Labour’s plans to renationalise rail services will get underway as early as next May.
Three of the UK’s biggest rail companies will become renationalised in 2025 as part of the Labour government’s wider plan to move the entire rail network to public ownership.
South Western Railways was announced as the first company to come under public control in a statement issued by the Department for Transport this morning.
SWR will cease to be a privately operated entity in May of next year, and that move will be followed by C2C two months later in July, and again by Greater Anglia in the autumn.
Last week’s passing of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 gave the government permission to act on its manifesto promise to take rail contracts back into public ownership in five years as each private franchise runs out.
As part of the rejig of Britain’s rail industry, a new arms length body named Great British Railways (GBR) will take over service contracts currently held by private firms as they expire in the coming years.
In an interview with BBC Breakfast earlier today, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said: “The primary aim of this is to improve reliability and clamp down on the delays, the cancellations, the waste and the inefficiency we’ve seen over the last 30 years.
“We need to bring these train companies into public ownership, and so we want to turn the page on 30 years of failure.”
When questioned on whether or not the move to public ownership would result in cheaper train fares, Ms Alexander failed to give an answer and instead emphasised the aim to reduce cancellations and lateness.
Private companies were given responsibility for running train services during the 1990s. Despite a rise in rail usage since then, much of the public consensus has been that ticket prices are too expensive and standards haven’t improved to justify the high prices.
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South Western Railway has more than 1,500 services scheduled to run per weekday in south west London and the south of England and operates as a key commuter service into London.
C2C runs services between Fenchurch Street and Shoeburyness, and serves 26 stations in east London and south Essex, while Greater Anglia runs services between London, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire Hertfordshire and Essex.
