How Should Our Railways Be Run?

This policy provocation is for anyone who uses or informs the delivery of our railway services. It emerges in response to the significant failings of marketisation.

It begins by providing an outline of the current UK franchise system and considering arguments both for and against public ownership. It then sketches out a series of alternative ownership models, before concluding with CLES’s own view on how our railways should be run.

It concludes that:

• The extraction of tax payer subsidised profits by shareholders must end.
• False stereotypes of public ownership must be challenged.
• Greater devolution of power needs to be wielded ambitiously.
• A new model of ownership must restore public values and advance social justice.

Written by Tom Lloyd Goodwin, Associate Director, CLES

Edited by Neil McInroy and Amy Clancy, CLES