Member News
By Hugh Bayley MP - 17th July 2009
The franchising model is not robust enough for a railway of such great strategic and economic importance
Hugh Bayley
Labour MP Hugh Bayley sets out his concerns about the future of the east coast main line.
The east coast main line is the most strategically important railway in the UK. The service is economically vital to the whole of the east of the country, especially Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland.
It generates hundreds of millions of pounds of economic activity to local economies along the line, and sustains thousands of local jobs. Businesses locate in Yorkshire because they can depend on a fast and reliable train service to London. A loss of confidence in the service would result in a fall in inward investment, and put thousands of jobs at threat.
When National Express announced that it could not fulfil the terms of its franchise, the government was right to intervene to safeguard the frequency, quality and punctuality of services.
However, this is the second time in three years that the government has been left to pick up the pieces of a failed franchise. This is not a quirk or a technical problem, but a signal that the franchising model is not robust enough for a railway of such great strategic and economic importance.
It is likely that a publicly owned company will be set up to run the east coast main line in the short term. The cost of setting this up will be the same whether the company runs the service for one year, three years or longer. The line made money when it was managed by British Rail and will do so again if it returns to the public sector. A longer period of public ownership would rebuild confidence in the service, restore staff morale and give the government sufficient time to create a better business model for long term stability and investment.
The government should consider alternative ways of running the service – including a 'vertical' railway in which the train company manages the track too, contracting train paths to several companies to increase competition instead of letting a single franchisee, and retaining the service in the public sector if the publicly owned company performs well and delivers value for money in the short term.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd