Greater Anglia nationalisation will deliver ‘value for money’

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Andrew SinclairEast of England political editor and

Ben SchofieldEast of England political correspondent

Martin Giles/BBC Heidi Alexander, smiling broadly and looking down the camera. She is standing outside, on a station platform, on a bright sunny day. A train, which is out of focus, can be seen behind her. She is wearing a dark coloured jacket over a top of the same colour. Her wavy hair is falling down to her shoulders.Martin Giles/BBC

Heidi Alexander stopped short of promising lower fares for passengers

The transport secretary has vowed to “move heaven and earth” to deliver “value for money on the railways”.

But Heidi Alexander stopped short of promising cheaper fares for train passengers.

She was speaking ahead of the nationalisation of the East of England rail operator, Greater Anglia, on Sunday.

The company, which is among the UK’s best performing train firms, said passengers should experience the same levels of service.

Alexander, on a visit to Norwich station, said she wanted to “embed high-performing, reliable railways that people can depend on”.

There was also a “baffling array of different ticket types”, which she hoped nationalisation would help “simplify”.

“I do think we need to simplify fares, but I can’t make a promise that we can bring fares down in the short term because we’ve got to run a financially sustainable railway,” she said.

Martin Giles/BBC A wide shot of a train carriage standing at a platform. It is a bright day, with a blue sky visible above the train and only a couple of wispy clouds. A smartly dressed looking member of staff can be seen reflected in one of the carriage's windows. Above the train are power lines. Along the bottom of the carriage is a logo, which includes a small portion of the red, white and blue stripes of the Union Flag, the parallel lines of the railways symbol and the text 'Great British Railways - Coming soon'.Martin Giles/BBC

Ministers hope to “unify” the different parts of the railway to end “fragmentation”

Last week Greater Anglia, which handled 81.8m passenger journeys in 2024/25, was named Rail Operator of the Year at the National Transport Awards.

Almost 94% of its trains arrived within three minutes of their scheduled time last year.

The government said it would be “used as a benchmark for other operators” and would “share best practice and drive up standards” across the rail network.

Martin Giles/BBC An image of the side of a train, standing at a platform. Only the lower part of a carriage can be seen, along side the edge of the platform. A sticker on the side has the parallel lines railway logo and the text 'Great British Railways - Coming Soon'. The lower section of two windows are also visible above and to the right of the sticker. A thick white line denotes the edge of the platform, which is otherwise covered in patterned tiles and light coloured asphalt.Martin Giles/BBC

Greater Anglia will eventually become part of Great British Railways

Greater Anglia will eventually become part of Great British Railways, which the government plans to set up in the coming years.

The company runs trains from Cambridge, Ipswich, Norwich and Colchester into London, as well as the Stansted Express and services across the East of England.

The transport secretary said there was a “gap of about £2bn” between what the government “ploughs” into the railways and fare income from passengers.

“In the longer term, I would like to be able to deliver a more affordable railway but I’ve got to get the balance right between what the taxpayer is putting in to subsidise the railway – which is billions of pounds at the moment – and what passengers are paying,” she added.

She said the government would “move heaven and earth to make sure that people get value for money on the railways because I do recognise that prices can be high”.

But, she went on: “People need to know that they get a service that they can rely upon and that it’s going to be a high quality service.”

The Department for Transport (DfT) has said that nationalising all the current rail franchises would save an estimated £150m a year in fees paid to private sector operators.

Owen Ward/BBC Four grey, yellow and red Greater Anglia trains sitting on parallel platforms inside a train station. The train nearest to the camera has 'Norwich' written in a display panel above its front windscreen. Owen Ward/BBC

Greater Anglia hoped passengers would not see immediate differences

An integrated leadership team will bring together Network Rail Anglia, which is responsible for rail infrastructure like tracks and signals, with the operators Greater Anglia and c2c, which runs services in south Essex and was nationalised in July.

The DfT said that team would “increase collaboration and accountability, delivering improvements for passengers and freight users”.

But Jerome Mayhew, the Conservative MP for Broadland and Fakenham in Norfolk, told Sunday’s BBC Politics East that he was “really worried” about rail nationalisation and that “Labour has got the wrong analysis” and were “giving the wrong solution to the problems”.

Greater Anglia, he added, was a “really well-run private business”, which had invested in new trains.

The first nationalised Greater Anglia service on Sunday will be the 16:10 BST Stansted Express from Liverpool Street.

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