Labour’s new Great British Railways boss to be paid £300,000 for working a two-and-a-half day week to supervise nationalisation of trains
The executive who will oversee Labour’s mass renationalisation of the rail network is to be paid up to £300,000 for working two-and-a-half days a week.
An advert for the job of chairman of Great British Railways offers the annul salary for a three-year term, working 10 days a month.
Equivalent to a £600,000 full time salary it is, pro-rata, more than three times the Prime Minster’s £172,000 pay, and equates to £2,500 per day.
In a letter accompanying the advert, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said that the winning candidate will oversee an organisation with ‘£20 billion expenditure and over 100,000 employees’, with a ‘bold mission to reimagine how rail serves the nation’.
The Department for Transport said the appointment would save money, as it merges two existing positions, including chairman of Network Rail.
Interested candidates have until February 23 to apply, with the winner unveiled in April.
Richard Holden, the shadow transport secretary, said: ‘GBR is shaping up to be a monolithic monster, built for Labour’s union paymasters, by the Labour Government, but paid for by passengers and taxpayers.
An advert for the job of chairman of Great British Railways offers the annul salary for a three-year term, working 10 days a month.
Equivalent to a £600,000 full time salary it is, pro-rate, three times what the Prime Minster is paid, and equates to £2,500 per day.
In a letter, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said that the winning candidate will oversee an organisation with ‘a ‘bold mission to reimagine how rail serves the nation’
‘Labour are charging taxpayers £300,000 a year for a part-time chairman, while fares rise, services falter and billions are poured into Labour’s state-run gravy train bureaucracy.
‘Passengers were promised a railway run for them. Labour are cooking-up a sprawling mish-mash run by well-paid insiders, insulated from accountability, while the public foot the bill.’
GBR is due to roll out to trains, websites and stations from next spring. The state-owned company unveiled its red, white and blue branding before Christmas.
It will bring together 17 different organisations and ministers claim it will ‘cut through the frustrating bureaucracy and lack of accountability that continues to plague the railways’.
The Government announced in November that rail fares in England would be frozen next year for the first time in 30 years.
The freeze until March 2027 will apply to regulated fares, which includes season tickets and off-peak returns.
A DfT spokesman said: ‘The GBR chairman’s salary is lower than previous similar positions. This is also rightly much lower than salaries in similar-sized private organisations.’
