Privatising The Eurostar?
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/13/government-sell-eurostar-election-osborne-channel-tunnel-train
What do people think of The Tories selling the Eurostar?
Typically Tories selling off the counties assets?
What do people think of The Tories selling the Eurostar?
Typically Tories selling off the counties assets?
Scroll to see replies
Privatising the railways was a crap idea, and I suspect this will be too.
Original post by KingBradly
Privatising the railways was a crap idea, and I suspect this will be too.
Except that it got rid of black hole in public finances and has improved the standard of the service. Many on here are two young to remember how utterly crap British rail was.
We're still running a deficit so need to find money from somewhere. Selling off assets is one way of raising capital.
It's taken 18 years for Eurostar to become profitable and it shows the need for government intervention for high capital infrastructure projects.
Original post by MatureStudent36
Except that it got rid of black hole in public finances and has improved the standard of the service.
Proof? Also, now trains are extraordinarily expensive, which I'm sure has some fairly negative effects on tourism (as well as being crap for anyone who doesn't happen to be rich).
Original post by MatureStudent36
We're still running a deficit so need to find money from somewhere. Selling off assets is one way of raising capital.
It's taken 18 years for Eurostar to become profitable and it shows the need for government intervention for high capital infrastructure projects.
We're still running a deficit so need to find money from somewhere. Selling off assets is one way of raising capital.
It's taken 18 years for Eurostar to become profitable and it shows the need for government intervention for high capital infrastructure projects.
Does that profit include the vast amounts of money it will have generated through creating tourism and benefiting trade?
Original post by KingBradly
Proof? Also, now trains are extraordinarily expensive, which I'm sure has some fairly negative effects on tourism (as well as being crap for anyone who doesn't happen to be rich).
Does that profit include the vast amounts of money it will have generated through creating tourism and benefiting trade?
Does that profit include the vast amounts of money it will have generated through creating tourism and benefiting trade?
Trains are getting more expensive due to capacity issues on the trains. Increasing prices is an effective method reducing demand when demand exceeds capacity. That's why in all for HS2, it'll alleviate capacity issues on rail infrastructure that was designed and built in Victorian times.
As for the proof of an improvement in train performance. Firstly from personal experience I no longer have to ride on dirty, late trains.
As for more evidence. In 94, BR made a £363million profit because of a £2 billon government subsidy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/british-rail-profit-figure-masks-doubling-of-subsidy-1589866.html
I use Eurostar several times a year and whilst it is not perfect, I would not wish it to be sold off. Actually the main problem is not enough border control staff at Brussels, which will not change with any part sell-off.
Original post by MatureStudent36
Trains are getting more expensive due to capacity issues on the trains. Increasing prices is an effective method reducing demand when demand exceeds capacity. That's why in all for HS2, it'll alleviate capacity issues on rail infrastructure that was designed and built in Victorian times.
As for the proof of an improvement in train performance. Firstly from personal experience I no longer have to ride on dirty, late trains.
As for more evidence. In 94, BR made a £363million profit because of a £2 billon government subsidy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/british-rail-profit-figure-masks-doubling-of-subsidy-1589866.html
As for the proof of an improvement in train performance. Firstly from personal experience I no longer have to ride on dirty, late trains.
As for more evidence. In 94, BR made a £363million profit because of a £2 billon government subsidy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/british-rail-profit-figure-masks-doubling-of-subsidy-1589866.html
Well rail was a botched privatisation that built in perverse incentives, penalising players for success i.e. growing their customer base. Maybe some other, better thought out privatisation scheme would have worked better in the interests of country and rail user, but the privatisation we actually got was pony.
Given how little we'd gain and the fact that it's already a non controlling stake i'm broadly against this move.
Asset values possibly. Future earnings.
It's functioning exactly how its supposed to for the most part. The railways were never properly privatised, they have companies bid for franchises (read, monopolies) in which companies in many cases are not even aloud to buy their own assets, they have to lease them from a limited pool purchased by the government.
Other than fuel costs another factor in price rises is that we fund Network Rail via ticket sales today, that was not the case previously. I imagine we also tax ticket sales too, dam greedy government.
And that's relatively unlikely. While train prices have increased markedly, the cost of driving has increased even moreso which has driven more people onto rail. In London which is where there's significant tourism, public transport is rated as some of the best in the world even with high costs.
With regards to BR vs Today it's only really overcrowding (passenger numbers were declining before privatization) and cost which have gotten worse. On metrics from punctuality, reliability, customer service to the quality of the train and your experience today wins hands down.
Original post by Aj12
Brings in something like £20 million a year and they expect to get £300M for their stake so I can understand the logic
Asset values possibly. Future earnings.
Original post by Joinedup
Well rail was a botched privatisation that built in perverse incentives, penalising players for success i.e. growing their customer base. Maybe some other, better thought out privatisation scheme would have worked better in the interests of country and rail user, but the privatisation we actually got was pony.
It's functioning exactly how its supposed to for the most part. The railways were never properly privatised, they have companies bid for franchises (read, monopolies) in which companies in many cases are not even aloud to buy their own assets, they have to lease them from a limited pool purchased by the government.
Original post by KingBradly
Proof? Also, now trains are extraordinarily expensive, which I'm sure has some fairly negative effects on tourism (as well as being crap for anyone who doesn't happen to be rich).
Does that profit include the vast amounts of money it will have generated through creating tourism and benefiting trade?
Does that profit include the vast amounts of money it will have generated through creating tourism and benefiting trade?
Other than fuel costs another factor in price rises is that we fund Network Rail via ticket sales today, that was not the case previously. I imagine we also tax ticket sales too, dam greedy government.
And that's relatively unlikely. While train prices have increased markedly, the cost of driving has increased even moreso which has driven more people onto rail. In London which is where there's significant tourism, public transport is rated as some of the best in the world even with high costs.
With regards to BR vs Today it's only really overcrowding (passenger numbers were declining before privatization) and cost which have gotten worse. On metrics from punctuality, reliability, customer service to the quality of the train and your experience today wins hands down.
This puts it better than I could: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/osborne-eurostar-privatisation.html
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Comus
This puts it better than I could: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/osborne-eurostar-privatisation.html
He really should have said fiscal deficit.
Original post by Rakas21
He really should have said fiscal deficit.
Hmmmm it doesn't really do that though since it loses the UK an income stream, so it only really works for one year.
I guess I'm pretty agnostic either way, but I don't really see that anything is broke at the minute so why try and fix it.
East Coast ont he other hand should stay, unless you have multiple providers on a line there is no market for a consumer so the supposed benefits of re-privitising are nil.
Original post by Comus
This puts it better than I could: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/osborne-eurostar-privatisation.html
Better than nought though.
Original post by MatureStudent36
Except that it got rid of black hole in public finances and has improved the standard of the service. Many on here are two young to remember how utterly crap British rail was.
We're still running a deficit so need to find money from somewhere. Selling off assets is one way of raising capital.
It's taken 18 years for Eurostar to become profitable and it shows the need for government intervention for high capital infrastructure projects.
We're still running a deficit so need to find money from somewhere. Selling off assets is one way of raising capital.
It's taken 18 years for Eurostar to become profitable and it shows the need for government intervention for high capital infrastructure projects.
Have to agree with this.
As long as it's paid for itself I can see no issues with selling it off and an new project started.
Original post by TheCasual MK2
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/13/government-sell-eurostar-election-osborne-channel-tunnel-train
What do people think of The Tories selling the Eurostar?
Typically Tories selling off the counties assets?
What do people think of The Tories selling the Eurostar?
Typically Tories selling off the counties assets?
It's already was privatised, the Tories are just selling the UK Government stake which is actually quite small and not really worth its salt.
Original post by MatureStudent36
Trains are getting more expensive due to capacity issues on the trains. Increasing prices is an effective method reducing demand when demand exceeds capacity. That's why in all for HS2, it'll alleviate capacity issues on rail infrastructure that was designed and built in Victorian times.
As for the proof of an improvement in train performance. Firstly from personal experience I no longer have to ride on dirty, late trains.
As for more evidence. In 94, BR made a £363million profit because of a £2 billon government subsidy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/british-rail-profit-figure-masks-doubling-of-subsidy-1589866.html
As for the proof of an improvement in train performance. Firstly from personal experience I no longer have to ride on dirty, late trains.
As for more evidence. In 94, BR made a £363million profit because of a £2 billon government subsidy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/british-rail-profit-figure-masks-doubling-of-subsidy-1589866.html
Last year the subsidy was over £4bn...
Have you been on Northern Rail...?
Original post by Quady
Last year the subsidy was over £4bn...
Have you been on Northern Rail...?
Have you been on Northern Rail...?
Can we really call it a subsidy. I mean NAO views Network Rail as being publicly owned, the markets not aloud to respond, Network Rail can only build where the government wants after publishing a list of proposed projects it thinks want doing.
On the operator side, the nature of changing franchises and leasing means that in some cases operators are prohibited from getting their own stock because they'd take it with them if they lost the franchise.
..
Seems to me that government can't let go. Screwed up.
Original post by MatureStudent36
Except that it got rid of black hole in public finances and has improved the standard of the service. Many on here are two young to remember how utterly crap British rail was.
We're still running a deficit so need to find money from somewhere. Selling off assets is one way of raising capital.
It's taken 18 years for Eurostar to become profitable and it shows the need for government intervention for high capital infrastructure projects.
We're still running a deficit so need to find money from somewhere. Selling off assets is one way of raising capital.
It's taken 18 years for Eurostar to become profitable and it shows the need for government intervention for high capital infrastructure projects.
So the government pays for expensive long term projects, waits for them to become profitable and then sells them off so the profits go to the private sector. I can't help but feel that tax payers are getting the ****ty end of the stick here.
Original post by DaveSmith99
So the government pays for expensive long term projects, waits for them to become profitable and then sells them off so the profits go to the private sector. I can't help but feel that tax payers are getting the ****ty end of the stick here.
It's sadly the only way big infrastructure projects work. No private company would be able to finance a long term project such as Eurostar costing billions with a timescale of twenty odd years and a payback period on the investment of 40plus years. Investors can get better more profitable returns in a much shorter time. It's just a financing decision.
I'd agree that I'd like to see the private sector finance their own projects entirely, but Eurostar was as political as it was economical.
Eurostar, or as it's known HS1, is the precursor to HS2, which will ultimately lead into Hs3. Those aren't merely UK related transport infrastructure requirements, they're more of a pan European high speed rail network.
A more effective method would've been to invest privately in cross channel ferries and air travel, but as governments interfere now with possible expansions of air travel. Because they interfere with one solution they're forced to interfere with another solution.
With the EU and the WTO trying to reduce protectionist activity, which nationalised industry is described as, I don't think it'll be too long before we start seeing the French nationalised rail service privatised.
Privatisation has not been just a UK issue. It's been going on throughout Europe the last few decades.
I'd like to see governments shares kept in profitable companies so we can see the dividends from successful companies being used as n income stream. But the reality is that small cash flows over long periods of time may not be as beneficial as calling out a lump sum when you really need the cash.
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