Argument for PrivatisationPrivatisation is the transfer of publicly owned assets to the private sector, The act of privatisation can often mean deregulation, whereby opening the market up to competition this can have its advantages and disadvantages on the rail industry where it can either be beneficial to consumers and the business itself or harmful. It can give private companies incentives to invest, profit maximise and be efficient all these factors can therefore aid toward economic welfare. A benefit of privatising the rail industry would be that as it becomes privately owned, a business’ main interest would be to profit maximise. In order to do so it would require a company to be efficient and provide greater quality of service to attract consumers. As the market is opened up to fierce competition from other firms, it would only make sense for a company to invest and improve the overall standard efficiency of the rail industry; more generated routes, less delays and comfortable trains to standout from competitors. Alongside this it has its benefits to consumer – firms would want to be as price competitive as possible and subsequently leading to a fall in price in order to increase own demand. Consumers are given greater choice and disposable income overall improving standard of living whilst also getting a better quality of service.
Another benefit of privatisation rather than a state owned company of rail is that the Government, although will also seek profit, they will however be easily influenced by political pressures and negative publicity. For example, they may not want to get rid of excessive workers which are causing the rail industry to be inefficient due to being perceived negatively in the public’s eye because of job losses. Therefore privatisation can be good for rail industries as private companies will be motivated by economic and business sense rather than political pressures. This can mean more freedom of going about to make changes in the rail industry and can lead to more efficient rail transport.
The Scottish government can further reduce local property taxes and the cost of local social services, but the current Scottish government has no plans whatsoever to set up an independent Rail Council – a more permanent state agency. Rail transport in Scotland as a whole benefits from this fact. As a public sector, rail is the biggest commercial, regional and regional transportation system in the world. That doesn’t mean no local railway will follow Scottish plans – local bus, rail and ferry services in Scotland can get to and from work in seconds or even a few minutes from their nearest home and the national capital in less than 15 minutes, for example without local public transport.
What is next?
The next Labour government will end up in the EU and, though it will have to spend money on new trains to move them to markets in the EU, the cost of running the railway through the EU will only grow. This means the public will feel the costs of privatising rail from the start, and will not be able to make choices about its future. However, this will be different for the UK. If this is achieved then, as the Tories hope, more powers will be needed to make rail more efficient by increasing local services.
What’s next for rail?
There are alternatives, of course. Labour must introduce a national scheme that would allow rail’s price to be controlled for consumers. The Scottish government needs to secure a contract with rail to run through Glasgow, which must now become part of the EU, along with an extension to the NHS. This could enable people from other parts of the UK to travel across Glasgow at the cost of just ÂŁ1.35 for a journey between Edinburgh and Edinburgh. In the past, local authorities have been able to sell transport contracts to private companies which have increased the price of those services. This scheme was eventually adopted in 2011 by Scotland. In the months following, these privatisations were not only in place though, these have now been taken off the books of the Scottish Government, meaning we have no chance of stopping them.
Rail is already cheaper in the UK (€3.45 per hour for a single journey in the UK, currently) and will continue to be cheap under Labour. It is more than half Scotland’s market share – and the other half of Scotland’s demand for rail transport. This is because railways now offer a better value for money than buses and many of the main routes run through areas not covered by transport network plans (such as the capital areas that tend to be privatised in other European countries), enabling them to service large areas sooner and more cheaply.
If Labour does not end up with a Scottish Government-run rail system, we risk looking very very limited, and perhaps we may well be the only government which can bring Scotland up to date in the next six