Rail reform "frustratingly slow" says Network Rail Chief Executive

Sir Andrew Haines says stable funding is needed to ensure the reformed railway does not make suboptimal decisions.

Speaking to RAIL Editor Dickon Ross in front of an audience at Rail Live, the Network Rail Chief Executive talked about the “frustratingly slow progress” of rail reform.

He noted that July would be seven years since then-Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told him a review would be commissioned after the May 2018 timetable debacle.

“It’s been phenomenally slow, but that was because the Conservatives didn’t really believe in driving it,” he said.

“It’s taken a Labour government to really invest and invigorate it. Even though I might be personally ambivalent about the ownership model, what it has done is put a load of coal on the fire of reform.”

Haines said the upcoming rail reform bill (following on from the Public Ownership Act) will be a “one-in-30-year” chance to design a new structure, although he acknowledged questions such as how much commercial freedom, protecting third parties, and giving a “directing mind” role to Great British Railways all need to be resolved.

“Nobody I know in the public sector has to deal with the absolute level of funding volatility that the railway does, and that’s a huge structural weakness,” he added, warning that a lack of stable funding has previously led to “suboptimal choices” being made.

He said the industry needs “real technical leadership for the future” that keeps learning from new technology and responding to changes in society.

Haines said that while the exact shape of reform is dependent on what’s in the bill, giving commercial freedom to GBR was one of his missions before he retires in October.

He admitted it was “probably not the ideal timing to be talking about giving railway folk freedom” to the Treasury, with his appearance at Rail Live coming a day after the government condemned a “litany of failure” within the HS2 project.

While he said it was right for the railway to be ambitious, he said there have been “too many projects in the last 15 years where the taxpayer has invested but the return - in passenger or freight capacity, or journey time improvement - hasn’t crystallised. And that does us no favours with the Treasury.”

Haines also said the railways do well, pointing to the success of the Elizabeth line and the fact that passenger numbers have exceeded pre-COVID levels in some places - although they’re not always the answer, such as in rural communities, because of “the heavy infrastructure, the safety requirements, the environmental impact”.

He added: “But the railway has phenomenal value when it comes to moving large numbers of people into areas of significant agglomeration, be that industry and freight, or population and city centre activity. And we are barely scratching the surface of that. That’s why city mayors are so keen to do rail infrastructure schemes.

Issuing a warning to those wanting some rural routes to be reopened, he recalled previous Chief Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Barclay (Conservative) wanting to cut rail spend and reopen the Wisbech line in its constituency.

“I said: ‘look, if you want to reduce funding, on what basis will the line go there?’

“Sorry, the Wisbech branch in my lifetime is never going to be in the top ten of those projects, because the railway’s probably not the right solution. It would be a nice solution – it has some benefits - but it isn’t the top priority.

“We, as a system, sometimes need to coalesce around what the railway can do better than anyone else, and concentrate on that.”