Charles Wright: Is devolution of suburban rail to London going to arrive?

“Watch this space,” was Sir Sadiq Khan’s optimistic message on suburban rail devolution to City Hall after a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer last year. A Transport for London (TfL) takeover of key commuter lines has long been a mayoral objective, and the government’s planned renationalisation of rail was seen as laying the ground for making that aspiration a reality. The Department for Transport, Khan said, “will be talking to Mayors like me about which of those railways we can take over”.

Since then, the government has moved forward, legislating to scrap rail franchises and setting out its initial plans for what the Great British Rail agency (GBR) that will run nationalised rail will look like, as well as its proposals for wider devolution to regional government. So how near are we to seeing the Mayor’s ambitions realised?

His confidence may have been buoyed by the appointment of his former transport deputy Heidi Alexander as transport minister and former TfL supremo Lord Peter Hendy as rail minister. Alexander used her first speech in her ministerial role to call for substantial devolution of the Govia Thameslink Railway franchise. But at this stage, the picture of what might happen next is mixed.

The good news, set out in the government document A Railway Fit for Britain’s Future on which consultation has just ended, is that the Mayor’s “existing devolved responsibilities, including London Overground and the Elizabeth Line”, will remain in place rather than being subsumed into GBR. There’s a commitment, too, to “continue to engage” with City Hall to develop future arrangements, with a new statutory role for London’s and the other devolved mayoral authorities in “governing, managing, planning, and developing the rail network in their areas”.

However, an outright handover to City Hall (or other mayoralties) doesn’t look to be within easy grasp. A range of “partnership” arrangements are envisaged, from “engagement” on strategic priorities and “collaboration” on the delivery of rail elements of local transport plans, to lining up train, bus and tram timetables, to commissioning some local services from GBR as well as full devolution of specific services. For that final step to be taken, the government will give mayoral authorities a “right to request” it, with the Secretary of State taking the final decision.

The detail will be discussed further, but with the consultation document emphasising GBR’s role as a new “directing mind”, overseeing the whole rail network and responsible directly to the minister, some experts have already detected a tension. Responding in parliament to devolution proponents, including experienced former London Assembly member Baroness Caroline Pidgeon, Lord Hendy did not dispel this. The government did not intend to “close off” devolution options, he said, but these had to “be subject to effective operation of the railway network as a whole”.

Quizzed by the House of Commons transport select committee last week, Alexander made the same point – “GBR will need to balance local and national interests” – and added a caveat of her own. “I will need to think very carefully about the financial and commercial implications of further devolution of rail services, because we subsidise the day-to-day running of the trains to the tune of £2 billion a year,” she said. “I would need to be persuaded that if I were to devolve further rail services to a mayoral combined authority, I would not be carving off more profitable parts of the rail network. I need to find a way to reduce the rail subsidy over time.” Not good news, perhaps, for the biggest revenue earners.

The Mayor’s devolution ambitions have suffered at Whitehall hands before, with the then-transport secretary Chris Grayling blocking a deal in 2016, having notoriously declared he wanted to keep suburban rail services “out of the clutches” of a Labour Mayor.

We are no longer in that territory, though. “There is an important role for Mayors in the newly reformed railways,” Alexander told MPs. Great British Rail will be expected to “work closely” with TfL on coordinating devolved and its own operations in order to deliver a coherent network.

Time to crank up the lobbying effort then. There are strong arguments for devolution: in London, it has all-party support and is popular with businesses and the travelling public; TfL’s management of the Overground has been notably successful, proving it has the capacity as well as the ambition to expand its operations; the Elizabeth line has shown the value of rail investment in unlocking housing and boosting growth, which is very much in tune with the government’s agenda.

But the pressure is on to get business cases together, with the clock ticking down on the Govia Thameslink franchise in particular. This is very much in Khan’s sights. Its “core term” expired on 1 April and the government can now take it over with just three months’ notice.

Alongside convincing plans for improving the service plans, the transfer of the current subsidies will be critical to boosting ridership and revenue. Khan has plenty of items on his shopping list for June’s government spending review already: the Bakerloo line and Docklands Light Railway extensions, the West London orbital, and possible new rail links to an expanded Heathrow. Will he be able to take what he’s called a “once in a generation” opportunity to bring suburban rail under London government control?

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