A ROW has erupted over moves to nationalise Caledonian Sleeper which operates overnight rail passenger services between Scotland and London after Serco was stripped of the franchise by minsters seven years early.
The current 15-year franchise was awarded to the outsourcing company Serco in May 2014, with the 15-year contract coming into effect on March, 2015.
It is understood the decision by the SNP government to terminate their franchise on June 25, next year came after talks over a Serco request to improve public funding of the loss-making service had failed.
The SNP said it welcomed the termination of the Caledonian Sleeper contract which brought about the opportunity to "consider bringing the iconic service into public control" like with ScotRail.
The Scottish Greens and Scottish Labour also called for the service to be brought into public ownership. But Scottish Conservatives' shadow transport minister Graham Simpson MSP said the ministers; move "appears politically motivated".
He said: The SNP and Greens see this as an opportunity to nationalise the sleeper service.
“This is despite the fact that the Transport Minister admits that Serco has run a good service.
“She needs to spell out why she now wants to get rid of them and why she thinks the SNP would be better at giving travellers a good night’s sleep.
“It is more likely to be the stuff of nightmares given their woeful track record of nationalising the likes of Prestwick Airport, Ferguson Marine and ScotRail.”
Transport Secretary Michael Matheson announced in March, last year that ScotRail franchise would be switched to state control when Abellio’s ten-year contract was terminated three years early after performance issues.
ScotRail is now under the direct control of the Scottish Government through an "arms-length" company. The move has raised questions over whether the Scottish Government now intends to nationalised the sleeper service.
Serco tried to renegotiate the terms of the contract through a process known as rebasing.
Ms Gilruth said the proposal was rejected on the grounds of "not representing value for money to the public".
She said: “Work is underway to determine arrangements for the continued provision of Caledonian Sleeper rail services beyond June 25, 2023 and this will be updated to Parliament once determined.
“It is worth noting that Serco Caledonian Sleepers Limited has, broadly, delivered well and significantly improved Caledonian Sleeper services over the last seven years.”
But Serco has warned ministers that the £800m Caledonian Sleeper service franchise has always been loss-making .
John Whitehurst, managing director of Serco’s transport business, said they had hoped to revised the terms of the contract to put the service on a "more sustainable footing".
He said the contract that was signed in 2014 included a ‘rebase clause’ that meant that, after seven years of the 15-year franchise, Serco could present to the Scottish Government alternative financial arrangements for the remaining years of the franchise. He said the Scottish Government and Serco were not able to reach agreement on these revised terms, and the the management of the Sleeper will be handed back to the Scottish Government.
Existing services and timetables will continue until the end of the contract.
Unions have long been pushing for the Sleeper service to be returned to public ownership.
The service normally operates trains six nights a week between Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Fort William, Glasgow, Inverness and London.
The Scottish Government took the decision to create a standalone Sleeper franchise separate from the ScotRail umbrella for the first time in 2015 as part of an ambition to revamp the overnight London-Scotland service into "a tourist rail experience to rival the best in the world".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel