Responding to today’s House of Commons Transport Committee Report on Rail 2020, RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:
“Whilst this report reinforces once again that our railways are nothing more than a multi-billion pound rip off lining the pockets of a bunch of spivs and speculators it ducks the real issue, and that’s the cast-iron case for public ownership.
“You can’t have transparency, accountability and value for money while our railways are bust apart and run as a money-making racket for a gang of private operators.
“Until Labour and the rest of the political class wake up to that fact, the great British rail robbery will continue unchecked with passengers bled dry while the train companies are laughing all the way to the bank.
“The report also shines a light on the lethal safety implications of cutting station, track and on-train staff – all measures that are right at the heart of the Government’s McNulty rail review proposals currently working their way through the parliamentary process.
“If the politicians don’t halt McNulty, and reverse the rip-off of privatisation, the public can expect to pay through the nose to travel on an unsafe, overcrowded railway run solely in the interests of private profit”.
