Andrew McKie: There is no evidence that rail nationalisation would work

This is just the stuff to get commuters nodding over their toast and marmalade, which is why it is rolled out at this season as regularly as repeats of Scotch & Wry. The only thing that varies is which party it’s coming from. The script itself is always much the same.

Yet, while the electorate remains sceptical of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell’s overall economic strategy of aping Venezuela, the policy of renationalising rail attracts considerable support. This is despite the fact that, as often as not, problems that affect rail travellers are the responsibility of the UK Government-owned Network Rail, and that two-thirds of the cost of running our railways is provided by Scottish Government subsidy. The increases here, meanwhile, though well ahead of the general rate of inflation, are actually slightly lower than those south of the Border.

What’s more, the parts of the UK’s railways that are privatised compare very favourably with the old British Rail and with rail networks in other countries. The last major comparison of European rail networks, five years ago, found that the UK had improved in efficiency and customer satisfaction more than any of the other 24 countries examined, while, in terms of passenger kilometres, rail use has almost doubled since 1993, from 4.6 per cent of all journeys to nearly nine per cent now. It’s also the safest in the EU (bar Ireland, which has a tiny network).

A recent report by the Centre for Policy Studies concluded that the cost of fares is almost the only measure on which UK rail compares badly with other countries. And though you would never think it from talking to rail users or from media coverage, the UK scores highest in terms of customer satisfaction of the six largest European networks (the others are Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Spain), according to a Eurobarometer poll last September.

That certainly wouldn’t have been the case when the railways were last entirely in public ownership, but then nostalgia for some “golden age” of rail transport is usually misplaced. The best services, in terms of both comprehensive coverage and affordability were during the late Victorian age, when there were about 120 different private companies, and after the return to private ownership in 1923, when the “Big Four” ran a very effective service.

Between then and the outbreak of the Second World War, they conveyed more passengers than the total carried in the United States and, during the 1930s, covered more passenger miles, despite the vast difference in distances. And did so while saving £23 million – 15 per cent of expenditure – over that period. By 1939, savings were at a rate of £4m per year. The only comparable increase in productivity, in fact, has been since the reprivatisation of the 1990s.

The postwar period of nationalised British Rail, by contrast, was marked by continual decline – not helped, of course, by the “reforms” imposed in 1963 by Dr Beeching, which saw a quarter of the network axed.

Much of this, of course, had causes other than the way in which the rail system was owned and operated. The growth of private car ownership was almost certainly the major factor. But it does suggest that nationalisation is not an automatic way of improving performance.

And that figure of nine per cent of all passenger kilometres travelled, even if it is a substantial rise, indicates that rail travellers are in a small minority, especially when you take into account that people are more likely to take the train for longer journeys. Almost 40 per cent of people in the UK didn’t get on a train at all last year, while the average number of rail journeys for the whole population was two, for a total distance of 14 miles. Given that many people (I have periodically been one of them) commute more than 100 miles daily by train, rail – though it gets the most attention of any aspect of public transport – does not matter to vast sections of the population.

Ah, you say, but more people would travel by train if the fares were reasonable, as they are in most other European countries. That may be true, though the system is stretched beyond its capacity just now, so it may not be a terrific idea. One indication of that strain is that total passenger journeys have doubled over the last decade, but the number of trains being run has increased by 29 per cent.

The chief reason that fares are cheaper on the Continent, however, is that they are subsidised from general taxation or rather, more subsidised than under our system. Rail travel itself isn’t cheaper elsewhere, it’s just that the cost is distributed differently. The French taxpayer, for example, pays twice as much as the UK citizen towards the railways.

There doesn’t seem to me to be an overwhelming argument for getting taxpayers, rather than rail travellers, to pay for trains. Especially since most people seldom or never use them and – across great swathes of the country, particularly outside the large metropolitan areas – couldn’t, even if they wanted to.

Since it’s also true that most British rail users are richer than the average member of the public, and that almost 60 per cent of rail journeys are to get to work, or for business purposes, the case for greater subsidy of rail fares is, in reality, an argument for getting ordinary taxpayers to subsidise firms in large cities, and the (in many cases) fairly well-paid professionals who work in them.

Even if you still wanted the poorer taxpayer, whose only transport option may be an inadequate bus service, to subsidise rich commuters’ fares, it’s not an argument for nationalisation. You’d just spend the money on direct subsidy of fares. In fact, the additional costs of nationalisation, and the decline in service that previous experience suggests would go with it, would make cutting fares even less affordable.