Ricky Blake works as Senior Parliamentary Assistant for a Conservative MP and is a contributor to TheNewOneNation.
To my horror I beheld the spectre of one Dr. Richard Beeching at this year’s Conservative Party Conference.
I have to confess that I am a bit weird because the top of my list of must attends at this years conference was not ‘Quite Right Live’ or the ‘Daily T’ but it was the Rail Industry Association’s ‘Big Rail Conversation’. Which featured the shadow parliamentary undersecretary of state for transport, Alison Griffiths MP.
Griffiths introduced herself as having no background in, or any particular knowledge of, railways but she did once work in logistics for Esso at the end of a Heathrow runway. Some transport experience I suppose. I must also say that Griffiths has only been in the position for a month and when she did not know something she did say so; at least she is honest.
Much of what she had to say was either vague neoliberal sentiments about growth and private sector investment, or the success of open access operators which she had clearly been briefed on before coming in.
Why open access operators? Because they fit so well with the tired old Conservative Party dogma of ‘competition’. Open access operators (which have of course been a success) allow private companies to run alternative passenger services on the same lines as the increasingly government run ‘standard’ services, meaning competition and consumer choice. That last part being from the Thatcher liturgy which is unendingly chanted by unimaginative Conservatives across the land.
Griffiths used open access operators as a clear indication of how there is still vitality in the private sector in relation to railways, against the growing tide for increased state investment. This led me to ask her whether she accepted that the success of Open Access on high capacity mainlines could not be replicated on low capacity branch lines. That there is still a place for government in maintaining and improving unprofitable local services providing a vital public good to their local area.
The answer I received was vaguely supportive but ultimately noncommittal.
It was two or three questions down the line where Dr Beeching reared his bald head. The delegate asked the shadow minister how she proposed to make railways profitable when they cost the government £21.6 billion despite only accounting for two per-cent of all journeys made. He then answered his own question by saying he would cut the railways in half in order to achieve this.
I could not contain myself and heckled “Thank you! Dr. Beeching”.
A standalone question from one neo-liberal crank is naturally not representative of the whole Conservative Party and Griffiths answered by stating her commitment to the railways. However, what this man proposed is the logical conclusion of much of what she said and of Conservative Party thinking. It is, to quote Harold Wilson, “a narrow obsession with Railway accountancy”.
If our aim is profitability and competition in the private sector then half maybe even more of the railway network will have to close. Much of the railway has not turned a profit in a century and there is no hope of that returning any time soon.
Who says the railways need to be profitable? Are roads profitable? Does the B1248 between Wetwang and Wharram-le-Street turn a profit? No. It is an absurd suggestion to think it should have to justify itself by such means. The road is providing a service so that people in those places can go about their daily lives quickly and efficiently. So why do apply this flawed reasoning to railways which too provide a vital service?
The Conservative Party has long held competition and profitability in relation to public services above all else. This attitude is holding the railways back from realising their full potential. Railways should be a reliable service that people in every provincial town can and more importantly want to use. For this to happen serious long term investment must be made, but this will not happen if the only goal is profitability.
It is precisely because successive governments have not made transport appointments based on experience that we have been unable to shake this sixty year old dogma around railways. If a minister has no real opinion on railways then why would the minister try challenge the status quo.
Railways are a vital piece of national infrastructure and they need to be led by people with experience who know them.
Many will argue that my position is a socialist one and invoke dark days of nationalisation and decry the misuse of tax payer money. Tax payers money should be used wisely but in relation to our ‘private’ railway it isn’t. Taking my fellow delegates point from the Q&A, how come under a privaterailway the government is spending £21.6 billion? It clearly is not truly private.
What I am arguing for would not mean big state but it would stop the government handing taxpayer money to private companies to run trains that would run regardless of who was running them. A situation that is hardly free market capitalism is it?
As Conservatives let us face the facts that the railways are a public good that do not need to turn a profit. They are not a drain on public finances but provide opportunity and keep the country moving. Let us run the railways for the benefit of passengers and the economy. Let’s spend a bit more on comfy seats, increase capacity on existing lines, put a restaurant car on so people can get a proper meal even if it does not turn a profit. Let’s run the railways as a public service they are.
This is the conservative thing to do.
Only when the party exorcises this “narrow obsession” then will we be truly free from the spectre of Beeching who has dominated Conservative thinking on the railways for six decades.