Labour ‘will cut rail services to stop last-minute cancellations’

Sundays, which rely on voluntary overtime working, will bear the brunt of the chop. Key commuter routes in the north and southeast would be pared back.

Labour’s move is aimed at reducing last-minute cancellations

YUI MOK/PA

A senior rail source said: “Everyone in the rail industry knows what that [pledge] means. It means reduced services. And worse than that, the reference to train crew means they plan to reduce services to the level the unions are willing to staff. A railway run in the interests of its employees, not its customers.”

Chopping the timetable would allow the party to claim that rail punctuality had improved under a Labour government, even though fewer trains would have run.

Govia Thameslink Railway, which operates Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern, is likely to be among the biggest victims of a timetable cut. It frequently cancels trains on the day because of a “lack of available train crew”.

The measures are also designed to improve the performance of Avanti West Coast, which has been beset by staffing problems, as well as Northern and Transpennine Express, which are already in public ownership.

The railway is being propped up to the tune of £54 million a week at present as peak passenger numbers remain below pre-pandemic levels and season ticket sales struggle to recover. However, off-peak passenger numbers, especially at weekends, have bounced back strongly.

An industry source said: “This has all the hallmarks of getting into bed with the unions. Asking them what level of service they can provide and writing the timetable to that effect. The only way to increase services would be to launch a big recruitment drive, but where is the money for that?”

Labour would not expand on what its “resource-led, viable timetable” would look like in look like in practice or expand on the pledge. Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, said: “This is simply not true. Labour’s plans will fix the record cancellations, timetable chaos and two years of strikes that this government has presided over on our railways. We are clear. Labour will deliver better, more reliable and more frequent services.”

Starmer and Haigh during a visit to the Hitachi rail manufacturing plant in Co Durham last week

PA

The party plans to overhaul the railways with the renationalisation of services within its first term if it forms the next government. It imagines a single publicly-owned body to run the country’s trains and track to improve passenger journeys and cut costs.

A government source said: “Buried within Labour’s pointless, unfunded rail nationalisation plan are proposals that would increase ministerial meddling and hand more power to the unions which would lead to cuts in services for passengers — taking us back to square one and the bad old days of British Rail.”

In April Transport for Wales, an “arms-length organisation” owned by the Welsh government, caused controversy by announcing it would cut its timetable to increase “resilience” and balance services with the available budget. Rail services in Scotland are run by a similar arms-length body and in Northern Ireland they are run by Stormont.

Andy Bagnall, the chief executive of Rail Partners, a lobby group, said: “Over time, the increased costs to the taxpayer of nationalisation because of the loss of commercial focus from private train companies will lead to either reduced train services or increased subsidy.

“That means rail competing for funding with other public services like the NHS. Historically, British Rail often lost this battle.”