Southern Western Railways will become the first franchised operator brought back under public ownership after law change – with all operators due to be transferred within three years
Labour has vowed to put passengers “back at the heart” of Britain’s railways – as the government revealed a timetable for renationalising train firms.
The first operator – South Western Railways – will transfer to public ownership next May. And all passenger services across Britain operated under contracts with the Department for Transport will complete over the next three years.
Writing in the Mirror, new Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said: “I am determined to return our railways across the country to the service of passengers. She replaced Louise Haigh, credited with driving through rail renationalisation plans, who quit last week after it emerged she pleaded guilty to a fraud offence a decade ago.
She went on: “Mirror readers deserve better. That’s why we have now called time on this failed system, which led to timetable chaos and eye-watering bonuses for bosses despite decades of poor performance.”
The announced timetable comes just days after the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 received Royal Assent. Delivering on its pre-election promise, Labour said the shake-up would tackle unacceptable levels of delays, cancellations, and waste seen under decades of what it called “failing” franchise contracts. Doing so will save up to £150million a year in fees alone, it said, “ensuring every penny is spent on services rather than private shareholders, all while coming at no additional cost to the taxpayer.”
The Mirror last week revealed rail firms have dished out nearly £2billion in dividends since 2015. Shareholders of train companies – including a number owned by foreign stated-owned transport giants – have enjoyed bumper payouts while millions of passengers endured delays, cancellations and fare hikes. A report from the Office of Road and Rail showed nearly a dozen train firms paid out £165million in dividends in the year to March alone, more than double the amount the previous year.
The Department for Transport – through a separate public body – will take over South Western Railways’ services once the contract with current joint operators FirstGroup and MTR expires. SWR is one of the UK’as biggest rail operators, with commuter services running into London Waterloo station, as well as routes to South West England.
Next will be c2c services in July, and Greater Anglia in the autumn. About 40% of services in England are already back in public ownership. Those in Scotland and Wales are now run by their devolved governments.
The Department for Transport said it would take several months to transfer each of the remaining services to minimise any impact on passengers. Under the Government’s broader plans, the planned Great British Railways will bring track and train together.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, said: “Keir Starmer, Louise Haigh, and Heidi Alexander have delivered on the Labour Party’s manifesto commitment by bringing Britain’s railways back into public ownership.
This is the right decision, at the right time, to take the brakes off the UK economy and rebuild Britain. John Major’s decision to privatise British Rail in 1994 was foolish, ideologically-driven, and doomed to fail. It was described even by that arch-privateer Margaret Thatcher as “a privatisation too far” and so it proved.
“The privateers have taken hundreds of millions of pounds from our railways and successive Conservative governments have pursued a policy of managed decline which has sold taxpayers, passengers, and staff short. Now we are going to see the wheels and the steel put back together, an end to the failed fragmentation of our network, and a railway brought back into the public sector, where it belongs, to be run as a public service, not for private profit.”
