Brexit, the consultant says, means that isn’t necessarily the case.
He suggests that newer generations of the road haulage workforce would much rather take on jobs in the short-haul HGV sector, which would be empowered to expand around revived regional rail freight terminals. However, Labour does not yet appear to have developed its thinking on rail freight to this level of detail.
In another deviation from McDonald’s vision, Dhesi confirmed at Labour’s 2022 conference that the party's “priority is not about the ROSCOs , it’s about the network and the operators”.
The public procurement of future rolling stock orders, set out in GB Rail, would “depend on where we find the economy” upon taking office. Now he reaffirms that rolling stock won't be the “primary focus”.
He continues: “We need to ensure that the focus is on the current chaos and catastrophe where many people cannot even get between the major cities in a timely fashion, with the cancellations that there are, a lot of people having to pay silly prices, only to stand on a train or find that those train services are not running.”
But he is open to public procurement of rolling stock on a regional level, such as that being pursued by Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram for the new Merseyrail electric multiple units.
“They will have the power, in terms of devolution, to embark upon what they think best fits their metro region. For us, the main thing is about ensuring there is investment in tracks and to get the timetabling and the service levels correct, and we can then build upon that thereafter.”
At the conference, Dhesi was repeatedly pressed by industry representatives over the future of open access operators. In return, he repeatedly reiterated that he had championed the cause of open access companies when they were lacking in pandemic support, but he declined to confirm the future of such operators under a Labour government.
Instead, he said the party would be “outlining exactly how we would be viewing the role of open access operators, and certain places where certain operators could enhance the overall operation”, adding that this announcement would come “in the very, very near future”.
The GB Rail paper had proposed that “a value-for-money assessment will consider whether it would be cost-efficient to purchase all or some open access passenger operators and rail freight firms”, but, similarly, did not commit. Open access rights were codified in European competition legislation, but Brexit allows a future government the flexibility to decide if they are desirable.
“If you’re a freight operator or an open access operator, and Labour come in and say we’re changing the system, either you say ‘I need to continue to have my track access rights on the current basis within that model - which is probably a time-limited thing - or you say you’ll have to buy me out’,” the legal source says.
“Government makes laws and they ultimately have the power to take away the ability to have open access operators. If they didn’t compensate those businesses at all, there might be human rights-style challenges. However, it depends on what precisely is done.”
For Labour’s approach to this question - and many others, those of rolling stock, freight and industrial relations - we will have to wait.
However, what is clear is that the GB Rail opposition White Paper can no longer be taken as a guide to the party’s first principles. Dhesi's divergence from it on the subject of structure seems particularly significant: once aspects of the state-owned operation are interacting as separate entities rather than business units of the same legal company, it surely makes it easier to maintain the involvement of private sector partners, too.
If Labour wins, Dhesi and his ministerial colleagues are still likely to face an uphill battle in implementing public operation, especially if that means costly measures such as significant fare subsidies.
In the meantime, much as he is keen to build relationships and trust within the rail industry, his primary job is to develop a vision which resonates with the voting public.
“I think even the Government has acknowledged that the fragmented, privatised, failed model is just not working - not for the passenger, or for rail workers, or for the taxpayer,” he says.
“That’s why 25% of it is already in public ownership - the majority of the rest of the 75% is in public ownership, but it just happens to be European governments owning it. The British public is now looking to its Government to take charge.” ■
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