Can Labour ‘take the brakes off' Britain's rail network?

In part, Labour won the general election because of a feeling among the public that "nothing works any more".

- SEAN O'GRADY

One of the main causes of this disquiet was the state of the railways, and an increasing sense that the breaking up and privatisation of the old British Rail in the 1990s had been a mistake - or was no longer much of a success, at any rate.

In fact, some parts of the rail system have since had to be nationalised, and successive governments have tightened their grip on the freedom of the remaining companies.

Both in his leadership campaign in 2020 and in this year’s election manifesto, Keir Starmer promised to bring the railways into “common” or “public” ownership. There are now two bills being presented to parliament to do just that – but some persistent challenges and questions remain...

What is Labour proposing to do?

It wants to complete the process of renationalisation that has been proceeding haphazardly for decades. The state already owns the track and other infrastructure since the privatised Railtrack plc went bust in 2001, and in recent years, ScotRail, TransPennine, London North Eastern, Northern and Southeastern, among other franchises, have ended up in public ownership.