Labour, railways and the General Election

Labour’s headline policy on rail, reiterated at last year’s party conference in Liverpool, is to end the franchising system and reinstate public operation on a rolling basis, as each contract expires.

However, dig deeper than that and the picture becomes cloudier. Former Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald, who held the role under Jeremy Corbyn, published the GB Rail Green Paper shortly before leaving the job in 2020, but enquiries as to how much of this vision still stands have been met with a mixture of contradictory messages and plain evasion.

Although the railways have rarely been a deciding factor in elections, they appear to have slipped lower than ever before in terms of political priorities.

And although ownership matters, many in the industry are equally (if not more) concerned with attitude.

Rishi Sunak’s record as both Chancellor and Prime Minister suggests a particular hostility to the railways. And despite successive smoke signals over rail reform, the King’s Speech all but confirmed there will be no legislative change this side of a General Election.

But Labour has struggled to get beyond structural questions to offer any kind of vision. So, what attitude will Labour take to a sector that appears to be waiting on its election in order to move forward?

Anyone hoping for a vision to emanate from the party’s structural change is likely to be left disappointed. McDonald’s GB Rail report set out the minutiae of how vertical integration and public ownership would work in the 21st century railway, including provisions for rolling stock ownership, freight and open access.

Speaking to RailReview in 2022, then-Shadow Rail Minister Tan Dhesi confirmed that certain aspects had been dropped: track and train would no longer be under a single company; a public freight company was no longer a priority; nor was public rolling stock procurement.

Louise Haigh, who succeeded McDonald as Shadow Transport Secretary, has regularly spoken of bringing rail “back into public ownership”, and her team has indicated that the majority of GB Rail will stand. She has also repeatedly referred to delivering “HS2 in full” as well as “Northern Powerhouse Rail”.

Following the decision last October to scrap the Birmingham-Crewe leg of HS2, the party’s national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden refused to commit Labour to reversing the decision. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he would not “stand here and commit to reversing that decision, taken a wrecking ball to it”.

Asked by RAIL whether Haigh was being undermined by her shadow cabinet colleagues, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Nature and Rural Affairs Toby Perkins said it was a “very unfair question” and that the party line had shifted because “the circumstances have changed very dramatically”.

On HS2, the party’s line appears to have been guided by the fiscal prudence of Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

“Labour doesn’t want to put clear red water between its policies and the Conservatives’ policies,” a transport industry consultant told RailReview.

“They’re so scared of the Conservatives saying ‘you are going to spend the £36 billion that we’ve just saved on projects that don't help the majority’.”

As both general secretary of drivers’ union ASLEF and a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee, Mick Whelan will have a front row seat as the party’s manifesto is formed. His union has also been behind a campaign called Invest in Rail, which has sought to make the sector a priority for government spending. Is he frustrated with the party’s lack of clarity over HS2?

Whelan believes this environmental commitment will keep Labour’s plans for rail on track. He is more reticent about setting out a detailed plan for the route in opposition.

“We’ve seen the level of spiteful vandalism they’re willing to undergo to stop people doing HS2. Why would you tell them all the things that you’re going to do so they can do other things to frustrate your wishes and your ambitions?”

However, he sees the danger of a lack of clarity, too: “There is a bit of a reserved nature around the party in terms of not wanting to tell people what our offer is, so there’s not a head of steam built up against it before the next election.

“I don’t think that worked for Ed Miliband in 2015, and there’s a real risk when you don’t tell people what you’re doing that you don’t get what you want. So, I understand what you’re saying, but I also understand the reticence of not allowing other people to make your ambitions unworkable, particularly in an industry like the railways.”

He certainly doesn’t believe Sunak values the railways, but does he think Starmer does? “Well, he uses them. I think he does. I think talking to the devolved mayors and the shadow transport team, they do. And you have to remember that the one key word in all the proposals is green.”

Whelan believes this environmental vision will necessitate investment in the railways. But following our interview, briefings emerge that Labour is unlikely to reach its target of £28bn a year in green investment, even by the end of the next parliament.

The report in the Daily Telegraph was denied by Labour, but Starmer’s abandonment of previous pledges has undermined confidence in his pronouncements on rail.

Another question which could shape Labour’s approach is whether Haigh would remain in the transport brief after an election victory. One party source said the odds were stacked against her, while another suggested that the extent of public ownership could be significantly watered down if she was removed from post.

Asked if he is confident that she will remain, Whelan says: “I’m very happy with her as Transport Secretary. It’s not in my gift to give her the job full-time, but if it was, yeah.”

• A full version of this article is included in the Q4 2023 issue of RailReview.