Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, has been accused of passing the buck over severe rail disruption on Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern trains, for which he blamed staff shortages caused by “militant unions”.
A report from the National Audit Office criticises the government’s management of the UK’s largest rail franchise, held by Govia Thameslink, and concludes that policy decisions have had a negative impact on millions of passengers.
The report says Department for Transport officials failed to grasp the potential impact on passengers of combining an increase in capacity, targets to improve services and the increase in driver-only operated trains, which led to strikes by union members.
However, Grayling said blame for the disruption should primarily be shouldered by the unions for their decision to take industrial action.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The one problem with the NAO report is that they are not able to assess the impact of industrial action on services. I’m afraid it was industrial action. It was the unnecessary action of militant trade unions that caused the vast majority of disruption for passengers, which was awful, I know. It’s not passing the buck.”
Grayling said he was “extremely sorry that passengers on Southern have had such a bad time” and acknowledged that some mistakes had been made by his department, by Network Rail and in the operation of the franchise. But he said he “makes no apology” for deciding to support upgrades to the infrastructure and changes to the ways rail staff worked.
Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary, said Grayling was “in complete denial about his shortcomings and those of his department”.
He said: “It’s a poor do when he seeks to trash the NAO, and if he wants to look again at the Gibb report, that doesn’t cover him in glory either. There is a consistent theme that there was a complete lack of preparedness when it came to the franchise.”
Since Govia began operating the full franchise in July 2015, around 146,000 trains, or 7.7% of all services, have either been cancelled or delayed by more than half an hour, compared with 2.8% on the rest of the network.
Rail unions said Grayling and his predecessor, Patrick McLoughlin, should be held to account for mishandling the franchise.
Mick Whelan, the general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, said: “On their watch as the secretaries of state for transport, they let the DfT get it wrong. Passengers have suffered, totally unnecessarily, and taxpayers have had to pick up the bill.”
The head of the RMT, Mick Cash, whose union has been in a dispute with Southern over the role of guards for 20 months, said wasted money could have guaranteed having guards on the trains.
“It was instead wasted propping up the private owners while they presided over the worst rail franchise in the country. This is a scandal of epic proportions,” he said.
