Act of Parliament | |
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Long title | An Act to provide for the appointment and functions of a Rail Regulator and a Director of Passenger Rail Franchising and of users' consultative committees for the railway industry and for certain ferry services; to make new provision with respect to the provision of railway services and the persons by whom they are to be provided or who are to secure their provision; to make provision for and in connection with the grant and acquisition of rights over, and the disposal or other transfer and vesting of, any property, rights or liabilities by means of which railway services are, or are to be, provided; to amend the functions of the British Railways Board; to make provision with respect to the safety of railways and the protection of railway employees and members of the public from personal injury and other risks arising from the construction or operation of railways; to make further provision with respect to transport police; to make provision with respect to certain railway pension schemes; to make provision for and in connection with the payment of grants and subsidies in connection with railways and in connection with the provision of facilities for freight haulage by inland waterway; to make provision in relation to tramways and other guided transport systems; and for connected purposes. |
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Citation | 1993 c. 43 |
Territorial extent | |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 5 November 1993 |
Commencement | 1 January 1994 |
Other legislation | |
Amends |
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Repeals/revokes |
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Status: Amended | |
Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Text of the Railways Act 1993 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. |
The Railways Act 1993 (c. 43) was introduced by John Major's Conservative government and passed on 5 November 1993. It provided for the restructuring of the British Railways Board (BRB), the public corporation that owned and operated the national railway system. A few residual responsibilities of the BRB remained with BRB (Residuary) Ltd.
While the administration of Margaret Thatcher had not done so, the Major government were determined to privatise British Rail. Railways in the 18th and 19th centuries had originally been built and run with private capital, but subsidised heavily by Parliament and communities who gave land for building through compulsory purchase. Rail was increasingly regulated, for instance under the Railways Act 1921, but was finally nationalised by the Transport Act 1947. Calls for reform of the nationalised system combined with people who believed only the private sector could run rail to ensure better service for passengers at cheaper cost. This led to the Railways Act 1993.
The legislation created a new regulatory regime for the railways, with the establishment of the Rail Regulator (dealing with the monopoly and dominant elements of the industry, principally Railtrack (now Network Rail)) and the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising, whose role was to sell passenger rail franchises to the private sector. The Director of Passenger Rail Franchising was replaced in 2001 by the Strategic Rail Authority. When the SRA was abolished in 2006 franchising were taken over by the Secretary of State for Transport. The statutory position of Rail Regulator was abolished in July 2004 and his functions were taken over by the Office of Rail Regulation.
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The legislation enabled the Secretary of State for Transport John MacGregor to transfer separated parts of the railway to the private sector. Passenger rail services were franchised to private companies including Virgin Rail Group, Connex and the coach companies Stagecoach and National Express, and the national railway track and signalling company Railtrack was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1996. British Rail's track maintenance and renewal operations were sold to private companies, with contracts to provide infrastructure services to Railtrack. The three rolling stock leasing companies or ROSCOs, owners of the passenger rolling stock, were sold to management buyout teams.
Railtrack collapsed in highly controversial circumstances in October 2001, and in October 2002 the company emerged from railway administration, a special state of insolvency for railway companies created by the Railways Act 1993, as Network Rail. Some commentators regard the creation of Network Rail and its taking maintenance in-house as the beginning of the reversal of rail privatisation.
The legislation has been amended several times, most significantly by the Transport Act 2000, the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 and the Railways Act 2005.
The railway system in Great Britain is the oldest railway system in the world. The first locomotive-hauled public railway opened in 1825, which was followed by an era of rapid expansion. Most of the track is managed by Network Rail, which in 2017 had a network of 9,824 miles (15,811 km) of standard-gauge lines, of which 3,339 miles (5,374 km) were electrified. In addition, some cities have separate metro, light rail and tram systems, among them the historic London Underground and the Glasgow Subway. There are also many private railways, some of them narrow-gauge, which are primarily short lines for tourists. The main rail network is connected with that of continental Europe by the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1, opened in 1994 and 2007 respectively.
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, it became an independent statutory corporation in January 1963, when it was formally renamed the British Railways Board.
Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002. It was created as part of the privatisation of British Rail, listed on the London Stock Exchange, and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 2002, after experiencing major financial difficulty, most of Railtrack's operations were transferred to the state-controlled non-profit company Network Rail. The remainder of Railtrack was renamed RT Group plc and eventually dissolved on 22 June 2010.
Network Rail Limited is the owner and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Transport with no shareholders, which reinvests its income in the railways.
The railway system of Great Britain started with the building of local isolated wooden wagonways starting in the 1560s. A patchwork of local rail links operated by small private railway companies developed in the late 18th century. These isolated links expanded during the railway boom of the 1840s into a national network, although initially being run by over one hundred competing companies. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many of these were amalgamated or were bought by competitors until only a handful of larger companies remained. The period also saw a steady increase in government involvement, especially in safety matters, such as the Railway Inspectorate.
The British Railways Board (BRB) was a nationalised industry in the United Kingdom that operated from 1963 to 2001. Until 1997, it was responsible for most railway services in Great Britain, trading under the brand name British Railways and, from 1965, British Rail. It did not operate railways in Northern Ireland, where railways were the responsibility of the Government of Northern Ireland.
There are effectively two separate mainline railway systems in the United Kingdom – the Great Britain system and the Northern Ireland system, which are regulated and operated separately, and are constituted under separate pieces of United Kingdom legislation.
The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, the process was largely completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industry was in part motivated by the enactment of EU Directive 91/440 in 1991, which aimed to create a more efficient railway network by creating greater competition.
The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom set up under the Transport Act 2000 to provide strategic direction for the railway industry. Its motto was 'Britain's railway, properly delivered'. It was abolished by the Railways Order 2006, its functions being absorbed by the Department for Transport or the Office of Rail Regulation.
A train operating company (TOC) is the term used on the railway system of Great Britain for a railway undertaking operating passenger trains under the collective National Rail brand. TOCs have existed since the privatisation of the network under the Railways Act 1993.
Railway nationalisation is the act of taking rail transport assets into public ownership. Several countries have at different times nationalised part or all of their railway system.
The Southern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948 until 1992 when railways were re-privatised. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right in the 1980s. The region covered south London, southern England and the south coast, including the busy commuter belt areas of Kent, Sussex and Surrey. The region was largely based upon the former Southern Railway area.
The Scottish Region (ScR) was one of the six regions created on British Railways (BR) and consisted of ex-London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and ex-London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) lines in Scotland. It existed from the creation of BR in 1948, and was renamed to ScotRail in the mid-1980s.
The Rail Regulator was a statutory office holder, created with effect from 1 December 1993 by section 1 of the Railways Act 1993, for the independent economic regulation of the British railway industry. The Rail Regulator was in charge of an executive agency called the Office of the Rail Regulator.
The Director of Passenger Rail Franchising was a statutory office holder in the United Kingdom created in 1993 by the Railways Act 1993 and usually called the Franchising Director. The role lasted from 5 November 1993 until 31 January 2001. The Franchising Director was in charge of an executive agency called the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF). It was superseded by the Strategic Rail Authority.
The history of rail transport in Great Britain 1948–1994 covers the period when the British railway system was nationalised under the name of 'British Railways', latterly known as British Rail until its eventual privatisation in 1994.
BRB (Residuary) Limited (BRBR) was the successor to the British Railways Board. It was created in 2001 as a private company limited by shares, with 100% of the issued share capital owned by the Secretary of State for Transport. As part of the Public Bodies Act 2011, the company was abolished in 2013.
Passenger rail franchising in Great Britain is the system of contracting the operation of the passenger services on the railways of Great Britain to private companies, which has been in effect since 1996 and was greatly altered in 2020, with rail franchising being effectively abolished in May 2021.
The impact of the privatisation of British Rail has been the subject of much debate, with the stated benefits including improved customer service, and more investment; and stated drawbacks including higher fares, lower punctuality and increased rail subsidies. The privatisation of British Rail began in the 1990s.
Great British Railways (GBR) is a proposed state-owned public body that is to oversee rail transport in Great Britain except for Transport for London, Merseytravel, light rail and tram services. It is to assume most rail functions of the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Rail Delivery Group, including procuring services and setting fares. In addition, it is to absorb Network Rail to become the operator of most rail infrastructure across Great Britain. It will not affect the existing powers of the UK's devolved administrations in their areas.