Taxpayer pays bill for private rail says union
RAIL union the RMT has warned of a new drive led by Sir Richard Branson on the West Coast to privatise Britain’s railway tracks and stations.
It follows a report which found private train companies are “heavily dependent upon the public purse”.
The TUC-commissioned report by the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change found the top five companies received almost £3bn in taxpayer support between 2007 and 2011, allowing them to make profits of £504m – £466m of which went to shareholders. Although direct expenditure on rail has more than doubled to £4bn since privatisation, fares are now higher than in other major European countries.
General Secretary Bob Crow said the report “nails once and for all the lies and myths that rail privatisation has somehow benefitted our railways”.