Network crisis after franchise debacle
KeithBrowndemandedanurgent meeting with the UK Transport Secretary and an explanation of the impact of this decision for Scotland’s rail users.
Mr Brown, who said he wasn’t told of the announcement in advance, revealed he had made his feelings clear to UK junior transport minister Simon Burns about “how this utterly shambolic episode has transpired and been handled”.
After months of defending attacks by Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson, who branded the West Coast decision insane, Mr McLoughlin said the blame should be laid “fairly and squarely” with the DfT.
He said: “The original model didn’t take into account inflation and also some elements of the passenger number increases over a number of years.
“I want to make it absolutely clear that neither FirstGroup nor Virgin did anything wrong. The fault of this lies wholly and squarely with the DfT. Both of those two companies acted properly on the advice they were getting from the department.”
Officials at the DfT were later unable to say who would take over West Coast train services on December 9 from Virgin, although they insisted passengers would not be affected and any advance tickets would be honoured.
A management team at Directly Operated Railways, a Government-owned company set up to take over train services on the East Coast Main Line in 2009, had already been mobilised to take over the West Coast route in case the legal dispute with Virgin was not resolved in time.
Among those taken aback by the decision was FirstGroup, whichhadspentmuchof Monday assuring the public and investors it was primed to take over the service on December 9. A spokesman said the company had only been informed late on Monday evening that the competition had been cancelled. “Until this point we had absolutely no indication there were any issues with the franchise letting process and had received assurances from the DfT that their processes were robust and they expected to sign the contract soon,” he said.
At his party’s annual conference in Manchester, Mr Miliband rounded on the Coalition and demanded MrCameron name the minister in charge of the process. Mr McLoughlin became Transport Secretary in September, succeeding Justine Greening.
“The Prime Minister needs to get a grip on his incompetent Government and he needs to say who knew what when,” Mr Miliband said.