Grayling recommits to £80m smart ticketing plan
Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling has reiterated plans for an £80 million smart ticketing scheme to be rolled out across the rail network by the end of next year.
Delivering his speech at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on October 2, a week after Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell spoke of Labour’s plans to renationalise and fund major infrastructure projects, Grayling spoke of the need to invest in projects and to use the private sector to “unleash the potential of the North”.
“And this is the bit that Jeremy Corbyn and his Momentum socialists will never understand,” he said.
“We need a strong private sector, working in partnership with national and local government in the Northern Powerhouse. If you treat business as the enemy, and tax it until the pips squeak, it will simply go elsewhere. And so will the jobs. And the investment. And the opportunities for our next generation.”
Grayling accused Labour of “always attacking the train companies”, before defending privatisation: “After all what has rail privatisation ever done for us? Not a lot really… except for all those new and replacement trains here in the North. Except for all the new trains in East Anglia, across the South, in the West Midlands. Except for reversing the years of decline under British Rail and doubling the number of people using our railways. Except for opening new services and routes for passengers, like the new line from London to Oxford. Or the Grand Central trains to Sunderland and Bradford.”
He said of the renationalisation plans: “Of course, in Jeremy Corbyn’s world we would be so much better going back to the days of British Rail. Those ‘Glory days’ when lines were closed and services axed. When passenger numbers slumped and investment in our railway equated to bolting bus parts onto railway wheels. Not to mention the famously awful British Rail sandwiches.
“And how would they pay for renationalising the railways? By confiscating assets from the private sector. How on earth do they think they will attract jobs to Britain if they behave like the government of Venezuela?”
Grayling said Labour does not understand that it is businesses and workers that create the wealth to pay for public services. He called Labour’s plans “unaffordable and driven by ideology, not the balanced approach the country needs”.
He also called the unions “Corbyn’s paymasters”, saying they wanted to “turn the clock back. They want to resist modernisation. They don’t care about passengers or consumers.”