Labour to fight election on pledge to let public sector run train services

The Labour Party has agreed to adopt a new policy to extend the benefits it says have been brought by the East Coast public sector operator to other lines.

Each time a franchise comes up for renewal, Labour would, in Labour leader Ed Miliband's words, "end the situation where you can be a European public rail company and run lines here, but not if you are a public sector operator from Britain".

He said that privatisation had "too often put the profits into the private sector and put the risk onto Government". The East Coast operator had shown this can be the better value-for-money option, he claimed.