Launch of Labour’s Plan to Fix Britain’s Railways: Speech by Louise Haigh MP, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary

Thank you, Jody, for your introduction and for hosting us today here at Trainline.

The last few years have been interesting ones for transport in this country.  From HS2 chaos to our Transport Secretary parroting bizarre 15 minute conspiracy theories. You could call the Government's transport agenda many things, and I have called it many things, but one thing it is not, is boring.

But we are all here today because we are passionate about transport and the people it serves.

All too often people are lost when we discuss transport policy.

But there is a reason that Trainline is the UK and Europe's #1 most downloaded rail travel app.

Because you make it easier for millions of passengers to buy tickets, to use the railways and to find the best value fares.

Trainline's success is driven by its relentless focus on passengers: it listens to the people who use the railways and it focuses on improving their experience.

It is these lessons, and from right across the best of the private and public sector that we draw on in setting out our plans today.

Britain was of course the country that invented the railways and brought them to the world. Next year will mark 200 years since the world's first passenger railway ran from Stockton to Darlington.

The innovation which followed transformed Britain, super-charged our industrial revolution, and made travelling the country a possibility for millions. We deserve to be proud of that legacy.

But under the Conservatives, our railways have become a symbol of national decline – of a country that no longer works, and a government with no plan to fix it.

Cancellations are at record highs, fares have risen almost twice as fast as wages since 2010, and strikes are costing £25m a day.

Today's broken model simply doesn't work.

Decisions which should be straightforward – like timetable changes, new ticket types or fares – can take years to happen.

When things go wrong – like delays – armies of lawyers argue over whose fault it is and who pays for the mistake, instead of how to fix it.

Huge sums continue to be wasted on management fees and shareholder dividends.

And despite 30 years of privatisation, shockingly, it is the taxpayer who still props up our failing railways to the tune of billions every year.

That is why today I am setting out Labour's plan to fix Britain's railways.

Now, you may not know this but my boss is keen on something he likes to call ‘Mission Driven Government'.

The idea at the heart of this is that for Government to succeed in making a difference and in making things better, it has to focus. It has to set itself objectives and it has to be transparent and accountable.

The alternative, as we have seen for much of the last fourteen years, is drift, dither and dysfunction.

Our railways underpin all of the five missions that Keir Starmer has set for an incoming Labour government.

They are vital to achieving the growth that we need and to unlocking opportunity for all.

They must drive forward our ambitions on green energy and the net zero transition.

And we cannot keep people safe unless they feel safe to travel on public transport.

Our railways are critical to making our country a better, wealthier and happier place. We can only achieve our five national missions if we unlock the trapped potential of our railways to boost growth and opportunity and to connect all of us with each other, with work and leisure.

But I believe that ‘Mission Driven Government' also gives us a framework for understanding how to go about driving change within the railway itself.

Under the Tories, we have seen what consequences purposeless drift can have.

Constant chaos and changes of direction. Cancelled upgrades and half-baked plans. The Conservative Party has achieved the worst of all worlds for our railways.

Partially privatised, overly-centralised. Expensive but unreliable. Confusing in the extreme, and shamefully unaccountable.

And it is passengers who always pay the price.Stranded at a station in the middle of the night when their train is cancelled.

Crammed into overcrowded and unpleasant trains with broken toilets and dirty carriages. Unable to work as they travel because there's no wifi connection.

And they pay through the nose to prop up this failing system, with huge amounts wasted every year through inefficiencies and fragmentation.

“Unlike most privatisations, that of the railways has never become publicly accepted, because its failings have remained all too obvious... the fragmentation of the network has made it more confusing for passengers, and more difficult and expensive to perform the essentially collaborative task of running trains on time.”

Those aren't my words, but the words of Grant Shapps.

We have already had Keith Williams endorsing our plan today so I wouldn't rule out Grant Shapps or perhaps one of his alias' endorsements by teatime.

Now, when Keir asked me to take on this role and to plan for how we will fix Britain's railways, I set myself an exam question – not, ‘how do I achieve an ideological outcome' but ‘how do I place passengers back at the heart of how our railways are run?'.

That is my mission.

It is the delivery of that mission – a railway network that is relentlessly focused on the passenger interest – that underpins the policies I am launching today.

They amount to the biggest reform of our railways for a generation.

Labour will sweep away the broken model and bring private operators into public ownership as their contracts expire.

We will establish Great British Railways – a single, directing mind to control our railways in the passenger interest.

Yes, we are keeping the name. I'm afraid I was overruled on calling it ‘Rail Britannia'.

If I am Secretary of State, I won't be running the railways day-to-day, but I will act as ‘passenger-in-chief' –

– setting the strategy and objectives for Great British Railways, and holding it to account.

But, unlike current Ministers, I will trust the experts.

Experts who don't just come from the rail sector – because we all know that it can sometimes be a little too inward-looking.

But external experts in providing exceptional customer service.

We will deliver simplified fares and ticketing, a Best Fare Guarantee across the network, as Trainline has already managed to achieve.  And we will roll out the kinds of innovations that you have trialled here – digital season tickets and automatic delay/repay - so that they are available to all passengers.

And we will create a tough new Passenger Watchdog that will hold Great British Railways to account on behalf of the passenger, both on performance and on the quality of the service.  Because we believe that customer experience matters and it matters to growing our railways.

Now, I know what some are going to say. “Same old Labour – calling for public ownership.” 

But the truth of the matter is that neither the passenger nor the taxpayer can afford for things to continue like this.

Throwing good money after bad at a system that simply isn't delivering.

And as part of our new approach we will reset industrial relations on the railways, which have hit a new low under this Government, who have deliberately provoked these disputes.

Labour will take a consciously different approach: we will see our workforce as an asset rather than a liability. 

We will work with them. 

And where there are disagreements, we will get around the table and work them out.

There are two stages to the reforms I am setting out today.

Step 1 is urgent action we will take immediately on entering office.

We will instruct the Department for Transport, Network Rail, the Rail Delivery Group, and the operator of last resort to work together from day one to create a ‘shadow' Great British Railways. 

This will fire the starting gun on reform and make sure we don't lose valuable time.

Step 2 will see us pass the primary legislation needed to formally establish Great British Railways as an arm's length body, ensuring that it is structured around the needs of passengers and freight. 

Every five years, the Secretary of State will issue a long-term strategy, which will set out how the railway should deliver against clear passenger objectives.

And Great British Railways will be incentivised to grow the number of people using rail and the revenues from it. 

And importantly, it will provide the clarity and certainty of outlook the sector has been missing for so long.

That will help address the boom-and-bust cycle our rail manufacturers like Alstom and Hitachi have been left in by this Government, which has failed to set out a clear pipeline of rail investments for years now.

And to reassure both voters who worry that a railway run in their interests will cost too much – and to reassure beloved colleagues in the Shadow Treasury team – these fully costed proposals will save the taxpayer money – through efficiencies delivered by eliminating duplicate costs across the network.

This is an entirely new approach to our railways – and consciously so.

There is no future in simply reinventing the past and there is no hope if we remain wedded to the current mess.

This is our plan to put our railways back on track.

To put passengers at the heart of our railways and to hold the railway to account.

To make travelling by train accessible and reliable again.

And to cut the waste and the short-termism that has characterised the last fourteen years of disfunction.

It isn't going to be easy and it will take hard graft - but it will be my mission to get us to the right destination and to deliver for the Great British passenger.