Public ownership of the railways was the second most popular policy among those presented to voters.
Public ownership of the railways was the second most popular policy among those presented to voters
This morning it was pretty chilly at King’s Cross train station. Understandably, most commuters had their hands in their pockets and when approached by a leafletter were inclined to leave them there.
What was cheering, however, was how many, when they caught the words “railways back into public hands” or saw the banners, smiled and took a leaflet. It warmed the hearts (if not the feet) of the campaigners from the Green Party, the RMT, Campaign Against Climate Change and other groups (sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to everybody!).
That reaction confirms the view of surveys that show strong public support (even majority support among Tory voters!) for bringing the railways back into public hands, running them for the benefit of passengers, not shareholders.
It was confirmed by a YouGov survey just this morning which saw public ownership of the railways as the second most popular policy among those presented to voters. The option presented there – bringing the services back into public hands as operating company licences expire – is exactly that contained in Green MP Caroline Lucas’s Railways Bill, which will be presented to MPs next week.
It was a good day for the protest, with many workers returning today after the seasonal holiday to an all-too-familiar pain: the damage done to household budgets in our low-wage economy by the latest jump in rail fares that are already the most expensive in Europe. Regulated fares have risen by more than 20 per cent since 2010, vastly outstripping wages.
So I was delighted this afternoon to announce that included in the Green Party’s 2015 general election manifesto will be funding to allow a 10 per cent cut in the cost of train and bus fares.
It is an annual investment of £1.8bn and would offer an enormous help to Britons to as they travel between communities, to work, to meet up with friends and relatives, and would help us relieve the national reliance on carbon-intensive forms of transport.
We’re taking the funding (£9 billion over the term of the next parliament) from the government’s proposed £15 billion new road-building programme – their revival of a policy established as having failed in the last century.
We need to acknowledge that public transport is an essential service that needs to be supported and made affordable. Britain needs a public transport network to be proud of – one that offers a quality service to those that use it and can help to keep our air clean by reducing travellers need to rely on other, more carbon-intensive forms of transport.
Sadly, the coalition doesn’t seem to agree that this should be a priority: the new road-building policy they have announced would force us down a cul-de-sac, prioritising tarmacking over our land and communities, rather than investing in a national public transport network run for the public’s benefit.
As well as abandoning this fixation with roads, we also need to put a stop to HS2 – a rich-man’s vanity project – and abandon all thoughts of building extra airport runway capacity in the South East.
Instead, we should be looking to focus our energies on making walking and cycling more attractive (with added considerable health benefits), on supporting local buses routes and on reconnecting communities that have been left abandoned by decades of underinvestment in our public transport network.
These are the steps we need to take if we are to build a quality, integrated and affordable public transport network in Britain.
Natalie Bennett is the leader of the Green Party. Follow her on Twitter
49 Responses to “Public ownership of the railways and lower fares on trains and buses: they’re popular and right”
steroflex
Natalie, what make of cycle do you have yourself? What make of car do you personally drive? Are you prepared to travel by bus regularly yourself? Waiting in the rain? Walking to the bus stop? For those of us who live in the country, the nearest railway station is five miles away and cycling on public roads is about as safe as jumping off the side of the church tower.
A quick trip by car, however, is a different matter – you do not even really need a coat.
Jo
Fags ur moms pussy smells like a train
Bill Bradbury
Blog as much as you wish In a recent survey Rail Nationalisation almost won as the most popular. However it won’t happen as people will continue to vote Tory or its extreme right wing, Ukip. so it won’t happen. Network Rail is only back into public ownership because it ran up £billions of debt it could not repay so it is back into the public purse.
littleoddsandpieces
The way to pay for the railways (nowhere in the world do they make a profit and all need state subsidy) and help commuters whose wages are not rising the same as rail fares, is to bring out into the Greens’ 2015 manifesto, the real welfare welfare The Greens have in their policy website, but not in their 2015 manifesto.
The Greens solve starvation, poverty and end the billions wasted on benefits admin, only to leave more and more of the most vulnerable people, from babies to grannies, in penniless starvation.
The Greens end the benefits admin that is adding to national debt and depriving money to social care causing the breakdown of NHS Accident and Emergency each winter.
The Greens offer on their policy website but not yet in their 2015 manifesto that would bring them the poor (at least 13 million people of all ages and the 2.6 million pensioners only on the state pension so far, far below the breadline, or on the breadline by the early retired from the huge austerity job cuts that will reach 2 million, on average works pensions of a mere 4 per cent lowest income), these polices:
– universal and automatic Citizen Income, irregardless of employment status, to the level of the basic tax allowance.
– Full State Pension to all citizens, irregardless of National Insurance contribution / credit history, to the same level as the Citizen Income.
Both of these policies have a supplement for those living alone and for those who are disabled.
The Full State Pension is far better than the flat rate pension that is more about leaving women born from 1953 and men born from 1951 with NIL STATE PENSION FOR LIFE and over 70 per cent of rest with LESS NOT MORE of what is already the lowest state pension of all rich nations bar poor Mexico.
See details at:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
John
We’ll need to boost the greens then; keep voting! Apathy keeps the establishment as it is.
At the least, labour will adopt more Green policies in an attempt to woo green voters back.