Heidi Alexander’s announcement that Avanti West Coast would be in public ownership by March had been widely trailed in the media, but was still very well received in conference (many of whom will have suffered from that company, as passengers or and workers).

Perhaps even more so was her statement that, “As we set up Great British Railways, we will explore if trains should be publicly owned”.  It was only “explore”, but she had explained how a third of rail operating sorts disappear into the pockets of the rolling stock companies – over £4Bn a year.  

Compared to that, some of the motions moved in that section were pretty pale things, such as the ‘buses’ motion that did nothing but congratulate the government, and went nowhere near the issue of ‘publicly controlled’ bus services (such as in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands) pouring billions into the pockets of companies like Go, Stagecoach and First.  

If Heidi Alexander is right to raise the issue of the ownership of the rolling stock on the rail, wouldn’t it be right for party conference to consider the ownership of the buses?  Of course the bus franchising is a step forward, but why should the buses themselves stay owned by the profiteers, franchised to public authorities rather than owned by them?  

Just look at the strikes among drivers on Manchester’s Bee network last year to see how those private franchise companies currently behave, or ask the women drivers told to pee in a bottle by Stagecoach.

The UNISON-ASLEF ‘Insourcing and public ownership’ composite took a better approach – recognising the things Alexander was announcing, but pointing out the contradiction in leaving rail freight untouched in private hands, and the risks that entails.  As the mover put it, “We welcome those things, but it should not stop there – all wheels and steel should be in public ownership, and that means rail freight”.

There is much more that composite could have said, but it enabled conference to vote for commitments to ensure all workers moving into GBR are covered by collective bargaining agreements, to insource all Network Rail train operations (including those currently contracted to DB Cargo) and to set out plans to bring the rail freight back in-house.

That conference vote now needs to be used in a campaign to commit the government to these same things.

Now looking forward to the Mainstream panel at 4:15, and the LLI meeting at 6pm.