At some point this summer, a popular vote will help determine the location of the future headquarters of Great British Railways (GBR). Unveiled with boosterish enthusiasm last year by the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, this new public body will supersede Network Rail, overseeing both services and infrastructure. Wherever GBR is eventually based – candidate hosts include historic train towns such as Crewe and Darlington – it will have its work cut out.
Last week’s overwhelming vote in favour of industrial action by members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) has been predictably portrayed as a return to 1970s-style union militancy. Against a backdrop of soaring inflation and public sector pay caps, a potential confrontation between organised labour and the government does have a certain retro quality. But the Life on Mars alarmism is overdone and misses the deeper issues at stake. The RMT’s demands for better pay and job security should be seen in the context of an industry whose future is suddenly and disturbingly uncertain.
Total passenger numbers on trains have now returned to about 80% of pre-Covid levels. But the figures are significantly lower on profitable commuter routes – particularly those into London. White-collar workers have embraced hybrid and remote working as the new normal, and the rail industry faces an annual £2bn shortfall in revenue. While the population stayed at home during the pandemic, the government spent an extra £15bn to keep the network running. But as it turns the financial taps off and demands deep spending cuts, the government is in effect ordering the rail industry to cut its cloth according to these changed circumstances.
Understandably, given the high proportion of fixed costs involved in running a railway, the RMT’s leaders fear that their members will bear the brunt of this coming retrenchment. As well as a pay rise to reflect the impact of double-digit inflation – after a two-year freeze for many workers – the union is seeking to ensure that there are no compulsory redundancies among station staff and maintenance workers. The resounding vote to strike if necessary has strengthened the RMT’s hand. Its warnings about cutting corners on safety should be taken seriously, given previous disasters, though the benefits of new technologies should not be ruled out. On the other side of the table, Network Rail and the train operators are justified in arguing that changing patterns of rail usage may require more flexible working patterns. Compromises will be needed if levels of disruption not seen since the 1990s are to be avoided.
In the longer term, the government must decide what future it actually wants for the sector. Imposed cuts leading to less frequent, more crowded trains could trigger a spiral of decline. That would be utterly at odds with Whitehall’s levelling up agenda, which purportedly aims to boost and develop public transport infrastructure and services beyond south-east England. It would also undermine the vital role that the rail industry should play in the country’s transition to net zero. As a TUC study published this month argues, investment and imagination are needed during a crucial decade when a transition away from cars, not trains, is the priority.
One of the leading historians of our railways, Christian Wolmar, has written about the “inability of successive governments to set out precisely what they are for”. Should rail travel be treated as essentially a business like any other, or as a public good to be run – and subsidised – according to different criteria? Driven by a short-sighted determination to rein in spending following the pandemic, Mr Shapps is reverting to the former proposition. That could have lasting and damaging consequences. Our railways deserve better than a future of managed decline.
