Government has “lost the plot” over East Coast Main Line privatisation

Commenting on today’s (Friday) announcement by the government on the re-privatisation of the East Coast Main Line, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:

“The government has completely lost the plot over its handling of our railways. Since returning to public ownership the East Coast Main Line has flourished, with rising customer satisfaction levels and £800m returned to the UK taxpayer.

“Directly Operated Railways has re-invested profits in improving the service rather than lining the pockets of shareholders. Ministers have chosen to ignore this and are once more putting the interests of private companies before those of passengers and taxpayers.

“The government doesn’t have one good argument for re-privatising the line and is yet again being blinded by outdated market dogma. As with the Royal Mail, it is putting ideology before evidence in its desire to sell off yet another important state asset.”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- Last week campaigners handed in a petition to the Department for Transport signed by more than 23,000 rail passengers which called for the East Coast Main Line to remain in public ownership. For more information click here - http://actionforrail.org/petition-to-keep-east-coast-main-line-public/

- A copy of the petition can be found here http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/keep-east-coast-public

- The TUC’s campaign plan can be downloaded from www.tuc.org.uk/campaignplan

- All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk

- Follow the TUC on Twitter: @tucnews

Contacts:

Media enquiries:
Liz Chinchen   T: 020 7467 1248    M: 07778 158175    E: media@tuc.org.uk
Rob Holdsworth    T: 020 7467 1372    M: 07717 531150     E: rholdsworth@tuc.org.uk
Elly Gibson   T: 020 7467 1337    M: 07900 910624     E: egibson@tuc.org.uk