Strikes: Rail Minister calls for summer of recovery

“Strikes will not bring back passengers. In fact, quite the opposite. We - government, operators and trade unions - have to collaborate.”

That was the message from Rail Minister Wendy Morton (pictured), in her video address to the Rail Live Theatre.

Morton spoke of industry changes, stating that Great British Railways has been “tasked with the biggest reforms in three decades”, while also noting the “opportunities and challenges”.

Central to those are “the need to legislate to deliver key elements of structural reform”, as mapped out in the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail.

Morton described the current consultation on legislative changes as the “first major step” towards obtaining the industry’s views that will shape GBR’s future.

She said the Government is looking to establish “clear accountabilities” as the industry “moves towards a new culture”, adding: “There’s still some distance to travel before we leave behind the complexity of the past.”

Turning to COVID’s effect on passenger travel, she noted that the Government’s subsidy has amounted to almost £600 per UK household, spending that she said is unsustainable in the long run.

She claimed this “summer of recovery” is “the right time for reform and the wrong time for strikes”, and the right time to create a “modern, resilient railway with reliable services seven days a week. Instead, we face industrial action that could derail our recovery.”