Celebrating the first rail franchise to be re-nationalised under Labour

25th May 2025 | News

Today we welcome the first franchise – South Western Railway – to be brought back into public ownership under the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024.

You can countdown to the next ones using our nifty Privatisation Departures Board.

Privatisation Departures Board

Bringing these rail services into public ownership is just the first part of the puzzle.

Great British Railways won’t be fully created until the main Railways Bill is passed by Parliament over the next year (we’re expecting this to be introduced later in 2025).

We still have everything to play for.

Private companies have been lobbying behind the scenes for years. This has led to Labour now saying they want to enable “An ongoing role for the private sector” in Great British Railways (see p.11 of their consultation document).

This would not be proper public ownership.

If Labour continue trying to shoe-horn this into the Railways Bill (meaning the railways continue to be subject to the complexities of Competition Law), it will undermine all the key benefits of having a publicly-owned railway, including:

– a unified national timetable
– a simple and accountable structure (with less need for external regulation)
– one trusted source for all passenger information/ticketing
– cheaper fares (like Germany’s Deutschland-Ticket)
– integration with other transport modes

Please join our mailing list for updates over the next year as we continue the fight for a re-unified national rail network run for people not profit.

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