Sacking Southern still an option says Minister!

In the latest stage of his campaign to sack Southern Rail, Carshalton & Wallington MP Tom Brake took his request for decisive action to the Rail Minister, Jo Johnson.

In a meeting with Mr Johnson at the Department for Transport last week, after describing three years of repeated failures of Southern’s services, Tom put the Minister on the spot, asking if sacking Southern was an option the Government was keeping open.

Although it was not the Government’s preferred option, the Minister confirmed booting Southern out had not been excluded.

Tom Brake has previously met with senior managers from GTR, including their new Chief Executive Patrick Verwer, and Network Rail to raise passengers’ concerns with them directly, whilst also challenging the Transport Secretary directly in the House of Commons. 

Carshalton & Wallington MP Tom Brake said:

"There is chaos on our railways and it’s all happening under the less-than-watchful eye of our inept Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling.

"It is a pity Mr Grayling does not spend more time sorting out problems he is responsible for on our railways and less time pontificating on the so-called benefits of Brexit.  

"For Eurostar, the ‘benefits’ of a No Deal Brexit, which many suspect Mr Grayling would favour, simply involves the service stopping running at all.  At least then Mr Grayling wouldn’t have to worry about making the Eurostars run on time."