30th October

No new money in bogus "£85 billion rail plan" as RMT exposes double accounting and phoney figures behind the spin

RAIL UNION RMT today slammed industry bosses club the Rail Delivery Group for pumping out the same old stream of bogus propaganda this morning in a desperate bid to con people into buying their claim that private train operating companies are investing in the UK when, in fact, they are robbing hundreds of millions of pounds from the British people to invest in domestic transport operations in other parts of Europe.

Having now had a chance to now look at the flimsy Rail Delivery Group report, RMT is not surprised to find that it contains absolutely nothing new;
• In a speech to the UK Rail Industry Forum on 14 Sep 2016 Rail Delivery Group (RDG) chief Paul Plummer praised the industry's Railway Upgrade Plan of over £50 billion, and why the investment is needed. ... As well as £11.6bn being spent on 5,500 new carriages by the private sector.
• Then again he pops in March this year to remind us that “the £50 billion plus Railway Upgrade Plan will help ease the congestion on Britain’s railway.

• This time round the report says 6 times that the private sector is investing £11.5 billion in the desperate hope that someone will believe them.

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:
“The much-hyped Rail Delivery Group’s plans for Britain’s railways do not stand up to scrutiny and are exposed as yet another fraud imposed on the British travelling public by a racketeering rail industry that is out of control.

“There is not a penny piece of new money in any of this and the cash that is being talked up is British taxpayer and fare-payer money that has already been announced and spun up on numerous occasions in the past. It is double-accounting on an epic scale which leaves the foreign companies that own the vast bulk of Britain’s railways free to carry on fleecing passengers in the UK in order to invest in services in Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam. That is a national scandal.

“That racket should be called to a halt and there should also be some thorough scrutiny of the fare payer and tax payer money that is being used to finance this pro-Government propaganda through the Tory Party cheerleaders in the self-styled Rail Delivery Group.

“It is thoroughly sickening to hear industry bosses on the media this morning talking up the role of staff in delivering rail services, the very same safety-critical staff that Rail Delivery Group members are determined to throw off our trains.

"RMT will continue to fight for a genuine single and publicly owned railway as part of a fully integrated transport policy that puts the needs of the people, our communities and our economy before those of the profiteers".