Labour has lashed out at Stagecoach, Britain’s second biggest bus company and the winner of the east coast rail franchise, as “dinosaurs” after its chief executive criticised the party’s plans for more public control of transport.
Responding to comments made by Stagecoach’s chief executive, Martin Griffiths, in an interview in the Guardian, shadow transport secretary Michael Dugher said: “Martin Griffiths is complaining about being underpaid, but he earned £2.2m last year, including a bonus of £600,000. What planet does he live on?”
Stagecoach is one of the main operators opposing moves by northern regional transport authorities to regulate bus services, the first outside London since the privatisation under the Thatcher government. Labour has promised to ease legislation to enable councils to take more control but Griffiths said the party was talking “nonsense” and had “crazy ideas” about bus and rail.
Dugher said: “The truth is the bus barons are giving themselves massive bonuses while cutting crucial routes and hitting passengers with fare hikes. On David Cameron’s watch, over 1,300 bus routes in England have been cut and fares have risen by 25% – an increase five times faster than wage growth. Now Stagecoach is trying to hold the travelling public to ransom by threatening to take their buses off the roads in the North East. It is clear that, like in the energy sector, the bus market is broken.”
Stagecoach will be running the east coast rail service from 2015 as a majority partner with Richard Branson’s Virgin, after the coalition prioritised returning the line to a private company following five years in which it was run by the state. Dugher said that Griffiths’ comments called into question the government’s decision. He said: “The public sector operator achieved top customer satisfaction ratings, established itself as one of the best train operating companies in the country, and will have returned over £1bn to the Exchequer. Now they have privatised it and handed it over to the likes of Mr Griffiths.
“Mr Griffiths is a dinosaur and the best advert possible for Labour’s plans to give communities power over their local bus services and to ensure we can have a public sector operator for our railways.”
A spokesman for Stagecoach said it was “disappointing” that Dugher was making “baseless personal attacks and twisting the facts”. He said: “The reality is that 97 pence in every pound of rail fares goes back into running the network. Stagecoach rail businesses make the biggest contribution to the taxpayer of any operator. Commercial bus operators have grown the size of the bus network over each of the past four years. In contrast, bus routes funded by the public sector have been cut by 24% in the past four years.
“The harsh reality is that Labour’s uncosted and unnecessary plans for buses will lead to higher fares and bigger tax bills.”
