Speech in Lords
I agree with the Minister’s three main aims for railway improvement. He is right that punctuality is insufficient. Last year, under 85% of trains arrived within three minutes of timetable and over 4% of services were cancelled altogether. He is right that we need to improve the quality of the passenger experience. That will require innovation, new services geared to people’s lives and their travel demands, and delivering them a travel offer at an affordable price, an acceptable fare. The railway is too detached and is running far too many nearly empty trains around to fill a timetable. This is interspersed with, at popular times, too few popular trains, with 169,000 people standing in very cramped and unsafe conditions on a typical day. A lot of work needs to go into getting into the modern world and understanding travel patterns.
Above all, the Minister is right that there needs to be a revolution in value for money. We are paying far too much as taxpayers, in some cases far too much as fare payers, and in other cases travelling on heavily subsidised fares, in relation to the amount of work that the railway is able to do. Last year, taxpayers had to put in £21.6 billion to this railway system, and fare payers were persuaded to put in only £11.5 billion. So limited was the offer that was made available on this vast network that taxpayers were paying twice as much as fare payers—general taxpayers twice as much as the more limited number of people who were actually using the railway.
So we do need a revolution. I share some of my noble friend Lady May’s scepticism about whether the right revolution can come from nationalisation itself. The Government need to describe more accurately to the public the nature of the railway that they took responsibility for some two years ago. I am the first to confess that the Governments I supported did not get it all right and that there were many failings that needed to be corrected. But the Minister should be honest with the public and remind them that all the track, all the signals, all the structures and all the stations were taken into public ownership by a previous Labour Government in 2002. He should also point out that many of the problems, delays and interruptions of service have, in recent years, been created by failings in the nationalised part of the system, as well as some of them, as he will rightly point out, being created by the train operating companies which the predecessor Government were gradually getting rid of—and it is also his policy to complete that task.
However, this great, controlling mind they are going to find—I trust that this lady or gentleman exists—is going to need a lot of vision and drive to get value out of this extraordinary network. All these thousands of miles of track that go into the very hearts of our cities and towns are not being used properly and nearly enough. They are far too empty. If you see a bird’s eye view from a camera, or a plane with a camera, of our country at morning peak—there still is a bit of a morning peak on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, although Covid has made a bit of a difference on Monday and Friday—you see inadequate roads, increasingly reduced in scale and size by Liberal Democrat councils, with huge traffic jams and queues, making it very difficult for people to drive to work or to the shops or do what they want to do. You see largely empty, fabulous, straight trackways into the centres of our cities, with trains spaced out at two-mile intervals, or whatever it is, because the signalling is pretty primitive and for safety reasons they are very worried about running more trains on the same track, even though they are all going in the same direction on that bit of track. You would have thought that, with modern digital signalling, if we are going to get it, you could actually run more trains safely on that track to take more of the strain of travel.
The travel opportunity for the railway is enormous because its market share has sunk so far. If you look at trips in the last year, you see that only 2% of people’s trips were by train and 59% of their trips were by car, and then there was walking and cycling and so forth. Even if you take miles, where the railway does rather better because people tend to go on trains for rather longer journeys, people are still travelling seven times as much in a car as they are on a train. This is the business opportunity. So my suggestion to the Minister is that this piece of legislation needs some quite big tweaks in order to make it more likely that a controlling mind can come up with a way of selling all that empty rail and track space to enough people and organisations that can run trains to service the true travel needs of the public.
The first thing this controlling mind is going to need is access to private capital. If nationalisation means no more private capital then the railway is going to be even shorter of capital than it has been to date. I urge the Minister to allow for private capital, which must mean allowing challenger companies to offer services and facilities on the properties or the tracks to bring in the innovation and extra capital capacity that will be needed. Given that we are going to need a lot of innovation, a vital part of that package is open access. Once the Minister has completed his great train set under nationalised control, he must allow others to say, “I can do it better”, “I can do it differently”, or “I can make proper use of this track which the nationalised industry is not using properly”, in order to bring in the innovation and extra service quality that we will need.
I hope that a nationalised industry will want to take more pride in the railway than Network Rail has taken to date. When I go on a rail journey, I am often absolutely horrified when I look out of the window and see the rusty old rolling stock in the siding just wasting away, the old sleepers piled up as if nobody owns them, the brambles and the weeds growing out of the parallel track that is not used very much, and the uncared-for look of the whole place, with peeling paint on the stations and rusting iron on some of the very old stations. It is a mess, with graffiti over everything. I say innovate, allow contestability, bring in new services and clean the place up. Let us be proud of it, then the public might want to use it.
July 8, 2026
One of the biggest problems is that we won WW2 , you only have to look at the countries that didn’t to see how they have got a far better rail network than us , I’ve traveled on a few other countries railways and they beat us with flying colours, far to much union intervention and not giving a toss about the people who travel on it
July 8, 2026
“…all the track, all the signals, all the structures and all the stations were taken into public ownership by a previous Labour Government in 2002. ”
Because the private sector could not run this safely.
Furthermore, it just perpetuated a fragmented rail system. One part blames the other. Nobody takes responsibility. The rail operators are only in business for the generous government subsidies. They don’t care much about fares, still less passengers/’customers’.
Not sure about a ‘great controlling mind’. Dictators allegedly got the railways to run on time. Sacking incompetents at the top would be a start
SW rail regularly cancels trains for ‘extreme weather’s (or Summertime as I call it). Taking a cool train on a roundabout route was nicer than being stuck on a hot bus in roadworks. A car would require payment for parking for most of my journeys.
Now my local libraries are only open from 10pm to 2pm using the same excuse. They are not working in a blast furnace. The could open windows, draw blinds, switch on fans.
It is a Liberal Democrat borough. The MP is the fat bloke in a wetsuit.
July 9, 2026
Maybe our problem was that we invented the railways?
Why blame the War?
July 8, 2026
The biggest single issue that mainline trains face to increasing their capacity is the journey at each end which can add hours of inconvenience and expense to any trip.
Getting to and from the mainline station with luggage is cumbersome and costly. I love riding on trains but the effort is too great. Cars are easier.
July 8, 2026
Even just the Parking fees at the start of commuter journeys are dearer than the journey itself . As with all things emanating from this now corrupt out of time Parliament there is no joined up thinking just religious political ideology first and when it goes wrong blame others
July 8, 2026
John, I am impressed you were able to make that detailed comment in the HoLs without once mentioning the insane HS2 project. That EU demanded network addition is destroying the credibility of our rail system along with the credibility of the nation’s ability to deliver infrastructure upgrades/systems, on time and on budget.
If the HS2 funding had been used to upgrade the existing network and also to bring back into use many lines that were closed in the Beeching folly, the rail systems and the maintenance of them would look very different. Here we are some fifteen years on from when HS2 was launched, actually make that sixteen years and it is still nowhere near being delivered.
More bat tunnels anyone?
July 8, 2026
It is time to innovate in improvements to point-to-point personal transport.
The future is Autonomous Vehicles. The history of transport has been driven by private sector innovation from Toll Roads through the Canals and Railways to Omnibuses and Automobiles. It has been a quest for improved personal mobility.
The present public sector provision is clinging to a 19th century paradigm that fewer people are using.
It is time to stop spending £20 billion on something most don’t use and start encouraging AV investment and create dedicated AV corridors. AV’s can operate with higher road densities and better transit times and offer point-to-point service even between rural locations.
The technology is there. Waymo and Uber represent innovation and risk in a way that the State cannot and will not. We need more competitors in this future of transport.
July 8, 2026
@JayCee – yes change is needed. The downside is our Parliament is corrupting and its first thoughts are with their personal control of those they are fighting, the UK People and Country. AV’s as with most modern vehicles are beyond control of the user, the tracking and controlling becomes the sole domain of the authorities at home and in the country of origin. That is a Government choice not a consumer choice. Ask why do the authorities need day to day access to your personal life without first having proven reasonable suspicion of wrong doing? Under these new regimes the whole basis of thought is that and individual is guilty unless they can prove otherwise, leading to the revenue through fines and not usage.
July 8, 2026
That would do for a start – if Labour could steel themselves to inviting innovation, clearly they have no ideas of their own, then we might see the start of a realistic railway system.
It was Prescott all those years ago in the Blair government who said that he was going to ensure we had joined up transportation. He spoke of hubs where road and rail would come together seamlessly. I have no recollection that he actually did anything worthwhile in this respect, but transport hubs for all cars, trucks, rail and others, to meet and share resources would be most useful, allowing passengers to get about without hinderance.
I’m always amazed, having identified a blackspot, without looking at the reasons, why HMG then tries to make things better by introducing a little bypass or extra capacity. Never have they analysed why so many have to go via that black spot!
The Dartford tunnel/Bridge is one such blackspot. Why do so many people have to use it? Do they know where users are actually going that requires they use a painful blackspot instead of going directly to where they were going.
A national survey of road usage would likely tell us that if some alternative routes were built to bypass the M25 at Dartford the blackspot would be eased considerably. This seems to be beyond them, as is the ability to keep promises. We were told that once the Bridge had been paid for by tolls then the tolls would be removed and access made free – Instead they sell the Bridge to a company to allow them to keep ripping us off.
The transport system need less hype, misinformation and dishonesty, as well as a good degree of innovation, but are we barking up the wrong tree with labour?
July 8, 2026
£21.6 billion in a year – the defence budget increase over the next 4 years could amount to £13 billion if the money could be found
July 8, 2026
Charging graffiti vandal sprayers £10 per square centimetre per month rental would make a worthwhile contribution to expenses.
July 8, 2026
As tracks, stations and equipment are under State control, I suggest that the government set up a team of experts from both the Public and Private sectors to visit Tokyo and learn from the Japanese on how to run an efficient and profitable railway.
July 8, 2026
As far as the railways are concerned, and indeed any nationalised industry, if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got!
There is the problem. It seems most of the Ministers and MPs we have today froze their critical-thinking faculties back in their student days. They put taxes up and are then surprised when the economy slows down! They keep spending and borrowing, which will inevitably lead to a financial crash, and they will be surprised! They drive out entrepreneurs and frustrate business people, then are surprised when the tax take goes down! They freeze tax thresholds and are surprised when people resent them! A book will be written about this Labour Government as an example of doing everything the wrong way!
July 8, 2026
It world appears from the Express the UK has money everywhere to splash on anything Parliament chooses.
“Reeves is on course to borrowing another £140billion this year. That’s on top of the £132billion she borrowed last year, and £146billion the year before that. So she’s nowhere near balancing the books. But here’s the real killer”
Not one person in this Parliament asks how does the Country Earn just to pay the interest?
So in that context the Railways is nothing a drop in a Ocean. To think the Country is still trying to find ways to pay off Gordon Browns unnecessary debts £156 billion of borrowing still not paid from just his last year in office