The landmark consultation on the primary legislation for Great British Railways closes tonight and we have responded to strongly object to the government’s abandoning of the public interest duties previously at the core of the plan.
This post includes a consultation response that argues for the full benefits of public ownership, based on the founding principle of “maximising social and economic value” – which must be enshrined at the heart of the new primary legislation and synchronised across the regulatory system.
If you would like to support our call for an equality, human rights and climate framework for the railway, please email Railreform.bill@dft.gov.uk including the text from this post.
Our consultation response on primary legislation for GBR
- Objection and demand for public interest duties (questions 1 and 2)
We disagree and strongly object to questions (1) and (2), which suggest that a stripped-down, deregulated model of Great British Railways has already been pre-decided (especially in light of section 1.20-1.24). An overarching duty to ‘maximise social and economic value’ and duties towards accessibility and environment were the main commitments of the previous government’s legislative plan. However, this consultation removes any mention they ever existed, meaning that it has been impossible for the public to give input, despite the strong and well-documented support these duties previously received.
Nor has this major change been so much as explained to the public, despite two months of passenger campaigning and two major interventions from the Transport Committee. The missing socioeconomic duty is a particular taboo, and a recent public letter from the Rail Minister Peter Hendy evaded any mention of this previously foundational principle of GBR.
What should be most worrying to the government and Treasury is that no cost impact assessment has been published to support these plans, meaning there is currently no economic rationale whatsoever to support this new, deregulated approach. What is being legislated for here is the combining of Profit and Loss accounts for the entire railway, meaning that every aspect of these decisions affects taxpayer value. The socioeconomic duty was included in the Conservatives’ draft legislation precisely because it maximised value for the taxpayer. It is therefore completely untenable to go forward with any decisions on draft legislation until it is proven that the government has found the best approach to capturing the socioeconomic value of the railway – for every region and demographic.
Demand: The socioeconomic duty must be at the centre of GBR primary legislation and synchronised across all regulatory functions of the Office of Rail and Road (ORR). This is the best possible way to incentivise government investment in rail for the long-term; as well as to preserve the railway from fragmentation and corporate capture, which could otherwise lead to re-privatisation under a future government.
This foundational socioeconomic duty must be paired with strong statutory duties on accessibility and environment, as the best possible approach to incentivising investment and long-term action plans in these areas. As expressed in the Transport Committee’s recent report, rail accessibility is the most urgent human rights issue in transport today; and the urgency of modal shift from cars to public transport is the most important climate goal in Britain.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the government must make the strongest possible legislative amendments to repeal competition law in rail. There are many blocks to integration and dangers of further fragmentation remaining in this current proposal and with absolutely no justification. For example, why should ORR keep competition as its primary factor in decision making when just 1% of the network is open access? This blocks integration and prevents the regulator acting in the public interest. Rather, we need ORR to have safety, accessibility, and socioeconomic value as its only decision-making factors. This can only be achieved if its competition duty is replaced with a socioeconomic duty – as the government well knows, these two aspects of regulation cannot exist in the same space.
It is especially ironic that rail industry lobbyists seek to claim that this stripped-down version of GBR is all about ‘performance’. It is not. In fact, the real boost for performance would be found in removing the interference of ‘competition regulation’ and replacing it with proper integration and planning in the public interest. This is undoubtedly the way to create the strongest possible socioeconomic duty and ensure this empowers other public interest duties, especially accessibility and environment. It provides the maximum possible incentive for investment in all these areas, and for all future governments.
2. Objection to the exclusion of passengers and disabled people from the consultation (all questions)
Due to restrictions caused by competition law, commercial confidentiality, and the influence of industry lobbying, passenger issues have not been consulted on since the 2019 Pay As You Go rail consultation. The results of this consultation were never reported back on due to the continued dominance of the ticketing and fares system by transport corporations, in the guise of the ‘Rail Delivery Group’. Following this, the 2022 consultation on GBR primary legislation actively exempted passenger-facing issues from consultation. This was for reasons of ‘commercial confidentiality’ and to placate industry demands to negotiate all these areas in a private ‘market engagement exercise’. To date, that process has continued and despite the urgency of removing the Rail Delivery Group stated by the previous government, it has remained and seems to be getting more powerful than ever, taking on new network-wide projects all the time, such as ‘ticketless travel trials’ and accessibility technologies such as ‘Welcome Points’ and apps.
The repeal and removal of the effect of competition law in this space must have the removal of the Rail Delivery Group as its main priority. This unregulated and secretive entity is currently in control of all cross-network passenger facing services, and worse still, the government is now seeking to create further competition, and therefore fragmentation, in the retail space. The conflicts of interest created by this approach have already lost us the opportunity of a single, integrated ticketing app for GBR – this must be legislated for and restored to the plan. This is the only way to enable proper integrated ticketing and fares policies, and open the possibility of multi-modal ticketing and travel. The only interests that should be balanced in this area are the public and socioeconomic interest, and the interests of devolved regions in creating their own multi-modal transport systems.
Disabled people have been most betrayed of all by this consultation. National Rail Accessibility Strategy and National Accessible Travel Policy consultations had been promised for years, as well as statutory duties in GBR for: the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) to have an advisory role; requirements to consult disabled people; and the unification of infrastructure investment into a single, rationalised fund for the fastest possible progress towards full rail infrastructure accessibility.
We therefore demand, in line with the recent Transport Committee report, that the government consults on and creates an urgent National Action Plan for rail accessibility in advance of any draft legislation. This should be paired with input into how to create the best possible legislative model to enable: 1) the civil right to Turn Up And Go; and 2) compliance deadlines for infrastructure accessibility in primary legislation.
Final Comment
Please accept these comments as our contribution to this landmark consultation, and do not deny the public and taxpayers the chance of reaping the full socioeconomic benefits of public ownership.
Please also note the contents of our 2022 publications on the previous GBR consultation, which predicted all the difficulties with the socioeconomic duty, competition law and industry lobbying that have now come to pass:
ABC, ‘The Great British Rip Off: Why the Williams-Shapps Plan will fail to deliver’ (August 2022)
ABC, ‘The Great British Cover-Up: What Grant Shapps is hiding about the future of the railways (July 2022)
abcommuters.com 