNER; but the current Secretary, Heidi Alexander, is rumoured to be less keen.  Open access flies in the face of reunited track and train, one of the central tenets of GBR. 

There is widespread support for simplification of fares.  An end to tickets only valid on one operator is a no brainer, but tackling split ticketing whereby it is cheaper to travel with several tickets than with one is not straightforward.   Travelling to Cheltenham for example, the through ticket is from Paddington but there are reasons why one might choose to go from Euston via Birmingham.  A through ticket for that would add to the 55 million tickets already available.

It is also clear that the savings which accrue from taking back franchises will not go to lower fares, but to the savings all departments of government are straining to find.  The danger is that simpler fares mean loss of cheaper fares.  Any simplification that ends the practice of enticing passengers into seats that would otherwise remain empty must be resisted.

The majority of franchises have a London dimension and interest will be particularly strong in London.  Issues to be resolved chiefly concern the allocation of track space where shorter distance Metro services share lines with longer distance regional services.  Where there are four tracks, such as on the east coast main line, coexistence has been fairly equitable although in the aftermath of the Hatfield crash InterCity services displaced some local services on the Hertford loop.  West of Paddington, the Elizabeth line shares track with GWR stopping services.  Most problematic are the routes currently used by Southeastern into Victoria.  As the franchisee for both metro and regional services, Southeastern favoured the latter because the fares are greater, notwithstanding that more people use the local services.  Potential conflicts also exist where passenger services share track with freight.

Transport featured prominently in the government’s recent White Paper on devolution.  If the government were to extend powers to regional Mayors, including the London Mayor who controls some but not all the franchises that provide services within London, there would be an advocate for local services operating them, although the allocation of track space for different kinds of service would still be complex.   Future Transport for London has put the case for London in its response to the consultation.

Andrew Bosi
Planning, Environment & Transport Committee