East Coast Main Line 'should be nationalised permanently'

Published on Saturday 7 November 2009 10:52

THERE were growing calls today for the flagship Edinburgh-London rail line to be permanently nationalised after the loss-making franchise was temporarily taken out of private hands.

The government announced this week that the East Coast Main Line would come back under public control from next Friday. It is expected the route will be run by the government until mid-2011, with any profit being returned to the public purse.

But rail campaigners and union leaders today called for the franchise to remain in public hands indefinitely to avoid "gambling" once again on privatisation.

The route will transfer to a government-controlled company at one minute before midnight on 13 November after current operator National Express was forced to give up the franchise.

The company took over the running of the route in 2007 and is widely believed to have overpaid after agreeing to hand the government 1.4 billion over seven years.

Transport minister Lord Adonis stepped in earlier this year after the company ran up huge losses running the route.

In a statement, Lord Adonis confirmed the route would pass into public ownership from next week. He said: "I can assure the travelling public that services will continue without disruption and all tickets will be honoured.

"Staff currently employed by National Express East Coast will transfer to the East Coast Main Line company."

Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail and Maritime Transport (RMT) union, said there was an opportunity to take the route permanently into public ownership.

He said: "This is the second privatisation failure on the East Coast route following on from the GNER collapse.

"We will be meeting ministers to demand that this renationalisation is made permanent rather than being seen as an expensive short-term fix with a third gamble on privatisation in 18 months' time."

Lawrence Marshall, of the Capital Rail Action Group, said keeping the East Coast Main Line in public hands would help provide a useful comparison with the rest of the network.

He said: "My view is that the franchise should be left with the government and not put back out to tender. If there is money to be made on this franchise, and presumably there is given the amount of interest when National Express took over, then why not let the public purse have the money.

"As a further point of principle, it is useful to have a public sector comparator. That provides a useful basis to evaluate the whole system in the UK."

Links

www.dft.gov.uk

www.rmt.org.uk