Scotland’s railways will be nationalised next year, the Scottish government has announced.
The ScotRail franchise run by Abellio will be taken over by the state’s operator of last resort when its contract expires in March 2022.
The move comes soon after the Welsh government took the nation’s railway network into public hands, ending the Keolis-Amey franchise in February.
Scotland’s transport secretary, Michael Matheson, said: “The current franchising system is no longer fit for purpose.”
He said the government was drawing up further emergency agreements with both ScotRail and the troubled Caledonian Sleeper franchise from April to September amid the fallout of the Covid pandemic, with support estimated to cost £173.1m.
Train services had been underwritten by the Scottish government under emergency contracts since last March, but calls for nationalisation by transport campaigners and unions had long predated the pandemic.
The Scottish government announced in 2019 it would enforce an early break clause in Abellio’s original 10-year franchise after years of poor performance and industrial disputes.
Unions welcomed the news. Kevin Lindsay, Aslef’s organiser in Scotland, said: ‘We welcome the beginning of the end of the failed franchise system here in Scotland. Never again should people’s railway ever be in the hands of the privateers.”
RMT called on the Scottish government to bring forward the change rather than prop up an Abellio-run ScotRail beyond September.
Its general secretary, Mick Cash, said: “Public ownership of ScotRail will deliver significant benefits for Scotland’s rail workers, passengers and taxpayers and help enable the creation of an affordable, accessible and sustainable rail network that contributes to Scotland’s decarbonisation targets.”
The TSSA general secretary, Manuel Cortes, said: ““The Covid-19 pandemic made it abundantly clear that our railways are a public service, not a piggy bank for fat cat shareholders. The rest of the country must now follow Welsh Labour’s lead and end the Tories’ Frankenstein privatisation failure.”
Two major franchises in England, LNER and Northern, are already run by the government through its operator of last resort, and the Office for National Statistics said in 2020 that rail services had been in effect nationalised due to the level of Treasury support.
A yet-to-be-published review of Britain’s rail system by Keith Williams, a former British Airways chief executive, has already signalled the end of the traditional franchising system, although passenger train services are still being contracted out under emergency recovery measures agreements.
