Transport Secretary Chris Grayling splurges £2.3million on private firms telling him how to run East Coast Main Line
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Loading... - Siomi Kennedy
- 25 Jun 2021
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Transport Secretary Chris Grayling splurged £2.3million on private consultants to tell him how to run the new publicly owned rail service.
Documents seen by the Mirror reveal Arup Group, in partnership with Ernst & Young, and SNC-Lavalin earned thousands over the past six months as the East Coast Main Line franchise hit the buffers.
The Department for Transport used exemption clauses under Freedom of Information laws to withhold details about the advice.
The line, failed by Virgin Trains East Coast, was back under Government control today and is now rebranded under the London North Eastern Railway name used until the 1940s.
The DfT will run it until a new public-private partnership can be appointed in 2020.
Cat Hobbs of We Own It, which made the FoI request, said: “We’re very happy the East Coast line is no longer in the hands of Stagecoach and Virgin but this is not nationalisation.
“It’s a scandal the public is forking out this much because Grayling doesn’t trust his own department to run a railway.
“Other countries have state-owned railways which work but the Government insists it can’t run a railway without private consultants. It’s time to get these chancers out of our railway and bring it into full public ownership.”
Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald said the Government needed to restore public trust in the rail sector.
He added: “Everything Chris Grayling touches collapses into chaos. It’s time for him to do the decent thing and resign.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “The East Coast line and all other lines should be run in the interests of passengers and taxpayers. The next Labour government will take our railways into public ownership as franchises expire.”
Stagecoach Group, which owns 90% of Virgin Trains East Coast, bailed out of the franchise claiming it lost £200million. Taxpayers are set to lose £2.4billion over the Government running the line.
Mr Grayling narrowly survived a Commons vote of confidence last week.
