Let’s be careful with our outrage and remember Network Rail works in the private sector

By Tom Harris MP / @TomHarrisMP

I wonder how often speakers at Labour’s annual conference this year will demand the renationalisation of the railways?

I expect that, as in previous years, the words “shambles” and “disgrace” will be used to describe the privatised railway network in the UK. The impression will be given that safety, performance and number of services are worse than they were under British Rail and that tax-payers’ money is being used to line the pockets of the shareholders of the Train Operating Companies (TOCs) and, of course, the hated directors of Network Rail.

But if there is a case for nationalisation, it has to be made on more substantial grounds than any of the above factors. Because in terms of safety, reliability, the number of services we have today and the number of passengers the network is attracting, Britain’s railways are a success. Only in terms of value for money do the critics seem to have a point, and we may see a steep reversal in previous years’ steep increases in ticket prices when the annual announcement is made by the TOCs at the end of the year (thanks to the negative value of the retail price index, on which annual rises of “regulated” tickets are calculated).

For a media and a public looking round eagerly for the next target for their anger at over-generous remuneration packages, the leadership of Network Rail is an obvious candidate. And it’s not just the traveling public who want to join the queue to administer a right good kicking to Ian Coucher (chief executive) and his team: those other, sometimes forgotten, customers of Network Rail, the train operating companies themselves, regularly come close to losing patience with the infrastructure owner.

And yet the truth is that Network Rail is more responsive to its stakeholders than at any time in its history. Radical and significant efficiency improvement targets imposed by the government and the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) is helping it close the gap with its European equivalents while making sure the railways continue to benefit from record investment. In all my dealings with Coucher, the then chairman of Network Rail, Iain McAllister and their team, I never failed to be impressed by their genuine commitment to the railways and their own distress when failures like Rugby in 2008 once again brought passengers’ unhappiness and the industry’s own reputation into the stark media spotlight.

We should by all means make sure that public money is invested properly in the railway industry, but measures to make sure that is happening have been in place for many years and have proven effective. The excuse that remuneration packages must be generous enough to attract the best people from across the private sector is used too often to justify public sector wage bills. But the railway industry is genuinely private and genuinely international.

Let’s be careful that the current outrage against everyone in the public eye who is seen to be paid more than the average worker doesn’t leave us in a situation where the engineers and managers the railway desperately needs to retain – and who are, against all received wisdom, doing a fine job – are tempted to step aside to allow less able or less qualified individuals to lead the British industry.

And one more thing: let’s leave the railways where they belong and where they have been a success – in the private sector.

Tom Harris also blogs at And Another Thing…