THE government has announced that British Rail is to be finally wound up -- seventeen years after the first Act of Parliament was passed which launched railway privatisation.
BRB (Residuary) Ltd was created to take over the last few functions of the old British Railways Board after privatisation.
It is now to be axed as part of a wide-ranging cull of quangos – quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations – which are funded by taxpayers but are not government departments. Any remaining powers which are still needed will be transferred to the transport secretary, after some ‘asset disposals’.
BRB (Residuary) is currently still responsible for several thousand kilometres of disused railway lines, including bridges and the other structures on them.
Also being closed is the Disabled Persons’ Transport Advisory Committee, and a note says that ‘We are exploring options for continuing to gain the disability advice we need through a more flexible, accountable structure’.
The Commission for Integrated Transport disappears as well, and an alternative arrangement is being sought that ‘delivers external analysis and strategic advice on cross-modal transport policy and realising benefits, at lower cost’.
The Railway Heritage Committee, which ’designates’ records and artefacts still used by the operational railway for permanent preservation, is another victim. There is an official comment that ‘no equivalent protection applies to the heritage items of any other transport sector’.
There had been speculation that the watchdog Passenger Focus could also be axed, but instead its role is to be reviewed and ‘substantially reformed’, so that it focuses on its ’core role of protecting passengers, while reducing cost to taxpayers’. No other details are available yet.
Some of the changes may require legislation, because the Railway Heritage Committee was created by Act of Parliament, but powers to abolish BRB (Residuary) Ltd already exist, having been included in the Transport Act 2000.
The British Railways Board was created by the Transport Act 1962, to take over the railway functions of the British Transport Commission. Some of the businesses controlled by the Board, such as hotels and ships, were gradually sold off from the 1980s onwards, but major changes began in 1994, when Railtrack took over management of the railway infrastructure on 1 April.
The Board ceased to operate trains at the end of March 1997, when the ScotRail franchise began. ScotRail was said to have been the last to start because of the complexities of negotiating the changeover with the former Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive.