The railways in a third term

Pre-election briefing paper
Published: March 2005

Last year delegates at the Labour Party's annual conference voted to adopt a policy of "introducing an integrated, accountable and publicly owned railway". It has long been known that such a move would be highly popular with the electorate.

Ministers argued that such a move would be too expensive and deprive the industry of private sector investment. Today Catalyst publishes a special briefing paper showing that this policy could be carried out in a third term without breaching the government's fiscal rules, and could produce immediate cash savings to the government as well as delivering a better railway.

Download PDF

“State run rail ‘would save £500m’” – BBC News Online, 24 March 2005

 “What are we waiting for?” – The Guardian, 23 March 2005

Catalyst “Future for Rail” research programme

Pamphlets cost £5 each and are available from Central Books. They can be ordered by credit card on 020 8986 4854 or by cheque from: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London, E9 5LN (plus 75p p&p). They are also available by subscription.

To read PDF documents you will need Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. If you do not have a copy you can download it free from Adobe.

Publications list