Crash is another setback for rail chief

BRITAIN: It has been a bad week for the Transport Secretary, Mr Stephen Byers

BRITAIN: It has been a bad week for the Transport Secretary, Mr Stephen Byers. Narrowly avoiding losing his job over the "Sixsmith affair" and the resignation that never was, yesterday's derailment of a passenger train at Potters Bar a few miles north of London brings even more bad news to his department.

After the Hatfield train crash in October 2000, in which four people died and 87 were injured when a London to Leeds express was derailed due to a defective track, the rail industry focused all its attention on safety. Passengers endured months of delays as tracks across Britain's rail network were checked for defects.

But according to rail experts, the industry was beginning to turn the corner, despite the psychological blow inflicted by Mr Byers when he put the network's owner and operator, Railtrack, into administration. Passenger figures were also beginning to rise and the memory of Hatfield and the Ladbroke Grove train crash, when 31 people were killed when a driver passed a red signal in October 1999, was beginning to fade.

In a rowdy Commons session on Thursday, Mr Byers had mounted a bullish defence of his statement in February that his communications chief, Mr Martin Sixsmith, had in fact resigned. Insisting that he had spoken on the basis of briefings from his permanent secretary, Sir Richard Mottram, Mr Byers said he had not "misled" the House, although he acknowledged the information was incorrect.

READ MORE

Labour backbenchers rallied behind him, but the Conservatives, enraged that Mr Byers had not apologised or conceded that he had misled MPs, repeatedly called for his resignation.

The show of support from the Labour backbenches and his defiant performance in the face of Conservative accusations that he could no longer perform his job effectively seems to have secured Mr Byers a temporary reprieve. However, the Transport Secretary may have secured his position only in the short-term with some Labour backbenchers warning this week: "Byers is safe until the next row." The thinking in Westminster is that Mr Blair could decide to move Mr Byers to a more junior position in Government in a summer reshuffle.

While it is too early to pinpoint the exact cause of yesterday's train incident - some reports said debris had been left on the track - Mr Byers seems likely to face difficult questions about the level of investment on Britain's railways and its worrying safety record.