SOUTHEASTERN DEBACLE REVIEW A ‘FARCE’

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: november/december 2021 :: RMTnews 11 R MT has slammed the Department for Transport’s ‘independent’ review into financial ‘bad faith’ on Southeastern railways as a ‘fatally compromised farce’ in which the public could have no confidence. The union has called on the Public Accounts Committee to examine the actions of the DfT and reiterated its demand that the government cancel its tendering process for the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise, currently held by the same company that ran Southeastern, and run it in public ownership through the Operator of Last Resort. The union’s call followed a letter from Secretary of State Grant Shapps to correspondence from general secretary Mick Lynch which posed a series of questions about the department’s handling of the Southeastern debacle. Mr Shapps’s letter confirmed that: • The supposedly ‘independent’ review into Southeastern’s wrongdoing, including into whether any further money is due to be repaid to the British taxpayer, is being led by the chairs of the companies involved, people who are employees and in the case of Go-Ahead, shareholders of the companies responsible • That the Department for Transport is not conducting its own review but will only examine evidence given to them by the company’s review • That the results of the review will inform the decision as to whether Govia will be allowed to continue running the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise •  The letter also raises more questions about how much the DfT knew about financial irregularities at the time it awarded Southeastern a government bailout in March 2020. LSER made a £7.9 million profit out of the six-month Emergency Measures Agreement. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said that the review was a fatally compromised farce. “The government has accused this company of breaching financial good faith to the tune of at least £25 million, stripped it of its franchise and admitted that there may be more to uncover, so these people have form, yet unbelievably, it’s quite content to let them effectively investigate themselves. “To make matters worse, these groups have a material interest in clearing themselves to make sure they keep their last franchise. This is totally irresponsible and either means the government doesn’t want anything else to come out or that they’ve got no confidence that their officials could uncover the truth even if they tried. “I’m calling on the Public Accounts Committee to question the government as a matter of urgency and I’m reiterating my demand that the government takes the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise into public ownership now,” he said.  R MT has called on the government to deliver guarantees for UK workers following BP's announcement of £2.5 billion second quarter profits for 2021 and a dividend scheme that locks in a four per cent increase from oil and gas operations, including in the North Sea to 2025. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said that BP and other North Sea operators were wallowing in profit from rising oil and gas prices whilst thousands of skilled installation jobs have been lost since January 2020. “My members and their colleagues in the fossil fuel sector have skills with a high degree of transferability to renewable energy and carbon capture and storage but they continue to be discarded by the oil majors while their contractors in the supply chain are squeezed into contracts that just break even or make losses. “Without guarantees over investment in offshore workers jobs and livelihoods, booming profits in oil and gas will mean that governments will miss interim Net Zero targets and drive job losses in oil and gas communities on a par with the Thatcher government's politically motivated destruction of the domestic coal mining industry. “We sincerely hope that the trade union movement at COP26 use BP's announcement to reinforce demands for a Just Transition for my members and their communities,” he said.   Union calls for Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchises to be taken into public ownership RMT CONDEMNS BP PROFITEERING WITHOUT INVESTMENT SOUTHEASTERN DEBACLE REVIEW A ‘FARCE’