Scottish transport minister Humza Yousaf is ‘preparing the ground’ for returning the country’s rail services to public ownership as soon as possible, according to media reports.
It follows comments from first minister Nicola Sturgeon, who suggested that terminating Abellio’s ScotRail contract early if it fails meet its performance requirements is ‘very much an option that we keep on the table’.
CalMac Ferries is owned by the Scottish Government
The Sunday Herald quoted a senior source close to the Scottish Government as saying that the Mr Yousaf has a preference for moving towards public ownership of the railways as soon as possible, and is currently seeking to clarify how this could be done, based on the public ownership model for CalMac Ferries.
The source told the paper: ‘The Government is preparing the groundwork for how a publicly owned and publicly accountable railways could be delivered for Scotland.'
They said this would be based on the ownership model for CalMac Ferries, a company owned by the Scottish Government, which runs services using vessels belonging to Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, also owned by the Scottish Government.
The paper noted that Scottish ministers have previously suggested that they do not have sufficient powes under the existing devolution settlement to return rail to the public sector but said Mr Yousaf, was understood to believe that the Scottish Government would have enough powers.
As in the rest of Great Britain, the rail infrastructure in Scotland is owned and maintained by Network Rail, while services are operated by Abellio ScotRail under a 10-year contract that began last year.
Recently, Mr Yousaf has criticised both Network Rail and ScotRail for their performance, requiring ScotRail to produce an improvement plan. Mr Yousaf has also called for full devolution of rail powers to the Scottish Government.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: ‘We have put in place measures to ensure we are fulfilling our Railways Act obligation of securing ongoing rail functions, as the operator of last resort, should a franchise terminate early, for any reason, and not be replaced.
‘Separately, and quite distinctly, a manifesto commitment was made to facilitate a public sector bid for our railways. Ministers are committed to this and will be working with appropriate stakeholders to take this forward. This is about forward looking policy and future Scottish rail franchise competitions.’
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