‘As the brand new Transport Secretary, I’m decided to return our railways to the service of passengers’
This Labour Government is putting passengers back at the heart of the railway.
Under the last Government, our broken railways became a symptom of a country where nothing was working. Delays, cancellations, and waste became the hallmarks of a railway that was no longer fit for purpose.
I know first-hand what it takes to run a major transport system – during the pandemic, I kept services running and passengers safe in London. As the new Transport Secretary, I am determined to return our railways across the country to the service of passengers.
We promised that if we came to power, we would put passengers back at the heart of rail services. We meant it.
Our Rail Public Ownership Bill became one of the first laws this Government passed last month, and it paved the way for returning the railway to its true purpose: working for people.
The last Government couldn’t have left us with a worse inheritance. Billions of pounds spent on a system that simply wasn’t working. A failed experiment with franchise contracts, which just didn’t deliver. Years of talk about reform – but no action. Journeys – and people’s lives – left to drift, because the Government had, frankly, given up on trying to fix this mess.
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 taxpayer will save up to £150 million a year in fees alone by ensuring every penny is spent on services rather than private shareholders.
Today I’m taking the first step by announcing the first operators that will come under public control. Next May, South Western Railway will be taken back into public hands, followed by c2c in July and Greater Anglia in the autumn. This
means services across a wide area of southern England and East Anglia will be run by the public, for the public by autumn 2025.
We will do this properly. The last thing passengers want is more chaos and disruption. So we will roll out transfers over several months, making sure passengers can continue buying tickets and get assistance from staff as usual.
This is just the first step towards better train services. It will take time. But we’ve got to work straight away to make everyday journeys a little bit easier. Since July, we’ve ended long-running train driver strikes, which cost the taxpayer almost a billion pounds under the last Government.
We’ll introduce live performance data at stations, to be transparent with the public. And we’ve made immediate improvements to Euston Station, with more to come. In the coming months we will set out more detail about how, with Great British Railways, we will reform our railways. That means modernised working practices, simpler and fairer ticketing, delivering a better service for passengers and taxpayers.
Our broken railways are finally on the fast track to repair, fixing decades of chaos, delay and waste. But there is more to do, and I am determined to rebuild a rail network that the British public can be proud of once again.
