The government doesn’t trust Sadiq Khan to run London’s trains
The Labour government is handing control of London’s suburban rail to Great British Rail instead of TfL because they’ve seen how badly Sadiq Khan has mismanaged the tube, says Thomas Turrell
GBR – Great British Rail. You’ve heard of it, you’ve probably seen the Union flag livery it’s going to be coated in, and you’re asking yourself what difference it is going to make to your journeys amid news that already the government is tinkering with delay repayment to water down the compensation that delayed passengers receive. But an overlooked aspect of the transition to a state-operated railway system is the missed opportunity in London to revisit how inter-city rail works.
Whilst millions of Londoners will use the tube every day to get around, many more – especially from Outer and South London – will be cramming into National Rail trains to get them to their destinations. Under the current plans, TfL will continue to operate the lines already in its possession; GBR will run the trains that stop anywhere outside of London. But what if that wasn’t the case?
As a London Assembly Member, serving an Outer London constituency that relies on national rail trains, I wrote to the Transport Secretary to ask about any plans for “metroisation” for London. This is something that she was very keen on when serving as a Lewisham MP and when deputy mayor for Transport. Under this model, TfL would run any national rail services that operated in London and began/terminated just outside, such as the London Bridge to Dartford route, which runs through my constituency.
TfL should run the metro rail services across London. This would mean fares raised in London get reinvested in London. It creates a consistency in London’s public transport, fares policy that applies to every part of London, and crucially accountability all through City Hall.
TfL has run these kinds of services before. Expanding this will bring greater harmony to the service Londoners receive. Just as the London Overground took over the running of the Silverlink Metro services, so too could London’s transport map grow to incorporate all manner of routes that run through London to provide a similar level and quality of service to Londoners who use overground trains rather than underground ones to get around.
Passengers in London lose out
But what was the Transport Secretary’s response? To tell me that there are no plans to take advantage of this transport opportunity: that these routes will be going lock, stock and barrel to GBR. Crucially, the Labour government doesn’t rule out handing these services to TfL in the future. This begs the question – why won’t they give the services to TfL now? Failure to do so means years of disruption, reorganisation, and uncertainty for passengers in Greater London.
Could it be that Labour has seen how Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has overseen TfL in the last decade? Underfunding the service in order to freeze fares when inflation was low – for so long in fact that now Londoners are being forced to bear inflation-busting rises as a result to cover the gap – whilst caving into union pressure clearly isn’t showing the Mayor to be the competent administrator he ought to be. Has Labour decided their own Mayor can’t be trusted to run these lines too, in addition to his existing responsibilities?
TfL should be ready to take control of these routes and provide transformational outcomes for passengers in London, and I think our city deserves the chance to use this pivotal moment in the evolution of the rail network for good. It’s just a shame that Labour doesn’t seem to believe in London, believe in TfL, or even believe in their own Mayor.
Thomas Turrell is London Assembley Member for Bexley and Bromley