Ministers accused of ‘talking down’ East Coast line

Shadow Transport Minister Lilian Greenwood said Ministers are so keen to re-privatise the route linking London, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds, York and Edinburgh that they redacted a prospectus for the proposed sell-off to make the line seem less successful than it actually is.

The line was placed under public ownership in the autumn of 2009 after the collapse of the last private franchise, but it is due to be transferred back into private hands in two years’ time. As part of the privatisation, a prospectus has been drawn up outlining details of the sell-off.

But Ms Greenwood told a debate in Westminster Hall that changes had been made to the report to make it appear public ownership had not been successful.

She said: “It is clear that at a late stage, a decision was taken to alter the positive references to East Coast’s performance since 2009. So the sentence ‘staff engagement is at an all time high’ was altered to ‘staff engagement has improved’. Then there was a reference to ‘the current successful business’, downgraded to just ‘the current business’.”

She said other facts were “erased completely”. The details of the changed document come in the wake of a long-running campaign to keep the line in public hands. More than 60 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion calling on the Government not to re-privatise the line.

Campaigners have highlighted figures announced last month which showed that East Coast paid £208m in premium and dividend payments to the Treasury in the last financial year, rather than passing on profits to shareholders in the usual way.

But Transport Minister Stephen Hammond said Labour was driven by “dogma” and wanted to renationalise the entire rail network. “The Government are putting in place the process that will deliver the best partner to deliver the best benefit for all customers on the East Coast main line,” he said.