Market failures make the case for nationalisation of energy and water

If taxpayers ultimately have to pick up the tab time and again, they are more likely to demand the government runs the services, writes Phil Thornton

The cost of energy bills will be on the minds of many (PA)

Seventy five years ago, on 1 January 1947, ownership of the UK’s coal industry was vested in the national government. Exactly a year later, the nationalisation of British railways and canals took effect. The National Health Service was born seven months after that.

The past is of course a foreign country and they do things differently there, as LP Hartley said, and one should be careful of drawing direct parallels from historical times. But as we embark on a new year after some 20 months of the Covid-19 pandemic, many assumptions about how the economy should be run have been abandoned.

The response of the doctors, nurses and managers in the NHS to the crisis, and the creation and delivery of a national vaccine programme, have been hailed as examples of centralised coordination. In stark contrast, the awarding of several billion pounds worth of contracts for PPE clothing and test and trace that failed to deliver – often by companies using a “high priority lane” without the need to compete for them – has left an odour of sleaze.