Nick Ferrari Asks Chris Grayling To Justify Rail Boss' Big Pay Rise
2 January 2019, 09:42
Nick Ferrari grilled the Transport Secretary on how he can justify the high payrises for rail bosses after fares went up again today.
Commuters are now paying an average of 3.1% more to travel on the trains following the rises that came into effect this morning.
But Nick queried why the people running the train network are getting such big payrises considering punctuality is at a 13-year low.
After establishing that train workers got on average a 3-4% payrise, Nick asked: "How does that square with Susan Cooklin, Network Rail's Route Services Director, who saw her salary rise last year from £350,000 to £380,000, near enough a 10% increase.
"How come the bosses get more for a failing service?"
Mr Grayling responded: "What I've done in bringing in a new Chief Exec for Network Rail is to cut the pay of the Network Rail Chief Exec by around a quarter, because I want to bring down pay levels.
"I also want to make sure we get the best people to do the jobs, because the reality is if we lose the best people to the private sector to run railways around the world, which does happen frequently, we don't have the skills we need to make the railways run as well as I'd want them to."
