Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has come under fire after it emerged he was on a visit to Qatar on the same day millions of Britons faced inflation-busting rail rises.
Labour said Grayling had ‘gone into hiding’ after Downing Street revealed that the minister was in the Gulf state to meet its Prime Minister, finance and transport ministers and the CEOs of Qatar Investment Authority and Qatar Airways.
Back in the UK, average rail ticket prices rose by 3.4% - the biggest increase to fares since 2013 - and the hike first began to bite on Tuesday as many returned to work after the Christmas break.
Protests were staged at around 40 stations, with many commuters seeing their season tickets go up by more than £100. Research by the TUC also found UK passengers spent five times as much as rail travellers in other EU countries.
No.10 said “we understand people’s concerns about increases in rail fares and the cost of living” and stressed that it kept “under review” the rises and their relation to average earnings.
But not a single UK transport minister was available to defend the fare hikes on the media and Downing Street faced a swift backlash when it announced Grayling was on a two-day trip to sunny Qatar, to be followed by another trip to Turkey.
Asked if Theresa May felt it was ‘appropriate’ for the Transport Secretary to be out of the country on the day many people were hit by the fare hikes, her spokesman replied: “The fare rises we have known were coming for a while.”
Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald seized on that admission that ministers had known precisely when to be in the country - or out of it.
He told HuffPost UK: “Passengers won’t appreciate the fact that Chris Grayling is sunning himself in Qatar while passengers are suffering inflation busting fares, broken down trains and freezing conditions.
“The Secretary of State for Transport’s failure to publicly explain to rail passengers why they are being hit with crushing fare increases today smacks of a man running scared.
“Chris Grayling won’t defend his multi-million pound bailout of Stagecoach on the East Coast line because he can’t. Passengers and taxpayers deserve better than a failing Transport Secretary who refuses to defend his track record.”
Grayling is already under heavy fire amid claims that the taxpayer is footing the bill for a £2bn ‘bail out’ of a Stagecoach-Virgin contract that will end earlier than expected on the London-Edinburgh line.
Vince Cable, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: “Rail passengers are shivering on platforms angered by the biggest fare increase in years while Chris Grayling is off globetrotting.
“It’s very difficult to see what useful function he can perform in Qatar and Turkey that our excellent trade officials could not.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman moved to dismiss speculation that Grayling would be fired in the Cabinet reshuffle expected next week.
Asked if the PM had confidence in him, the spokesman replied: “Chris Grayling is working hard and doing a good job as Transport Secretary.”
No.10 said that the private rail companies had been leading the response on the fare hikes but stressed that ministers were listening to the public
“The Government carefully monitors how rail fares and average earnings changes and keeps the way fare levels are calculated under review,” the spokesman added.
Meanwhile, Labour frontbencher McDonald was stranded with other passengers on a Virgin train on the troubled East Coast rail line - just outside Grantham in Lincolnshire.
The PM’s spokesman said: “The Secretary of State for Transport is currently on his way to Qatar for a two-day visit.
“The fare rises we have known were coming for a while and the Department for Transport has issued a full statement responding to those rises.”
He added that 97p of every pound spent on tickets was ploughed back into investment in the railways.
The spokesman flatly denied Labour claims that the East Coast rail franchise was a rip-off for the public, despite former National Infrastructure Commission chief Lord Adonis citing the deal as one reason for his resignation this week.
“Any suggestion that taxpayers will be out of pocket is wrong. No one is getting a bail-out”.
The Department for Transport has been asked to explain the timing and rationale behind Grayling’s visit to the Gulf state.
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