Tom Watson calls for Chris Grayling to resign

Labour's deputy leader issued a statement yesterday in the wake of Lord Adonis quitting as an infrastructure tsar last week.

The Labour peer resigned after claiming a decision to allow Virgin Trains East Coast to walk away early from a £3.3bn contract showed the Government’s running of the country had 'essentially broken down in the face of Brexit'.

Lord Adonis further suggested Mr Grayling's position would 'become untenable'.

And West Bromwich West MP Mr Watson added fuel to the fire last night by directly calling for the Transport Secretary to step down.

He said: "Chris Grayling should resign as Transport Secretary following his grubby back-room deal to bail out the East Coast line.

"As my colleague Andrew Adonis has made clear, Grayling could have easily opted for a state rescue.

"But that would have meant borrowing a key Labour policy – talking our failing rail system back into the public sector.

"Instead, Grayling has agreed to hand over billions of pounds of our money to the ridiculously wealthy Richard Branson and Brian Souter.

"Using taxpayers' money as an act of political expediency is indefensible and Grayling should go now."

Lord Adonis, himself a former Transport Secretary, resigned as chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission on Friday, claiming the Prime Minister had sided with Ukip and the 'Tory hard right' over her Brexit plans to leave the EU's single market and customs union.

But he also said he would have been compelled to quit over the East Coast row.

Virgin Trains East Coast, a partnership between Stagecoach and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin, had previously agreed to pay the Government £3.3 billion to run the service until 2023 but has been allowed to walk away three years early.

A new East Coast Partnership will take on responsibility for both intercity trains and track operations on the route in 2020.

A Department for Transport spokesman said: "No-one is getting a bailout and Virgin Stagecoach will continue to meet its financial commitments made on the East Coast rail franchise to the taxpayer as it has done since 2015.

"Stagecoach has also – on average – paid 20 per cent more back to the taxpayer than when the line was operated by Directly Operated Rail and we continue to receive hundreds of millions of pounds.

"The decision to bring in a partnership to run the service from 2020 is to ensure the train companies work more closely with those responsible for the infrastructure, like the track and signalling, to help improve the service for passengers."