Would renationalising rail fix major issues? When is it likely to come to fruition? And how much will it cost?
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00:00 "There's a chance that this stuff can result in cheaper fares for people, it could result
00:06 in trains running on time, it could result in all of the very positive things that Labour
00:10 say it's going to do, but part of the problem is that the rail reforms don't, for some people,
00:18 sufficiently address the problem of staffing."
00:21 Liberal Democrat transport spokesperson Vera Hobhouse said the Conservatives had left commuters
00:26 paying higher prices for poor services and endless disruption. But the Conservative transport
00:31 minister Mark Harper called Labour's plans unfunded. Other criticisms of the plan suggest
00:36 that as many delays are down to strikes and industrial action, they won't necessarily
00:40 be solved under Labour. But new plans would see a more public-centric approach.
00:45 "The current way that things have run is these companies, they are meant to be providing
00:51 transport for people, but what in effect they're actually doing is providing profit for their
00:57 shareholders, which is something which all private companies do. But when you've got
01:04 something that is so public-facing like this, in the same way that the NHS is, Labour feels
01:10 that that kind of thing needs to be run almost completely for passengers and for nothing
01:15 else. So essentially taking out this profit motivation that companies have for running
01:24 it and making it all about public good."
01:26 But would renationalisation actually solve the problem? And how quickly could we see
01:31 a big change there?
01:32 "So Labour says that it's going to save around 2.2 billion every year after five years. So
01:40 the five years there is basically the amount of time that it's going to take for these
01:43 contracts to run down and then to start to come back into public ownership. And then
01:47 they're going to have the savings after that. We don't know if it's going to work. Proof
01:54 of the pudding's in the eating a lot of the time with all of these things."