Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has ridiculed Grant Shapps after the transport secretary made inaccurate claims about the amount of train services running during recent strike action.
Mr Shapps was claiming to correct BBC reporting when he incorrectly stated that rail operator Avanti was running four direct trains an hour from Manchester to London - in fact it was running just one direct train an hour.
It comes in the middle of two separate days of national strike action on the railways by the RMT and TSSA unions and various strikes on London’s network.
As Transport Network has reported, city mayors representing the Labour party, such as Mr Burnham, have called on Mr Shapps to take action over severe cuts to the West Coast Main Line.
This has been caused by staff shortages, which in turn have resulted from drivers choosing not to work rest days - something both Avanti and Mr Shapps described as unofficial industrial action.
On the BBC’s Breakfast programme on Friday morning (19 August), Mr Shapps claimed that the progamme had ‘incorrectly told your viewers there is only one train running from Manchester to London’.
He added: ‘That’s not the case, even under the reduced timetable; it’s four trains an hour…direct trains.’ The National Rail Enquiries website shows that there is just one direct train an hour from Manchester (Piccadilly) to London (Euston) throughout Friday.
Mr Burnham wrote on Twitter: ‘What hope do we have when the Transport Secretary doesn’t know the details of the reduced timetable he signed off?’
Source: National Rail Enquiries
Mr Shapps also blamed the RMT union, which held 24-hour strikes across the rail network on Thursday and Saturday over pay and other issues, for not putting pay offers to its members.
He said: ‘We've had a situation where 8% over two years has been offered.’
The current annual CPI rate of inflation, published this week, is 10.1% and has been forecast to rise as high as 15%. Mr Shapps also threatened to impose reforms on the rail industry without union agreement.
The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) said it had not heard from train operating companies since an ‘insulting’ initial offer, which 'forced' many of its members to take strike action for the first time, arguing that this is largely down to the Department for Transport.
General secretary Manuel Cortes said: 'For many of our members yesterday was the first time they have taken part in industrial action after years of working on the railways.
'We very much hope that common sense will now prevail, and the Department for Transport Train Operators will make a revised offer, as we have heard nothing from them since their derisory and insulting 2% pay offer, with more strings attached than a violin quartet, many weeks ago.'
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