“Great British Railways is dead. And it should never have happened. Of course, I can never say this on the record.”
That’s one view. Here’s another: “It isn’t going to happen, quite obviously. I don’t think it is completely dead - there is always something to come from the ashes.”
And a third: “The Treasury is not at all convinced that GBR is a good thing. And if it was the right thing to do three years ago, when it was conceived, that doesn’t mean it is still the right thing to do now. Progress has been minimal.”
These views are increasingly representative of the opinion formers and decision-makers around the rail industry. They are not, however, even remotely representative of the people within GBR itself.
“We weren’t in any way surprised by the delay in the legislative process,” says Michael Clark, policy and transformation director at the GBR Transition Team (GBRTT).
“There is a six-month move back in the timelines. I don’t think that translates as much real-terms delay. We are adjusting our plans. Aspects are still going forward. That still leads us towards what the legislation will enable us to do.”
When Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what he saw as his greatest challenge, he famously responded: “Events, dear boy, events.”
That’s still true today. GBR was proposed as a response to persistently poor performance. But that was before the pandemic… before a war in Europe… and before a cost-of-living crisis, with the Bank of England warning of the longest recession it has ever recorded. And before tax rises that leave even well-off commuters and leisure travellers with fewer choices.
Two years from a General Election, politicians are feeling precarious, and the railway has rarely been a contentious election issue.
The NHS, adult social care, defence spending, and schools running out of money are all higher up the agenda. Why should the railway end up in the Prime Minister’s in-tray at all?
The Government has more pressing priorities than dealing with the railway’s administrative structure. It doesn’t have the money or the bandwidth to take risks, and it doesn’t trust the industry to manage its costs.
Against that backdrop, the need for coherent industry leadership has never been stronger or clearer: the railway is going to have to argue for every penny of public money, and it won’t get what it wants.
The Department for Transport was very keen on the GBR concept at first. It became the prevailing industry narrative.
Initially, a handful of people set it up, under the guidance of Network Rail’s leaders Sir Peter Hendy CBE, Andrew Haines and Anit Chandarana, Keith Williams and his head of secretariat Michael Clark, along with consultant Rufus Boyd.
Now it has a staff of 200, a large proportion of whom are on loan from across the industry. They include some of the brightest minds of their generation.
But where are they all heading?
IS THERE A FUTURE FOR GBR?
“I’m not expecting a strong, ass-kicking, GBR to emerge this year. Or next year. Or any other year,” says Alistair Lees, managing director of Assertis and chairman of the Independent Rail Retailers.
“It needs to give up on the idea of telling everyone else what to do - being a centralised controller, because it knows best. No Fat Controller. And drop the bombastic name. It needs to become an enabler of change, one that can coax people along. It won’t need a big shiny new headquarters.
“It cannot wait for legislation to come along. That is just going to be too slow. If it has to wait for 2024-25, that’s five or six years since the pandemic started… which is no good at all.
“We’re in a two-year recession. You can’t leave the railway unreformed all the way through that.”
