Crewe Chronicle Letter (11/9/13): Response to Labour calls to re-nationalise the railways. 

Dear Sir

Rather than be drawn into the tit-for-tat mudslinging and name-calling to which some of your correspondents have resorted, having very much lost their arguments with UKIP, I will address in my letter issues more pertinent.

Dr. Adrian Heald correctly highlighted the underperformance of our railways in your last edition. However, his limited understanding of economics led him to the wrong conclusion, blaming the woes of our railways solely at the feet of ‘privatisation’.

The faults in our railways are not simply due to their ‘privatisation’ so much as the botched manner in which they were privatised. Indeed, the system we have has all the disadvantages of Nationalised Industry with none of the advantages of Private. 

As any economist will agree, the advantages of Private Industry stem from competition – innovation in products and services, cost-efficiency and accountability. By granting companies an effective monopoly on most routes – and removing competition - the government has obviated the opportunity for any of these benefits.

Furthermore, by failing to establish a properly functioning market for Rail Travel, the government has given the operators the green light to make excessive and unfair profits at the expense of customer service. By forcing train operators to bid for franchises, the government also severely limits the amount of capital these companies can invest in new trains and facilities for the comfort of Rail Users.

Once has only to consider the benefits achieved in the Telecoms Industry by unleashing the power of the markets. As a Nationalised Industry, one had to wait 6 months for a phone line to be fitted. Now, after privatisation, and creation of a market, we can stream High Definition Feature Films to a mobile handset, and call the other side of the world for a few pence – all due to the pressure of competition between providers and the imperative to innovate and develop new technology and services.

Certainly, some aspects of our railways, such as track and other infrastructure do lend themselves to a ‘Natural Monopoly’, where some degree of public control should be exercised, and operators charged for their use, the proceeds of which should be invested in their maintenance and improvement.

In calling for full nationalisation of our railways, Dr Heald has clearly forgotten the dire days of British Rail, and rather than suggesting a Common Sense solution, he jumped immediately to the Socialist’s favourite ideological answer for everything.

Cllr. Stuart Hutton CEng MIET (UKIP).