The expression ‘industrial strategy’ was anathema to the government during the recent long period of Conservative rule. It was equated with Soviet style planning and therefore seemed to run counter to the free market ethos central to government thinking of the time.
This was damaging to the railways. While the need for industrial planning could be a subject of reasonable political debate, there is no doubt that the rail industry in particular needs a long term strategy in order to flourish. In its absence, the railways have ended up with a ‘boom and bust’ culture that is not only damaging but expensive.
The benefits of having a coherent plan is well illustrated by the experience of history. Contrast, for example, Sir Herbert Walker’s thorough and successful scheme to electrify much of the Southern network in the inter war period with the haphazard process of the Great Western electrification a decade ago. This suffered from the loss of relevant experience as no major line had been electrified since the East Coast in the early 1990s, and was compounded by the intrusive and damaging interference from politicians which led to the ridiculous sight of masts being installed but not used between Didcot and Oxford (see my column in Rail 987). Worse, the electrification of the Midland Main Line is now taking place in 20 or so mile chunks with no overall plan for completion or even what completion might entail. Or to take a more recent example, contrast the construction a whole network of 4,000 kms of high speed rail lines in Spain for around £50billion and the bill for HS2 now soaring to more than £100bn for a mere 220 kms and if my sources are correct (see the previous Rail) we will be lucky to escape with that
At least the rail industry does have a form of long term planning, the Control Period process under which the budget for maintenance and renewals is given in five year blocks of time. There is too, the Railway Network Enhancement Pipeline which was published in 2018. This is a separate budget agreed by the Treasury in its spending review but despite numerous promises, a new list of projects has not been published since then. Consequently, the supply chain industry complains about the ‘boom and bust’ economics which have resulted in increased costs and reduced investment potential for the industry.
That is the background to the Commons Transport Select Committee’s decision to investigate rail investment with a specific mention of ‘boom and bust’, a concept which Sir Andrew Haines, who is the soon to be departing chief executive of Network Rail, rejected as not applying to the rail industry. Haines, who seemed rather ill at ease facing the committee, argued that there was plenty of moey being spent, but much was absorbed by HS2 – which, it has just been revealed, spent £6.99bn in the last financial year – Transpennine Route Upgrade and East-West Rail, with inflation eating up a sizeable proportion of the rest. So, he argued, if your favoured scheme is not one of those, then yes you might feel you were part of the ‘bust’. Interestingly, Haines poured scorn on ‘Network North’, the package of measures dreamt up on the back of an envelope when the HS2 section north of Birmingham was scrapped, as all the proposed schemes were ‘subject to business case’ and many would never have made the grade. Nevertheless, he claimed that the rail industry was enjoying its best levels of investment in a century.
The witnesses from both the two independent pan industry organisations, the Rail Industry Association and the Rail Forum rather contradicted Haines’s rosy view of rail investment with the latter’s Elaine Clark suggesting that the situation was ‘the worst that they [her members] had ever seen’. At least, though, the associations were able to take some comfort in the fact that no one is arguing any longer that there should not be a strategic plan for the industry. Indeed, there is a universal view in the industry that a ten year time frame is the minimum for an industry whose infrastructure is expected to last ten times or more than that. Clark stressed that they were not asking for a 10 year budget, which would be impossible, but rather a long term strategy based on understanding the purpose of the railway in moving both goods and people.
There are concerns, however, that the Department for Transport is still somewhat resistant to the notion of setting out a plan. Indeed, with hints that the spending review, with a reference to ‘mid-period reductions to funds available’ might lead to a revision of the accepted spending for the current Control Period 7, which still has four years to run. Any reduction would only confirm that boom and bust is here to stay.
Having a strategy for the railways should be the end process of a much more fundamental question, and one which, oddly, is too often ignored in the industry and by politicians afraid of making tough decisions. My railway friend Gordon Pettit, who died recently and under British Rail ran Regional Railways, was rather dismissive of little used lines that were heavily subsidised. He recognised, of course, the value of subsidising the railway industry but was sceptical about some of the branches that have been kept open because, for one reason or another, Beeching missed them out. I rather disagreed with him, arguing about the value of such lines to the local communities such as in north Wales, where I holiday each year next to the Cambrian Line. Yet, his point was that these lines are kept open by default, because in this day and age no one is able to close a railway. The large subsidies they absorb are simply paid over irrespective of how many – or few – people travel on them. If there is to be a discussion about what the railways are for, than the decisions behind keeping these lines open, reopening other ones and prioritising investments need to be made openly.
There is too the issue of decarbonisation. The railways, rightly, sell themselves as a low carbon mode of transport but yet are barely mentioned by Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, when discussing how to get to Net Zero. Surely subsidies which are spent on the railways should be considered as part of the drive to decarbonisation and therefore money well spent. If more people transferred to rail, that would represent a carbon saving but, as witnesses pointed out, this is not cost free. A big increase in the numbers using the railways would require more trains, better maintenance and more staff. That equation seems not to be understood by ministers.
Hopefully Great British Railways will be able to make decisions that will explicitly set out why it is worth spending money on particular aspects of the railway. That would be the real value of having a national rail strategy, something that has been lacking since the railways were privatised.
Should we beware of younger drivers?
Lord Hendy, the rail minister, took the trouble to brief journalists on the thinking behind the decision to reduce the minimum age for train drivers from 20 to 18. This could have been controversial but passed off without a murmur in the mainstream press as the argument behind it was well set out and the plan had been sanctioned by the Railway Safety and Standards Board. And it was pointed out that given the length of the required training, not many 18 year olds will be in full control.
It did, though, strike me odd that it was necessary to bring about this change. I recognise that it will make it easier to recruit school leavers directly as they finish their education but given that it is a well-remunerated job with the guarantee of long term employment, it seems strange there are not more older recruits moving from related professions such as driving buses or recruiting people tired of dull office jobs or ex service personnel. I think that is a PR failure. The image of train driving may still be that of controlling a steam engine, getting very dirty and tired rather than sitting in a comfortable modern cab with minimal need for physical exertion – though a lot of mental concentration. Recruitment of drivers is now a priority given that staff shortages are responsible for many cancellations and this is set to get worse.
With almost a third of drivers reaching retirement age in the next three years, many of those will have maxed out their pensions and therefore be likely to leave the industry. Ministers have recognised that the only way to reduce the need for rest day working is to increase the numbers of full time drivers. The very success of Great British Railways may well rest on the ability to boost recruitment, hence this change.