Lilian Greenwood MP, Labour’s Shadow Rail Minister, responding to revelations that the Government has refused to release rail upgrade documents and that Network Rail informed the Department for Transport back in March that key improvements could be put on hold, said:

“Ministers have covered up the extent of Network Rail’s problems for months and they are still failing to come clean with passengers and the public. There are serious questions to answer over the conduct of senior Conservative politicians who promised to deliver vital electrification projects during the election, only to then shelve them once the ballot boxes had closed.

“Labour warned that the electrification programme was under severe strain during the last Parliament, as did industry experts and the Transport Select Committee. The Government’s insistence that it was unaware of the extent of these problems is becoming less believable by the day.

“Now, after weeks of denials from Ministers, Network Rail has confirmed that the Government was told in March that key improvements could be put on hold. The Transport Secretary must explain why he failed to share this key information with the Prime Minister before the election, or with the Transport Select Committee earlier this week. There can now be no doubt that Ministers knew that important projects faced the axe, but they chose to mislead voters in the Midlands and the North instead of admitting the truth.

“We need to know the true extent of the black hole in Network Rail’s budget because other important projects are also at risk of being ‘paused’ or cancelled outright. The Government’s refusal to release this latest set of documents will inevitably raise suspicions that Ministers are still failing to come clean on the growing crisis on Britain’s railways.”