Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I assure my hon. Friend that I asked those questions rigorously in the Department and I have been assured that this was a wholly different process. As I have said, I am awaiting the outcome of the two inquiries that I have set up.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State admit that taxpayers are set to be stung for far more than the £40 million he is paying back to bidders for the west coast franchise, because what he has not included in that figure is the cost of paying back bidders for the suspended Great Western, Essex Thameside and Thameslink franchises? Will he now come clean to taxpayers about exactly how much of their money will be poured down the drain as a result of his franchising fiasco?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I have given the figures that are available to the House. The other contracts to which the hon. Lady refers are on hold—they have not been let.

[Maria Eagle]

Is it not the truth that the cost to taxpayers is likely to be tens of millions of pounds more by the time the Secretary of State has Britain’s rail services back on track? He will hand millions over to private train companies; millions will be spent running three competitions for this franchise when he should have been running only one; and millions more will be lost if companies decide to sue the Government for the losses that his Department’s incompetence have caused them. Instead of the Department for Transport’s own board investigating itself, do not taxpayers deserve a truly independent inquiry into what went wrong and who was to blame for so much of their money being poured down the drain?

[Mr McLoughlin]

When I was told about this incident and the mistakes that were made, I ordered two immediate inquiries. I wanted to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible, and that is what I have done. I am sure that we will not be short of a number of inquiries, which will take place subsequent to the Laidlaw and Richard Brown inquiries. I expect that the Public Accounts Committee will want to look at the issue.