“We already have Network Rail there in terms of our tracks… but we want to make sure that we have those entities for our tracks as we already have. Also another one for our services, and that we have those organisations focused towards delivering for the public, but also working in close collaboration under the auspices of the Transport Secretary, under the auspices of the government.”
Dhesi still describes the need for “an overall guiding mind”, but it would seem this is no longer a single company and single employer for infrastructure and operational staff, as set out in GB Rail.
“We don’t want to go back to how it was 20, 30 years ago. We want a railway fit for the 21st century… what fits the scenario as we face it now,” he says.
The rail unions - Labour’s affiliates ASLEF, TSSA and Unite, and the non-affiliated RMT - have also expressed their support for a more devolved, democratically accountable system than that which existed with British Rail.
At a fringe meeting at this year’s TUC Congress, ASLEF Assistant General Secretary Simon Weller said there was no state-owned railway worth emulating in the entire world, because the only ones in existence were either bureaucratic monoliths or “state capitalist” set-ups (of the kind favoured by the EU), with separate legal entities interacting with each other in the manner of private companies.
“If you’re a trade unionist, you’d say it’s better not to create those boundaries in the first place,” says a legal source with experience of EU regulations.
“EU regulations on separate track and train management have created the division that you’re trying to get away from. I can see why they’re saying the European model is not what we want.”
The legal source believes that Northern Ireland Railways, which remained in the state sector at the time of privatisation, offers an interesting model for Labour.
"It's an example of something that works here. What you’ve got, firstly, is a very small railway system, so it isn’t at scale. But what they’ve had throughout is one company which owns the whole railway system, with infrastructure and operating wings in a coherent management structure. They provide a very close integrated system where basically they’re talking to each other all the time, really efficiently without serious internal friction.”
Dhesi is more sceptical: “I think Northern Ireland is very much a special case. How the railways have been run there, we cannot base the rest of the UK on the system that is there. But we have looked into various models within our Shadow Transport team that are working in other parts of Europe, to ensure that nations of similar scale - for example, Germany, France and Italy - we’ll look at the best practice there.”
Switzerland, which sets public transport service guarantees in law, is also of interest to Dhesi. This will be music to the ears of transport campaigners across Britain, who have often held it up as an example of how services could be rebuilt to directly respond to the needs of citizens.
“I’m really inspired by the Swiss model and what they’re able to achieve in very rural parts of the country,” says Ellie Harrison, the founder of Get Glasgow Moving, a campaign for integrated ticketing and better public transport in Scotland’s largest city.
“It’s because they have a statutory duty that everybody has a right to public transport. And a service, depending on the size of the place where you live - either every hour, every half-hour or every quarter of an hour, seven days a week, 0600 until 0000. That’s law.
“I think that would be a real game-changer to get something like that. There was a debate around that when the Transport Bill was going through Parliament. If there’s a statutory duty and local authorities have to deliver it, then hopefully they will think about the most cost-effective ways of delivering it, and the most reliable ways of delivering it. It’s obvious you need an integrated system.”
Says Dhesi: “We’ve looked at the Swiss with their integrated timetabling, how things can align so that the passenger can have that convenience of getting off a train in (say) Slough station, getting onto the bus, and then gradually using other forms of public transport. The integration of timetabling, the siting of bus stations with rail stations and so on, that is also crucial. We’re always open to ideas, and the last two years that I’ve had the privilege of serving as a Shadow Rail Minister, that’s what we’ve been able to do.”
However, the rail consultant queries: “Are we prepared to pay the level of tax to get the Swiss-style level of service?”
And like Harrison, Dhesi stresses the need for integrated ticketing: “If an Oyster-type system works for London, why can it not be the case for Manchester, or Liverpool, or Birmingham, or anywhere else around the country that so desires it?”
Dhesi repeatedly returns to the need for service levels to be set by the government.
“If someone’s waiting at a particular train station, previously they would have been accustomed to two or three trains an hour. Instead, now they only have one train an hour,” he says, referring to the continued reduction on some routes after COVID service cuts.
“That’s no way to have that affordable, accessible, convenient rail service. We know what the British public expect: they want something that is affordable, they want something that is accessible, in terms of not just cost, but also accessibility for people with disabilities. And they want it to be convenient.
“So, we need to have that as our primary focus as we deliver. That is not just being done from some sort of ideological , it’s being done because it’s in the best interests of our country.”
Motivations are an interesting question when it comes to rail policy. The EU’s prescription of increased competition, rolled out through successive directives over the past three decades, has always been justified on the basis that it would bring value and enhanced service levels for the travelling public.
“Where that was going over time was to create a fallback situation where you could not have a monopoly government-based railway system, because the idea was that killed competition,” the legal source says.
“The whole project for the past 30 years has been to break up enterprises and introduce more independence and transparency by degrees.”
But by turning the tide on competition, Labour is essentially saying that the EU was either misguided or disingenuous in saying this would deliver for the consumer.
“I think the Government themselves have rejected the notion that the railways are delivering for the British public,” Dhesi argues.
“It needs a government that is committed to taking charge of our railways, because for a nation that pioneered rail, we are now lagging far behind on electrification, lagging far behind on value for money, in terms of the extortionate fares that passengers have to pay.”
Or, as the legal source asks: is Labour’s motivation to deliver the best service for the consumer at all? Or is the party more focused on creating an efficient railway network?
“It needs to be passenger-focused,” Dhesi says, when asked if he sees an opposition between these two priorities.
“Ultimately, we know passengers want an affordable, accessible and convenient rail system. What we also want is to deliver an increased level of freight. That is where the direction, the vision, the long-term planning from government is essential.
“And I don’t see that there is a problem in having it to be both passenger-focused and delivering an efficient rail system. We need to have them both, I think, and that’s what we will endeavour to deliver upon.”
However, the questions on the minds of many passengers will be more straightforward. Through the news media, they are unlikely to hear any further policy detail beyond the word “nationalisation” - and the reality of taking back franchises as they expire may not meet their expectations.
Put bluntly, many in the older generation will expect a return to British Rail. And aside from the slow pace of franchise expiry, it looks increasingly likely that freight and open access operations will remain in the private sector.
But an incoming Labour government would likely be held accountable by passengers, opposition parties and the media (much of which will be hostile to Labour's one remaining public ownership pledge) for every aspect of operations and infrastructure.
“I think the British public will know that it is a gradual process - it’s not going to change overnight,” Dhesi says, when asked how Labour will manage such expectations.
