Call for East Coast rail private sector sell off

EAST Coast main line trains should be re-privatised because their performance under public ownership has “plateaued”, UK transport minister Simon Burns told MPs today.

The UK transport minister has called for the East Coast line to be sold off. Pictured - an East Coast train crosses the Tay Bridge. Picture: submitted

He said the Scotland-London franchise, which has been under state control for four years, needed a private sector stimulus, which was in the best interests or passengers and taxpayers.

Mr Burns said his Labour predecessors had always intended to return the operation to the private sector when they took it over after National Express quit because it could no longer afford the repayments to the Treasury as part of its £1.4 billion bid for the contract.

The Department for Transport announced last month that the next, privately-run franchise for East Coast, which operates between Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness, Glasgow and London, would start in February 2015.

Mr Burns also told the Commons transport committee he “did not altogether accept” conclusions drawn from an Office of Rail Regulation last week that showed East Coast provided good value for money for taxpayers, in terms of public subsidy balanced against payments returned to the UK Government.

He said: “If you say this is a political or ideological decision, [on East Coast] then that equally applies to [former Labour Transport

Secretary] Lord Adonis and [former Labour transport minister] Sadiq Khan, as we are doing what they wanted to do.

“This is not ideological. It’s in the best interests of taxpayers and passengers.”