At the time of writing, the Labour government is planning to bring the UK’s train operators into public ownership within 5 years, and there is also debate over taking water companies (such as Thames Water) back into state control. However, nationalisation is not a new idea in the UK. Indeed, between 1945 and 1951, the UK’s electricity, coal, rail, iron and steel industries were brought into public ownership by the Labour government of the time, with the aim of putting key industries in the hands of the people rather than a small number of shareholders.
Under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in the 1980s, there was a significant period of transferring previously state-owned assets back to the private sector. The process continued in the decades that followed, including the privatisation of Royal Mail in 2013. However, in recent years, there has been much debate about the desirability of private ownership of important industries and a potential move back towards public ownership, or re-nationalisation of these same industries.
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