Corridor connection leads to brief encounter

This from Gwynneth Dunchairing...

Who should the Secretary of State's team meet in the corridor outside the TSC this evening, but the SoS for International Development!

Justine Greening (for it was she) asked how it had gone?

An evidently busy McLoughlin appeared unable to chat, leaving a couple of nervous officials to explain the TSC's exhaustive interest in InterCity West Coast and franchising policy.

"Oh. Well I hope it went OK" she said, flushed bright red and ran off frowning intently at her BlackBerry.

No doubt a text from the PM? Ah, the benefits of promotion.

Ministers not responsible for ICWC fiasco - Official

Good news for the government in the Transport Select Committee's report into the InterCity West Coast fiasco!

We now know that the following is self evidently not the case:

“More than 45 million pounds of public money has been wasted, the department and the United Kingdom have suffered huge reputational damage and the railway industry is left in a state of uncertainty and therefore Ministers in post at the time of this fiasco should consider their position.”

Indeed!

Furthermore the following actions are not required:

“Ministers at the time must take responsibility for their mistakes and misjudgements.”

Quite so.

And how do we know that Hammond, Greening and Villiers should shoulder none of the blame? 

Because the following coalition members of the TSC voted against the above paragraphs being included in the final report:

• Steve Baker (Con)
• Karen Lumley (Con)
• Karl McCartney (Con)
• Adrian Sanders (LibDem)
• Iain Stewart (Con)

Just fancy that! 

UPDATE: This from Diamond Bob...

I thought Eye readers might be interested in these wise words from iDave when reflecting on another leader whose organisation went seriously awry:

"People want to see real accountability for what has happened. When people have broken the rules, they should face the consequences and this needs a change of culture absolutely."

Yes, Prime Minister. Absolutely.

Greening's accountancy skills explained

With the role of Justine Greening in the ICWC franchise scandal receiving increasing attention, Eye thought the following tale might be instructive.
 
It dates from the publication of the Command Paper in March this year and records an exchange between the then Secretary of State for Transport and the World's Greatest Living Transport Correspondent.

Christian Wolmar (for it is he) recorded it in RAIL as follows:

When I suggested that it was unclear where the savings were coming from, I was roundly slapped down by La Greening.  We were allowed one question each in the press briefing on the Command Paper and I had asked her where the £3.5 bn annual savings would come from in the rail industry as it seemed an incredibly high proportion of the overall costs and I had not found any details in the McNulty report on the industry’s finances published last year. ‘Well’ she said, staring hard at me, ‘I’m glad you didn’t write the paper as it is clear that these saving can be made’.

Quite so minister, quite so.

Perhaps similar words of comfort relating to the ICWC franchise award, and in written form, sit in Philip Rutnam's desk?

UPDATE: This from the Prophet Job...

According to Conservative Home...

"It seems that auditors from PriceWaterhouseCoopers were called in by Justine Greening one week before the reshuffle. Those auditors discovered that officials hadn't properly accounted for inflation in their decision to award the West Coast Mainline to FirstGroup rather than Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Trains."

With one bound she was free! 

UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...

Hold on!

According to Politics Home...

A Downing Street spokesman said she should not have been expected to know of the issues earlier, as they involved extremely complex minutiae that ministers would not be involved in.  

Nonsense. Greening is/was accountable for the process!

Exciting Eye Competition: Spot the Greening!

Time for an exciting new Eye competition!

Despite there having been two major transport announcements in the last 24 hours (fares increases and the winner of the West Coast franchise) the Secretary of State for Transport has gone missing!

Look at the picture below.

Using your skill and judgement can you help the DfT find Justine Greening?

Clue: She's not there.

Perhaps in the reshuffle iDave can give us a full time Secretary of State for Transport?

Command Paper - Executive remuneration

This from Our Man at 222 Marylebone Road...

From the Command Paper

Executive remuneration has been the focus of public debate.

As a private sector company, Network Rail sets performance pay levels for its senior staff. In response to questions from the wider public about bonus awards that have been perceived as excessive in relation to Network Rail performance levels, Network Rail has worked with the ORR under the terms of its licence to adapt its remuneration approach.

The ORR has made clear throughout this review that its objective is to ensure that Network Rail’s executive bonus payouts are simple, transparent and clearly aligned with performance, meeting long-term taxpayer objectives by rewarding only sustained out performance of long-term financial targets, notably efficiency, while also reinforcing the need to hit overall non-financial regulatory targets, including safety and reliability.

So why was Ms Greening prepared to vote down the Annual Incentive Plan which Network Rail and ORR had worked together to adapt and ORR had cleared?

I ask only out of curiosity.

Greening to meet the railway she runs?

Eye's man with the soothing bedside manner has been in contact.

Apparently Cruella will be spending more time than expected under doctor's orders, following her recent bicycle contretemps.

Eye of course joins the rest of the railway in wishing Theresa a speedy recovery.

However, every cloud and all that.

With the department one minister down it will fall to the Captain of Netball to sell the government's exciting new franchising policy to a frankly sceptical industry.

No doubt there is growing panic in Marsham Street that Ms Greening might actually start meeting people who run real trains?

Greening grounds Maglev

Glad tidings from the Captain of the Netball Team...

Steven Baker (Wycombe, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment she has made of the potential of magnetic levitation technology for use in the next generation of high-speed trains.

Justine Greening (Economic Secretary, HM Treasury; Putney, Conservative)
Work by the Department for the 2007 White Paper, “Delivering a Sustainable Railway”, found that magnetic levitation technology would be significantly more expensive than high speed rail and would not enable trains to run seamlessly onto existing inter-city routes, serving a wider range of destinations.

The few instances of magnetic levitation systems in use around the world operate on a relatively short point-to-point basis and scaling the technology up to a national network is unproven.

There are no plans to further consider magnetic levitation as an alternative to a high speed rail network.

Good effort.

Greening appoints Special Advisers

Guido reporting the following have been appointed as Justine Greening's Special Advisers...

Graham Hook as policy SpAd, he’s the former CCHQ briefer for Question Time. Victoria Crawford from the CCHQ press office will handle the media.

More here.

PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: DfT welcomes Greening

Eye hears good things about our new Secretary of State for Transport.

The most frequently used terms are "impressive", "very bright", "on top of her brief" and "showed original thinking".

We shall see.

Meanwhile, Whitehall has been bending over backwards to welcome the Rt Hon Justine Greening MP into the fold.

According to @PaulWaugh:

No doubt this novel way of marking a colleagues 'entrance' was suggested to iDave by his near Cotswold neighbour Rebecca?

No matter.

Not to be outdone the Department for Transport laid on its own unique style of welcome for Greening, as these EXCLUSIVE Eye pictures reveal:


Once inside Great Minster House Justine was afforded a personal audience with the DfT's most senior Mandarin...


Resistance is Futile!

Ticket office closures is first test for Greening

Good news for those concerned about proposals to reduce booking office hours and station staffing!

This from the constituency website of the new Transport Secretary...

Justine Greening said:

"These Government-backed plans will seriously inconvenience thousands of Londoners who use these stations every day. To slash opening times by over 200 hours is staggering- and that's just in London .

"Worse still, the serious cuts in weekend and evening services raise real concerns over passenger safety. Rail passengers already face delays and over-crowding, and now the Government is making it harder for them to simply buy a ticket."

Indeed.

Although these wise words were uttered whilst in opposition, it is surely inconceivable that the MP for Putney will change her tune just because she has moved to Marsham Street?

Justine Greening new Transport Secretary

Eye welcomes Justine Greening, our new Transport Secretary.

And waves farewell to Philip Hammond who moves to Defence after 18 months at Marsham Street.

This biog of the new SofS from Politics.co.uk:

Biography:

Justine Greening was re-elected MP for Putney in May 2010 with a majority of 10,053 votes.

She was elected as the Member of Parliament for Putney in May 2005. In December 2005, she was appointed as a Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party, with responsibility for youth.

In July 2007, Justine was appointed as a Shadow Minister for the Treasury. In January 2009, Justine was appointed Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government by David Cameron. She was appointed economic secretary in the Treasury after the formation of the coalition.

More here...

Let battle commence!