Labour’s new team at DfT packed with railway experience

Labour’s new team at the Department for Transport is a mixture of the familiar and the unknown.

It includes veteran former transport ministers and local government leaders who have championed the cause of public transport.

Despite rumours that the job might be given to someone else in government, Louise Haigh has been appointed Transport Secretary, the job she had shadowed in opposition.

The MP for Sheffield Heeley since 2015, Haigh is on Labour’s ‘soft left’ and has links to affiliated trade unions since well before she entered the House of Commons.

She is considered a pragmatist, accepting that rolling stock, freight and open access will continue to see private sector involvement in the railway.

But her commitment to public ownership means that rail is the only major industry in which Labour will implement any form of nationalisation, with Sir Keir Starmer having jettisoned his past commitments to public ownership of mail, energy and water.

Lord (Peter) Hendy of Richmond Hill takes the second most senior job in the DfT, as Rail Minister.

Hendy, who resigned as Network Rail and Great British Railways chairman following his appointment, needs no introduction to RAIL readers, having previously also served as director general of Transport for London, working under both Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson during their spells as Mayor of London.

Appointed a crossbench peer in 2022, he will now take the Labour whip.

Simon Lightwood, who was elected as MP for Wakefield at a 2022 by-election, and is now MP for Wakefield and Rothwell, becomes Minister for Local Transport, which includes light rail.

He took over the brief (while in opposition) from Sam Tarry, who was sacked from the front bench after giving an interview on a picket line. Tarry’s dismissal angered the unions, who saw the former TSSA political officer as a key ally.

Lightwood formerly worked as an NHS communications chief and as a caseworker for former Shadow Transport Secretary Mary Creagh.

Former Shadow Transport Secretary Lilian Greenwood, who served under Jeremy Corbyn before resigning from his shadow cabinet, also joins the DfT as a junior minister - but with responsibility for roads.

Greenwood, MP for Nottingham South, has also chaired both the Transport and Finance Select Committees. She hailed Lord Hendy’s entry to Whitehall with the words: “Appointments don’t get better than this.”

Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) takes responsibility for aviation, maritime matters and security, which could have an impact on the rail brief.

Douglas Alexander served as Transport Secretary under Tony Blair and returns to government in the more junior role of Minister of State for Trade. He can presumably expect calls from his rail industry contacts to create better conditions for the supply chain.

In his new constituency of Lothian East, he is also likely to get on board with calls to expand Edinburgh’s tram network to Musselburgh.

As Shadow Transport Secretary under Ed Miliband, Mary Creagh advocated for a compromise policy in which a state rail operator would bid against the private sector.

Returning to the Commons as MP for Coventry East, she has missed out on a ministerial post, but she is likely to speak out on transport on the back benches - or perhaps even as a Select Committee chair.

Also returning is Heidi Alexander (Swindon South, and no relation to Douglas), who stepped down from Parliament in 2018 to become Sadiq Khan’s Deputy Mayor for Transport in London.

Ahead of the election, some party insiders speculated that Louise Haigh could be shunted aside to make way for the more centrist Alexander.

However, it is believed that Alexander’s key role in rolling out the London Ultra-Low Emissions Zone put paid to that. She instead takes a junior role in the Ministry of Justice, although given her experience, she could well play a role in transport policy in future.

Scott Arthur, elected in Edinburgh East, has served as Edinburgh City Council’s transport convener since 2022.

He oversaw the launch of the city’s tram extension to Leith and Newhaven, and has also championed further tram expansion and the reopening of the Edinburgh South Suburban Line.

Expect him to be a key voice on Scottish transport matters, even though these have been devolved to Holyrood.

Alan Strickland (Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor) said his job as the area’s MP starts with “working hard to safeguard the 700 high-tech jobs at Hitachi Rail in Newton Aycliffe”.

A former councillor in the north London borough of Haringey, Strickland quit local politics in 2018 after a grassroots rebellion against a £2 billion development scheme he had championed.

Barrister Catherine Atkinson, the new Labour MP for Derby North, has been equally vocal in her support for the future of Alstom’s Litchurch Lane works.

“We have been building trains in this city since 1839 and the industry can have a bright future, too,” she said last autumn.

“There are thousands of jobs that depend on the factory.”

The site was given reprieve just weeks ahead of the election (RAIL 1012), but she will probably need to keep fighting for it in years to come.

Lord (John) Hendy, brother of Peter, is likely to remain a vocal voice for trade unions - including rail unions - on the red benches.

A leading KC who as a young barrister represented the Association of London Authorities at the Fennell Inquiry into the King’s Cross fire, he is associated with Labour’s Corbynite left.

Having been re-elected with a 7,247 majority as an independent, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North MP since 1983) has the freedom to focus on whatever he wants.

And the railways will undoubtedly feature. A self-described “railway nerd who reads RAIL magazine”, Corbyn is likely to hold Starmer and Haigh’s feet to the fire over public ownership.

As will Andy McDonald, who has been returned as MP for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, having had the Labour whip restored just in time to be allowed to re-stand following a period of suspension.

Under Corbyn, McDonald drew up GB Rail, Labour’s original plan for public ownership. It included a state freight operator (created by expanding Direct Rail Services) and options for taking rolling stock into public ownership. Both have been effectively ruled out under Starmer and Haigh.

More recently, McDonald has quizzed rail ministers and bosses as a member of the Commons Business Select Committee, which he will no doubt seek to hold onto in the new Parliament.

With former Conservative Transport Secretary Mark Harper having lost his seat on election night, the new Shadow Transport Secretary is former Care Minister Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent).

Last year, she acknowledged that ticket office closure plans “have left lots of local passengers worried”, but stopped short of opposing her government’s plan - instead calling for mitigations in support for disabled passengers.