Talk:Privatisation of British Rail/Archives/2013

Viewpoint
uffMost of the pro-privatisation chapter is facts - ie., how the companies were subsidized and regulated. It's pretty much also written to tell who thinks these things were bad, ie. the pro-privatisers. If you don't think that's NPOV enough, you are of course free to put more things to the opposing side's mouth ("privatizers tried to make markets" -> "pro-privatisers think the privatizers tried to make markets"). --Tmh 13:33, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, looks badly written to me; and the whole angle is fairly unhelpful. Charles Matthews 14:58, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have to agree with that. Take this section:

The Labour government elected shortly after the privatization returned the railway business back into semi-governmental control, just as had been expected, scaring private investors away.

That's a very odd way of looking at things, it seems to me. While opposing privatisation in the mid-1990s, Labour had promised a "publicly owned" railway if they returned to power, and I would think that most people, whatever their views on the merits or otherwise of railway privatisation, would say that they produced no such thing once actually elected in 1997. Loganberry 22:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I attended the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association annual conference in 1995, or 1996, I think it was, when Clare Short who was then Labour's transport spokesman addressed the conference. It was perfectly plain to all the delegates that Labour had absolutely no idea how to undo the mess the Tories were making of the railways, despite their promise to restore a "publicly owned, publicly accountable" railway. Short's speech got an extremely hot reception from the TSSA, which in itself is saying a lot, as the TSSA are usually the mildest-mannered trade union any politician could hope to meet. It has been prominently reported that Tony Blair told the Cabinet immediately after the 1997 election that "transport is not an issue", and this is backed up by the fact that Labour did absolutely nothing about the railways for about three years after the election. -- Arwel 16:54, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As it stands, this article has a clear bias towards a free market/libertarian point of view. -- 81.132.94.95 03:52, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Hmm, if you think that now, you should try reading the version before I started rewriting this at the end of November! In all the bits I've rewritten (up to the end of the tabulation in "Organisational structure...." I've done my best to say how BR used to be organised and what was done to it, and to give the impression that the Tories in Major's administration were bloody idiots (without actually saying so, which would of course be POV...). I've not finished my rewrite yet, all in good time. -- Arwel 04:05, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I read this entry for the first time today and was disappointed with its bias in some areas. It reads like the rantings of some lefty-trainspotter. Sjjb 17:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Privatisation in Finland?
Quoting from the article:
 * fully privatized everything except the company that takes care of the physical tracks

What is the source on this? VR is still completely owned by the Finnish state, and it is the only company that may operate long-distance passenger traffic. Some freight traffic might be open for competition, and there are at least plans about opening Helsinki area regional traffic to competition (+ also opposition to these plans). I'm not certain about all this, but as it stands the mention in the article is definitely misleading. --80.221.47.119 18:32, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Franchising process
Its not clear to me from the article just how and from whom a service operator obtains their fanchise. Laurel Bush 4 July 2005 11:03 (UTC).
 * Currently from the Strategic Rail Authority (presumably the Office of Rail Regulation in future), except for the Merseyrail franchise which has no through-running to the rest of the national railway, where the SRA's franchising responsibility has been devolved to the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive. -- Arwel 4 July 2005 13:28 (UTC)


 * The Department for Transport (not the Office for Rail Regulation) will be awarding franchises from now on - the statutory authority has now passed over from the SRA --Alistairkent 21:57, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Completely Unsourced
Is there a single citation is this entire article? It could be one of the worst articles I've seen on Wikipedia.--Rotten 05:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Subsidy
In all, the subsidy to the railway from the Government is considerably larger now than it was for BR

This is a very interesting fact, which raises four interesting questions for me.


 * 1) What is the source?
 * 2) Is the amount adjusted for inflation?
 * 3) What is the equivalent percentage for the growth in rail traffic?
 * 4) If rail traffic had risen, but the railways had not been privatised, would it be rational to expect the subsidy to grow by the same proportion as growth, less, or more?

I guess 1-3 are fit for the article and 4 would be interesting for this discussion page.

80.189.136.67 14:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, not only is it unrefereced, but it's untrue (in real terms). I've eidted the article accordingly. Tompw (talk) 16:26, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hang on - how on Earth can you claim this? In http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/xls/nrt0607-q2_miscellaneous.xls (reference 2 at the bottom of the article, table 4.2a) it quite clearly shows what you are claiming has reduced (£926M in 1993-4 to £879M in 2005-6) under the heading "Central government grants"; you are not including "PTE grants", "Direct rail support", and "Other elements of government support", which clearly have to be included to produce the true level of subsidy provided to the railway system, and indeed is shown in the table under "Total government support including PTE grants" to have risen from £1,627M in 1993-4 to £4,593M in 2005-6. The price index rose approximately 30% between 1994 and 2006, not nearly 300% as the subsidy has. -- Arwel (talk) 16:50, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I stated that the level of central goverment grant has fallen, which it has. Anyway:
 * Everything you list totaled £2,171 (in 1992 terms) in 1992 and £4,593m (in 2005 terms) in 2005. I'm using 1992 figures, as they are the last before the 1993 Railways Act. (For subsequent years of BR, the subsiudy is artfically lessened because the income from selling off of assets is included on the credit side - hence the negative "Other elements of government support").
 * The RPI index figures for 1992, 2005 and 2006 are 139.4, 193.1, and 200.3. Everything you list totaled £3,116.3 (in 2006 terms) in 1992 and £4,759m (in 2006 terms) in 2005... an increase of 52% in real terms, measured against RPI.
 * The nominal GDP in 1992 and 2005 was £611,974m and £1,224,715m respectively (source). So, everything you listed comes to 0.32% of GDP in 1992 and 0.38% of GDP in 2005 - an increase of 5.7%. (2005 was thr first year since 1992 where total subsidy was higher than 1992).
 * So, either one shows total subsidy has risen... but is it by 5.7% or 52%? Tompw (talk) 18:20, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The 1992-3 financial year was a spike of about £500M in government grant compared to the years on either side, so you're using a high base for your comparison anyway, and it makes more sense to use 1993-4 as the basis as the last year of old BR because the 1993 Railways Act did not come into effect until 1st April 1994 which was as near the end of the accounting year as made little difference (I played my small part in fiddling the books in those days by altering the due dates on BRs' accounts payable system so that bills would be paid early if the management had decided they wanted to transfer the losses to the old financial year instead of having them in the new). I use this source as the basis for a long term index of UK inflation - the index for 1994 was 568.5, for 2005 it was 757.3. -- Arwel (talk) 19:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, fair enough... I think that was this discussion is that 1) it depends exactly which year you take, and 2) it depends how you adjust the figures to allow for inflation. I would argue that as this is goverment spending, percnetage of nominal GDP is the best measure. One could also look at the cost per taxpayer, or per person. Tompw (talk) 19:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I think the only reasonable basis for doing the comparison is to use actual cash sums, adjusted for inflation as necessary. Going back to something you said earlier, actually you didn't say that the level of central government grant has fallen, the current quote is "in 2005, the total government grant was £879m" which clearly should include money routed via other sources such as PTEs, Scottish and Welsh authorities etc., as all their money ultimately comes from the central treasury. In any case, prior to todays' edits the article said "as of 2006, the subsidy the railway industry receives at a whole is 3 times greater than the subsidy that British Railways received in its last year." which using the 1993-4 and 2005-6 figures given above is broadly correct. -- Arwel (talk) 19:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the figures with figures for the total subsidy, on which there seems to be consensus. On the question of whether to represent it as a 5.7% or 52% increase, I think there are arguments in favour of either - perhaps the solution would be to simply state both figures ( along the lines of "an increase of 5.7% in terms of nominal GDP and 52% in terms of actual sums")? -- 82.21.130.8 22:30, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Good grief - I didn't expect input to appear so quickly, I am quite amazed. But please note that your edits appear to have created a contradiction, because in the current edit, the next paragraph (Profitability and efficiency) reads In all, the subsidy to the railway from the Government is considerably larger now than it was for BR. 80.189.136.67 21:01, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Removal of external link
I removed the external link to 'Samizdata - Planet Earth calling Conservative Party!' as the article is short and doesn't really provide an overview or analysis of rail privatisation. It seems to be mainly concerned with party politics and the writer's opinion thereof. There must be literally thousands of article like this, and this one doesn't seem particularly important or worthy. Ephemera 14:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

POV
Sorry to have to post this, but the article as it now stands sounds definitely anti-privatisation. Nyttend 12:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Well it can be argued that almost everyone in Britain except the Conservative government were anti-privatisation at the time, but what bits in particular do you object to? -- Arwel (talk) 19:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I would submit the article actually needs an interpretation section. The whole pro v anti privitisation discussion is essentially irrelevant to this article. There are so many external factors acting on the process, and so many parts of the process acknowledged as flawed that nobody really knows if it could have been "done right". Just trying to assess the subsidy changes when allowing for the changes in cost of raw materials like steel is a nightmare 81.2.110.250 11:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Unreferenced and Biased
This article does not contain a single reference and is fairly biased. I don't know where the information is from but some of it is really wrong. For example in the 'Move to Privatisation' section, it was more or less decided at the end of the 1980s that BRB would be privatised in some form or another. In 1989 a privatisation studies group was put in place to sort out the details (see the documents AN 18 in National Archives, Kew) and discuss possible options hence it is difficult to argue that the commitment was only made in 1992 at least without any reference. Similarly comparing subsidies in 1994 with subsidies in 2005 is extremely misleading since 1994 was the year with one of lowest subsidy payments ever recorded under nationalisation (looking at a time series from 1963-2006). Comparing nominal figures is also wrong, the nominal amount should be in brackets as real terms are the relevant comparison. Karina.l.k 19:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Criticisms
There's an item under Criticisms referring to GNER seeking bankrupcy protection due to its payments to the DoT for its new franchise. That is INCORRECT. GNER sought bankrupcy protection because Sea Containers, its parent, was in bankrupcy protection also and it was unable to guarantee that GNER could continue to make its payments to the DoT. There is a difference between going into protection because your parent cannot guarantee your payments, and going into protection because you are unable to pay. The latter case infers that your business is losing money to the point of being unable to pay your creditors (one being the DoT), the former infers that your seeking protection is due to external factors (SeaContainer going into bankrupcy protection, which has no bearing on GNER's business viability - the DoT raised concerns after SeaContainer went into protection, and GNER tried to continue with the franchise on a Business As Usual basis, but DoT decided to take the franchise back in house). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.31.172.35 (talk) 11:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality still disputed?
The December 2007 date on the POV template is a bit misleading - it's probably been there for a while. Having read the article, it seems a model of neutrality (for such a touchy subject). Delete if nobody objects in the next few weeks? 84.92.241.186 (talk) 19:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

General Note on the Numbers
(this partly in response to the discussion in section titled "subsidies" above, but more general.)

IMHO it would helpful to present financial figures in several ways as different readers are likely to have different questions. unadjusted absolute quantities are likely to be useful to some, quantities adjusted for inflation may be better for others. presenting figures in terms of a relevant unit of production may be helpful in yet other cases. (ie, cost per passenger mile or cost per ton mile, etc.)

putting such figures into tables for easy comparison would also be helpful.

(note: not hard to imagine a subsidized system that becomes more efficient attracting more users but still needing a subsidy. in such a case we might see the absolute amount of the subsidy go up but the subsidy per unit of production go down.) Ericfluger (talk) 20:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Bravo!
Step forward whoever it is who is responsible for the first sentence having the words "set in train" in it. My thanks are with you. --86.177.220.63 (talk) 23:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Bias
There does appear to be a lot of bias in this article. For example, on the pro-privatisation side:

"The administration of Railtrack led to an explosion of costs as the discipline of the company's equity had been lost, and very sharp falls in performance."

And on the anti- side:

"this has become so common that Virgin Trains now charge £219 for a standard open return ticket between Manchester and London, a journey of only 200 miles each way."

As a social democrat I find the first comment hilariously blinkered. As a Virgin Trains commuter, I sympathise massively with the latter comment (car parking charges up 35%; "Peak" fares now apply up until 11.14a.m.). But, but, but... neither comment has a place in a Wikipedia entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.232.162.11 (talk) 16:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Privatisation under the New Labour Government
Much of this section (and in fact much of the the whole article) is not NPOV and uncited opinion, and other than opinion backed by cited statements of fact, should probably be removed.

E.g: "The Labour government always had an unhappy and uncomfortable relationship with the privatised railway industry, never really accepting that the assets and businesses had been sold to the private sector, frequently complaining that as the public subsidy which went into the industry was so large and likely to continue in perpetuity, the government was its principal paymaster and should make or substantially influence all major decisions."

If "The Labour Government" was replaced with "The Labour Party" then this paragraph would be more accurate. I would assert that most mainstream neutral contemporary opinion accepts that the New Labour Government did not complain at all about perpetual public funding of privatised rail companies, and was in fact very reluctant to take any steps toward anything like renationalisation, and it's efforts were instead all directed toward more stringent regulation of the private sector rail companies.

It was by maintaining this stance that the New Labour Government attracted much opposition from the mainstream of the Labour Party, rather than the New Labour Government being ant-privatisation in any respect.

Even in the aftermath of Hatfield, I think there was not a single statement from the New Labour Government that even considered wholesale renationalisation, and even when Railtrack was effectively nationalised, the Government showed no enthusiasm for the task at the time.

I will take time at some point to research this topic, and try and find more relevant & cited material including some to back up my assertions above.

In the meantime I propose changing the introductory sentence to start "The Labour Party always had.."

Thoughts? Treagle (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:13, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Ticket prices since privatisation
There is an unmistakeable and very widespread belief that ticket prices have gone up, in real terms, quite a lot, since privatisation. Certainly we have heard about above-inflation fare rises happening on a regular yearly basis, and it's readily shown that our fares are - at best - among the highest in Europe now. This makes the following claims in this article very surprising:


 * While average fare prices have changed little since privatisation, this masks substantial changes. Although the price of commuter season tickets has fallen in real terms, many unregulated fares have increased as demand levels shifted

The article that's cited shortly afterwards seems to be hidden behind a pay wall now, and may be out of date by now anyway. Can anyone track down some hard facts on this and maybe amend the article accordingly? Half an hour's trawling turned up surprisingly little direct evidence in either direction. --Oolong (talk) 12:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * According to TSGB 2011 which was published recently, overall fares have risen slightly faster than RPI. (Less than the cost of bus fares. Car running costs have risen faster but that's offset by decreased car purchase costs). It's probably a good idea to be cautious with mainstream news sources as it's easy to cherrypick from fare statistics in order to tweak them in one direction or another (ie. one category of fares increasing whilst another decreases) to suit some political message. bobrayner (talk) 13:46, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I would also like to hear how prices changed compared with the level of subsidies.J1812 (talk) 17:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)