Cable Forum - Liberal Democrat conference/manifesto

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Re: Liberal Democrat conference/manifesto

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Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36010828)

The only part of the national railway network that remains fully privately owned is the rolling stock. Nationalising that wouldn’t be cheap. The information is hard to come by, but the combined value of the three big rolling stock leasing companies seems to be in the region of £8-9bn. Government could simply stop placing new rolling stock orders through the ROSCOs and in recent years has indeed placed some orders direct with manufacturers. But when you consider how much ex-BR stock is still on the network, it’s clear that privately-owned and leased stock is going to be part of our railway for many years. The stuff isn’t going to wear out any time soon and it would be a work of ideological folly to compulsorily purchase it. How many hospitals can you build for £9 billion?

Of course building hospitals with £9bn wouldn’t result in savings in the long run (rental costs of rolling stock). Although not rail PFI (both colours) has shown, ownership of assets (in this case the rolling stock) over the long run would provide better value to Government.

I do agree though a transitioned approach would be more stable.

Re: Liberal Democrat conference/manifesto

Yes, government expenditure is cheaper in the long run, but the purpose of getting a loan and then paying it off (which is sort-of what infrastructure PFI and railway ROSCOs is) is that you get all the money you need up-front, the financial risk of the project is shared (in theory at least) and the cost in any given year is smaller. A lot more infrastructure has been built, much more quickly, over the past 20 years using this method than would have been reasonably possible under direct government funding and ownership (in Scotland, for example, the vast majority of high school buildings in the country are under about 20 years old. They have all been rebuilt using private finance. The long-term financial cost of this may be higher, but the direct owning/operating cost would not be nearly low enough for a building programme on that scale to be attempted.)

Re: Liberal Democrat conference/manifesto

Quote:

Originally Posted by Damien (Post 36010705)

I would say there is which is why a lot of countries don't privatise the railways. The main one being there is no real mechinism for competition. You as a consumer can rarely choose which provider to take because you need to get somewhere and there are rarely multiple lines for that.

But I’m afraid that is not understanding the model. The ”competition” is in bidding for the franchise and being allowed to run it for the term of the agreement. The successful bidder has the ability to run the franchise and make money but to win it must submit a tender that commits to them also investing in it.

The “competition” is not in the choice of the passenger, although there may be an element of that on some services.

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The tender process is a flawed attempt to bring competition into it because to make any investment worthwhile companies need to be given long contracts which, once given, are hard to take away for poor service. Seen how bad Southern Rail have been.

I don’t think the model is flawed but the process of assessing and awarding the contracts may be and also open to levels of incompetence and corruption.

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Even longer term investment such as HS2 needs to be driven by the government anyway because of the length of time involved to build and then to turn a profit.

I, personally, don’t believe the government ( unless you have ultimate executive power wi h no regulation - such as China for example) are best placed to manage or deliver any major infrastructure projects.

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Then there is the fact they're a key part of our infrastructure whose success shouldn't only be measured by profit but the economic benefits of the areas which they serve.

There are sectors that work and those that don’t, i’ll Agree with that. No one could argue that the privatisation and deregulation of the telecoms sector was a bad idea.

Privatisation of certain public services within local authorities- surely a good thing.

Privatisation of power generation, do you think the government could have financed Offshore Wind??? Especially in the developmental stages.

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This is largely useless for private companies that need to make a profit, if the government want them to serve some minor station for a handful of people in a rural area then they need to provide incentives for that. So we have to underwrite it anyway.

It depends on the contract. They will be told there are lucrative routes and routes they will have to take a loss on.

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I would argue there are few candidates better for nationalisation than the rail network.

I disagree.

We invented the pendalino ( spelt wrong I think); it was called the APT we thought it up in the 70’s, the tilting train, so you could have high speed trains on U.K. twisty lines.

British Rail failed to deliver it, but now we buy it from a private company.

Governments are not the birth place of innovation and delivery.

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I think you can only describe it as a Marxist policy if it's part of a broader attempt to bring about Marxism in practise, i.e prepping the country to become communist. Even a socialist government couldn't be described as Marxist without that intent. Just as some policies such as increasing police/security apparatus or putting more power in the executive cannot be described as facist without a border context suggesting it to be so.

The formation of the NHS for example was not a Marxist policy because Attlee was not a Marxist.

The NHS is a good example as much of it is not controlled by the government, it is however funded totally by the government ( well us actually, the government doesn’t have any money)

So no the NHS is not Marxist, but it still needs to be run better

Re: Liberal Democrat conference/manifesto

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pierre (Post 36010845)

We invented the pendalino ( spelt wrong I think); it was called the APT we thought it up in the 70’s, the tilting train, so you could have high speed trains on U.K. twisty lines.

British Rail failed to deliver it, but now we buy it from a private company.

Governments are not the birth place of innovation and delivery.

This is a better example than you realise.

BR was under intense political pressure to deliver on the APT project, despite not being given adequate resources to complete the R&D. The pressure to complete quickly and the refusal to invest were both political decisions by a government that wasn’t willing to invest in rail. As a result, the few APTs that ever entered service had a tendency to either tilt too far, causing motion sickness, or not tilt at all, causing things to fly across the cabin.

The APT project was dropped and its patents sold to Fiat, which refined the system (IIRC the tilting mechanism is now electrical rather than hydraulic). It is now installed on a range of vehicles, including, in the UK, Pendolinos and Super Voyagers used by Virgin Trains West Coast (I believe CrossCountry have had the mechanism removed from their Super Voyagers when they took over the franchise - there is still a relatively high maintenance cost that can only be justified on certain routes).

A government committed long-term to a rail transport strategy could have seen it through, but UK governments have rarely been favourable towards rail and in the 1970s and 80s they very much allowed it to operate on sufferance.

Re: Liberal Democrat conference/manifesto

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Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36010846)

Good summary. And now Stadler has introduced non-tilting trains in the UK that go as fast as the tiliting Pendolinos and Voyagers without tilting or its costs. But that's a little off track. ;)