The Public Accounts Committee has warned the government that not enough companies want to bid to run rail franchises. That lack of competition, it says, means the taxpayer will likely be left out of pocket.

The taxpayer is already paying a high price for the privatisation of our railways. We subsidise rail companies by a whopping £1.2bn a year -- only for them to turn 90 per cent of their profits over to their shareholders.

Right now, ministers are looking at ways to improve the franchise system. It's the perfect opportunity to tell them the system has failed -- and to demand a better, more affordable railway that serves the interests of passengers and taxpayers, not corporate shareholders.

Department for Transport: return rail franchises to public ownership as they expire.

Our railways could be so much better. By returning them to public ownership instead of subsidising corporate profits, our government could create the decent, affordable rail system we desperately need. And if franchises were returned to public hands when they expire, we could stagger the costs of re-nationalisation, as well as saving money on public subsidies to private corporations.

There's plenty of evidence that it would work. When the East Coast Main Line was put under public ownership between 2009 and 2015, passengers were happier with the service, it was more punctual, and it returned a profit for the country.

And Europe's mainly state-owned railways are cheaper, more efficient and more comfortable than the UK's. Where the UK has 23 rail operators, creating an unfathomably complex ticketing system and vast amounts of expensive bureaucracy, countries like Germany and Switzerland have just one main publicly-owned train operator, making their railways simpler and cheaper to run.

SumOfUs was created to fight back against the corporate capture of our public services. Over 100,000 of us came together to save the NHS from privatisation. If we come together again, we can speak up for the 66% of British people who support the public ownership of our railways, and put renationalisation back on the national agenda.

Let's tell the Department for Transport to make railways accountable to taxpayers, not shareholders, by returning rail franchises to public ownership as they expire.

**********

More information:

Rail franchising could shortchange taxpayers due to 'lack of interest', The Guardian, 12 February 2016
'Lack of interest' in running rail franchises, MPs warn, BBC News, 12 February 2016
Our rail system is broken, and nationalisation has already been proven to work — so what are we waiting for?, The Independent, 6 January 2015