Author Archives: GovWorldMag

Andy McDonald MP, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary, responding to the failure of the East Coast franchise, said:

“The Government is trying to bury the news that they’re giving Stagecoach and Virgin a get out of jail free card to walk away from their franchise and a potential £2billion of payments to the Treasury.

“It is outrageous that the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is refusing to answer what the true cost to the public purse will be.

“Under public ownership, the East Coast Mainline returned over £1bn to the Treasury, outperformed its commercial competitors and kept fares down when no private operators made the same move.

“When the Tories cynically re-privatised the line on the eve of the 2015 General Election, they said the decision would deliver for the British taxpayer, but we’re now being left with a colossal tab.

“The Government must now come clean and reveal the true cost to the public purse of this decision and bring to an end the costly failure that is privatised rail.”

Liam Byrne MP, Labour’s Shadow Digital Minister, responding to the news that Google are facing legal action for alleged unlawful data collection, said:

“The scale of this case shows the imbalance of power between everyday people and the companies that hoover up their data to make money.

“Google ‘You Owe Us’ legal challenge seeks to bring justice to the millions of people who may have had their data unlawfully collected and, if successful, will ensure companies like Google act in good faith when it comes to users’ data.

“The Data Protection Bill is currently going through Parliament and Labour will be aiming to put trust at the heart of the UK’s new data protection system to ensure companies can innovate but only if they collect and use data responsibly.”