Before one of the last traditional-Labour ministers, Louis Haigh, was told by Starmer’s paid help Morgan McSweeney that she’d been booted out of Government, she announced with much noise the creation of Great British Railways (GBR). A “cultural reset” that would “bring passenger services into public hands” “with a relentless focus on passengers … would stop the blame game, by unifying track and trail”.

So what’s the reality behind this Labour PR – and what might it mean for Scotland – where ScotRail and The Caledonian Sleeper are already publicly owned and run by the Scottish Government?

The picture above shows how it all fits together. But it was all started some years ago by the previous Tory Westminster Government, and their Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail. The current Labour Government is simply continuing the implementation of this plan.

What is “GBR”

GBR adds another layer of Westminster bureacracy to existing publicly run passenger train operators, like South Eastern – as well as the publicly run organisation responsible for network infrastructure (Network Rail).

It brings the current English franchised passenger train operators, like East Midlands, into public ownership – as their franchises expire. It will be some years before the “transition” to GBR will be complete.

So lots of scope for spending money on consultants likes Deloittes to “brand” this new collection of public services – integrate it all into one ticketing system etc. In fact by March 2024 some £64m had already been spent on this “transition” by the GBR Transition Team.

Given the relatively small amount that private franchised passenger operators hand out as dividends, it will be interesting to see if the money saved by taking them public will exceed the cost of transition and new admin.

What does GBR exclude?

The largest part of a passenger operators costs are the rolling stock it uses – buying new and maintaining old. All of this cost is subcontracted via leases to highly profitable rolling stock companies. And this won’t change with the introduction of GBR. The publicly owned GBR will continue to buy in privatised rolling stock capability.

And privately owned freight operators are also out of scope for GBR. So businesses dependent on trains to move their goods will not benefit. A missed opportunity to encourage the move from road to rail.

And what about Scotland

The SNP-run Scottish Government has already taken private franchised passenger train operators into public ownership. ScotRail and The Caledonian Sleeper are managed by Transport Scotland. The Scottish Parliament has confirmed its understanding that there will be no change to the Scottish setup – if anything, the Westminster Bill introducing GBR strenthens the Scottish Government position.

But these services are still dependent on Westminster-run Network Rail for access to rail infrastructure. Other than the branding, this won’t change.

What’s really questionable is how the Scottish Government must find rail infrastructure investment itself – from the limited general investment budget that Westminster allows Scotland. Unlike Westminster, the Scottish Government can’t create money for investment. It has no control over the size of its budget. This means that projects that are a real priority for Scotland – like dual railing the northern track – are challenging to fund. GBR changes none of this.

Summary