In The Interests of Public Service

Here:

Rail union RMT [constitutionally committed, by its affiliation to the Labour Representation Committee, to the election of a Labour Government] revealed today that it has been officially notified of a rescue plan to bring in the publicly owned Directly Operated Railways to run the major Great Western franchise between London, Wales and the South West, fuelling speculation that talks on a contract extension with First Group, due to be announced in the next few weeks, are in trouble.

RMT has received the following notification from DOR:

“GW Railway Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Directly Operated Railways, has today submitted applications to the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) for a Safety Certificate (Part A and Part B) and Safety Authorisation in respect of undertaking train and station operations on the Great Western Franchise (i.e. the line of route currently operated by First Greater Western), should current negotiations between the Department for Transport and First Group, on a short term extension to the franchise commencing in October 2013, fail to reach a satisfactory conclusion.”

First Group are currently receiving taxpayers revenue support of more than £200 million to run the franchise and in May 2011 announced that they would not be taking up an option to extend the Great Western contract in order to dodge more than £800 million in premium payments due to the British taxpayer.

As a result of the collapse of First’s bid to run the West Coast the entire franchising process has been reduced to chaos and as a consequence a whole raft of current route holders have forced their way into a monopoly provider position able to bully the DFT into paying through the nose to keep trains running. That includes First Great Western.

RMT believes that with First having already taken the taxpayer for over a billion pounds in dodged premiums and revenue support in the past two years, that even this pro-privatisation Government is reluctant to stuff their mouths with yet more public cash, hence why DOR have set up a new arm – GW Railway Ltd – and have submitted applications for the certification to run the Great Western route.

RMT believes that the whole expensive and disruptive exercise should be called to a halt now with the Great Western route renationalised using the mechanism established by the publicly-owned DOR rather than waiting for a last ditch public sector rescue operation.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow [seated on the platform with Ed Miliband at the Durham Miners’ Gala] said:

“Clearly the talks with First are in trouble, otherwise DOR wouldn’t have set up GW Railways and wouldn’t have applied for the certification and licensing to sweep up the mess created by a another twist in the sorry shambles of rail franchising in the wake of the West Coast fiasco.

“First Group have already soaked up over a billion pounds in taxpayer bailouts and dodged premiums in the past two years and it just makes you wonder what shed loads of cash they are trying to lever out of the Government in the talks currently under way.

“This nonsense could be ended right now with the Great Western route renationalised, East Coast left to operate in public hands, the rest of the franchises brought under public control and the whole lot brought back under one national organisation run in the interests of public service and not private greed.”