DafT surrenders!

Good news for the Roscos.

Following the embarrassment of the Competition Commission pointing out that it was DafT's own franchising policy that made rolling stock expensive rather than monopolistic Roscos, the Department appears to have retreated into its Marsham Street bunker.

This defeatist written answer on the 18 Dec last year

Adrian Sanders (Deputy Chief Whips, Torbay, Liberal Democrat) Hansard source
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the economic downturn on rolling stock operating companies; and if he will make a statement.

Paul Clark (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Gillingham, Labour)
This is a business issue for the rolling stock leasing companies and is not for the Department for Transport to determine.

Perhaps if DafT had adopted this approach in the first place it wouldn't have jizzed several million quid of our money up the wall in initiating a pointless Coco investigation.

UPDATE: Captain Deltic snorts...

Several million??

More like £25 million minimum!