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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 19.5.96
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. Tomorrow we shall know
who's got what in the great Rail Track share sale. We already know that it's
been sold off at a bargain basement price. I'll be asking the Transport
Secretary if he's betrayed a great national heritage, but first the news read
by Moira Stuart.
NEWS.
HUMPHRYS: It's a shorter programme than usual
today and we're devoting all of it to what's become the most controversial
privatisation of them all - the sell-off of the railways. Last week, the share
offer for Rail Track closed and tomorrow we'll know exactly how much the sale
will raise for us, the taxpayers. But as Laura Trevelyan now reports, it's
already been described as the bargain of the century.
HUMPHRYS: Laura Trevelyan reporting.
Sir George Young, hasn't the citizen got
the right to feel angry about a vital national asset being sold off so cheaply?
SIR GEORGE YOUNG: Certainly not. They way we have sold
Rail Track has enabled the market to bid the price that they think it is worth,
and by specifying a range within which the institutions bid we have actually
managed to capture the higher value which we're now seeing the market placing
on it, so not a single bid, but an exercise called book-building, and it's
quite clear that there's been a tremendous appetite to invest in Rail Track,
both from the public, some six-hundred-and-fifty thousand retail applications,
and from the institutions, and I'm greatly reassured that there is this
appetite to invest in the railways of the future, but the railway placed firmly
in the private sector, freed of some of the constraints in the public sector,
rather than the old nationalised industry, which I think was unresponsive to
the needs of the customer, had difficulty getting money from the Treasury. And
quite frankly that portrayal I think is a travesty of what the railway's going
to be like over the next ten years, and far from closing lines we're actually
opening lines. We're opening the Robin Hood line, we've opened or reopened
two-hundred-and twenty stations. The last Labour Government closed about six
hundred. So I'm in the business of expanding, investing, building, improving,
not shrinking and cutting and closing, which was the impression given by that
rather dismal film we've just seen.
HUMPHRYS: Well, you tell us there was a great
appetite for the shares from the public and the institutions. Of course there
was a great appetite for the shares because the whole thing was being sold so
cheaply. If you price something cheap enough people are going to want to buy
it, it stands to reason.
YOUNG: No. What's been happening is the Labour
Party has been going around for the last two weeks saying the shares are too
expensive, don't touch them. Now, apparently they're saying the shares are too
cheap, and I think what has happened is people have actually disregarded what
the Labour Party have had to say about this. Either they don't think they're
going to get in, or if they do get in they'll have the good sense to leave
things alone, which is their policy with all the other privatised industries.
What I want to do is to see a healthy, confident railway industry, investing in
West Coast Mainline. We announced Thames Link Two Thousand a few weeks ago,
six-hundred-and-fifty miillion poundsworth of investment linking the lines
north of the Thames with the lines south of the Thames in London. Now that's
going to be paid for by Rail Track. Previously I would have had to go cap in
hand to the Treasury, bid for the money in competition with Health and
Education, and we might not have got it. So as with other privatisations
putting it in the private sector enables it to access fresh funds from the City
and the constraint about being in the public sector disappears, so I'm looking
for an expansion in the investment not a contraction.
HUMPHRYS: None of which deals with the point that
I made, that you priced it so cheaply, therefore of course there was a huge
response, three or four times over-subscribed. Of course it was
over-subscribed. If I offered to you a tenner for nine quid, you'd say "Yes,
please I'll have lots of those".
YOUNG: Well, let me deal with that point very
directly. Rail Track is not just its assets, it has liabilities. It has to
invest eight billion pounds over the next five years. It's going to modernise
the West Coast Mainline. It has to do Thames Link Two Thousand, and the
value of a company is not simply the cost of its assets. The value of a
company is what is its worth, what is its expenditure, what is its income?
that is how you value a company, you don't just look at the historic costs of
the assets. There are real liabilities and the taxpayer would have had to
bear those liabilities in the future. Those liabilities are being transferred
to the shareholder, and you have to put that on the table when you look at the
balance of advantage as between shareholder and taxpayer.
HUMPHRYS: And the smart guys in the City who put
the bids together who buy the shares, who advise people, know all of that, they
know exactly what something is worth, and they have decided that this is one
heck of a bargain. That's why they were so enthusiastic about buying it,
that's why the shares have been over-subscribed.
YOUNG: But that ignores the point that I made
right at the beginning, that when we put Rail Track on the market we specified
a range, a lower range of three-hundred-and-fifty to three-hundred-and-ninety,
so if indeed it was the case that there was an appetite to invest in the
railways, if people did indeed disregard the propaganda of our opponents, we
could accept the bids at the higher end of the range.
HUMPHRYS: But the higher end of the range was
preposterously low. That's..(INTERRUPTION)..one-point-nine-five billion pounds
is the maximum you can get, and my point is not that it's at the top of that
range, sure it's the top of the range, but what a dismally low range it was in
the first place.
YOUNG: No. Firstly the taxpayer is not just
getting one-point-nine billion. Rail Track are taking over, over half a
billion poundsworth of debt, which will be repaid to the government, bringing
it up to about two-point-six billion, which is roughly what the net asset value
was the last time there was a balance sheet. Sorry?
HUMPHRYS: Whose figures?
YOUNG: Those are audited accounts of Rail
Track. But I think you have to come back to the main point, that this company
does not just have assets, it has obligations, it has committed itself to
spending at least a billion pounds a year on infrastructure. They will have to
raise that money, they'll have to raise it on the strength of the balance
sheet.
HUMPHRYS: I want to come to that in a moment.
YOUNG: So, it's not just a question of what is
it worth, it is a question of what has it committed itself to do. If I can
just, because it is relevant - Rail Track has a regulator, the regulator has
said to Rail Track, "You must reduce by two per cent real, each year the charge
you make to the train operating companies". So it's not a case that they can
increase their charges and try and make lots of profits, nor is it as was
implied, the case that they make a lot of money out of the property. They've
only got the operational property, the non-operational land has remained with
British Rail.
HUMPHRYS: You tell me that the auditors figured it
was worth two-point-six billion, but let me give you another figure. The
Treasury, the guardian of our national treasure, thought a few years ago that
it was worth six-and-a-half billion, three times, more than three times what
it's going to be sold for.
YOUNG: No, no, that is not a figure which I
recognise in the context of the worth of Rail Track as a going concern. The
government has quite specifically not put a value during the whole process of
privatisation on what we thought the shares would go, and you're talking with
great confidence as if you know what's going to happen tomorrow morning when
the market opens.
HUMPHRYS: Well, let me tell you then, for the
benefit of the viewer how the Treasury arrived at that figure. They based it
on the calculation that if Rail Track had stayed in the public sector the
return it would have had to make would have been on six-and-a-half billion.
Now the Treasury are pretty smart at this kind of thing, they do those kind of
sums all the time. That's the figure they came up with, three times, three
times what you are going to raise.
YOUNG: But we have since transferred to Rail
Track a whole range of liabilities, and you have to set those liabilities
against...
HUMPHRYS: The Treasury .......
YOUNG: But they didn't because some of the
liabilities were only incurred in the last few weeks. For example the
liability to invest in Thames Link at a cost of six-hundred-and-fifty million
pounds.
HUMPHRYS: On which there will be a return...
YOUNG: Well, on which there may be a return.
On which there may be a return, but a return that is controlled by the
regulator. He will not let them make a huge sum of money. That is risk
capital that they have got to find and develop.
HUMPHRYS: We're still talking - even if I accept
that figure, which I don't because there's going to be a return, you know that
perfectly well, but even if you accept that figure we're still talking about
way down half of what the Treasury said the thing was worth, the whole
operation was worth.
YOUNG: No, no. I think when you value a
company it is not just the value of its assets, it is the difference between
its expenditure and its income, and it is taking into account of its
liabilities, a contractual liability to invest eight billion pounds over the
next five years in infrastructure. That has to have an impact on what
shareholders think their company is worth.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's pick up that point about
income then, and here's another reason why you've undervalued it. How can it
possibly be worth less than two billion pounds when the charges being made to
the companies which will use the track have been calculated on the basis that
it's worth three times that much, so even on the basis of income it doesn't
work, the sum won't come out.
YOUNG: The Rail Track was told last year to
reduce by six per cent real the charges it made to the train operating
companies, and they have been told for the next five years they've got to
reduce their charges by two per cent over and above inflation, so they have
been set a very challenging operating target by the regulator, and the benefits
of those reduced operating charges will filter through to the train operating
companies, and therefore through to the passengers. Now British Rail when it
was in the public sector never had that sort of challenging target to become
more efficient and pass the efficiency gains on to the travelling public. The
way we've structured the privatisation with the regulator builds in real
incentives to lower the costs, get more people to travel by rail. At the end
of the day that is the goal I want to achieve, and I think that this structure
of bringing in the private sector with the regulator will actually reverse
decades of decline in railway use, both freight and passengers.
HUMPHRYS: Well, perhaps, and we'll come on to
that. But, let's look at some pretty, basic commonsense stuff here. It costs
to build sixty miles of new railway line - it's going to cost between London
and the Channel Tunnel - admittedly, expensive railway line because there are
lots of tunnels and all that sort of thing - three billion pounds. Now, that
is for sixty miles of track.
You're flogging off the entire network -
forty thousand miles, or whatever it is - for less than that. Commonsense-
YOUNG: No.
HUMPHRYS: -says that cannot-
YOUNG: But that is-
HUMPHRYS: -be right.
YOUNG: But that is an absurd argument because
you could say EuroTunnel cost eight billion pounds. Anybody who sold
EuroTunnel for less than eight billion pounds would be betraying the
shareholders. It goes back to the point-
HUMPHRYS: Well, if you sold it for five hundred
thousand quid one would say that's potty and that's what I'm suggesting to you.
YOUNG: It goes back - No. It goes back to the
point that I was making earlier on. It's not what it cost to build it, it's
what it's worth as a going concern. And, when you value a company, it is what
it's worth as a going concern that is relevant. Not what it cost some time ago
to acquire the assets.
HUMPHRYS: But you're not telling me there's no
relationship between those two figures, for Heaven's sake?
YOUNG: What is the Forth Bridge worth? Well,
in many cases, a company is worth more than its assets.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, sure, but-
YOUNG: In some other cases, it's worth less
than its assets.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but look at.. this year.
YOUNG: It depends on how it's.. expenditure.
That is quite often what dictates the value of the shares. It's operating
performance, not the value of its assets.
HUMPHRYS: I accept that that is a factor but look
at the sums that we're talking about: three billion pounds for sixty miles of
railway line, as opposed to two billion pounds for forty thousand, plus
bridges, plus tunnels, plus stations, plus all of this.
YOUNG: If I may say so-
HUMPHRYS: I mean, common sense, surely, has to
come in here, at some stage.
YOUNG: That is a very good argument for what
we're doing because that Chunnel -Channel Tunnel rail link is not being built
by the Government. It's being built by the private sector.
HUMPHRYS: It's irrelevant.
YOUNG: It's not irrelevant because if it had
all been in the public sector, we may not have been able to afford it. And,
what those who criticise the policy of privatisation have never answered is
this: if Rail Track is not going to get the money from the City, if the Channel
Tunnel rail link is going to be built with public money, where is it going to
come from? Are you going to put up taxes? Are you going to put up borrowing?
Are you going to cut back expenditure on the Health Service?
HUMPHRYS: I'm not talking about principle, I'm
talking about price.
YOUNG: No, but you said that the Channel Tunnel
rail link was being built very expensively. What I am saying is that is being
provided-
HUMPHRYS: What I am saying is that railways cost a
lot of money, for all sorts of reasons - of course.
YOUNG: Well, indeed, indeed. And, that is one
of the reasons why Rail Track has liabilities because it has to improve and
modernise a network that was built, in many cases, up to a hundred years ago.
So, it's not just the cost of what it cost when you bought it. It is what is
the obligations of keeping it in good condition. That influences the value of
the shares.
HUMPHRYS: And, we're going to come on to that, in a
moment. Can I give you the real reason, perhaps, why you've had to give this
away? Potentially-
YOUNG: Oh, no, we're not giving it away. We're
getting two and a half billion pounds for Rail Tracks (phon). We're not
giving it away.
HUMPHRYS: Well, let's accept that, for a moment.
Potential investors - here's the reality, isn't it?. Potential investors
wouldn't have paid more than that 'cos they were warned off by what a Labour
Government would - if we get one will do to the railways. That's the fact.
You had to get the sale in pretty, damn quickly because investors were scared
off by the effect of a potential Labour Government.
YOUNG: No, we have a clear commitment to
privatisate the railways. We're going to deliver that commitment. We've made
good progress with the franchises. Putting Rail Track in the private sector is
actually an essential part of that policy because it enables it to go ahead
with a much more ambitious investment programme than would have been the case
if we had stayed in the public sector. Of course, we want to do it within the
lifetime of this Parliament. I want to see the real benefits that passengers
will get coming to them as quickly as possible.
HUMPHRYS: Are you telling me that the threat of a
potential Labour Governnment had no effect on the price whatsoever?
YOUNG: Well, we were - well, you'll have to ask
the people who invested in the shares.
HUMPHRYS: Well, I've already heard from them.
I've heard from NatWest, I've heard from Lloyds Bank. I've heard from hugely
important people saying: Don't touch them because ...
YOUNG: Well, there are..
HUMPHRYS: -look what (sic) a Labour Government.
YOUNG: Well, there were two circulars, which
people quote, that gave that advice. Quite clearly, there must have been a lot
of other circulars -
HUMPHRYS: Sure.
YOUNG: - that gave different advice because the
issue is heavily oversubscribed. But, we have a commitment to privatise the
railways. We have a commitment to privatise other nationalised industries and
we believe, actually, in the long run, this argument that you and I are having
this morning would be seen to be really part of the small change. I think,
people will recognise that this was the right...
HUMPHRYS: Small change? Billions of pounds.
Pretty big change to most people.
YOUNG: Yes. Look, I don't think anybody is
going to reverse what we're doing with the railways, as with other
privatisations. Once they've happened, people say: Yes, that was the right
thing to do. It was right with British airports, British airways, British
Telecom.
HUMPHRYS: Whether it was right or not isn't the
point that we're dealing with this morning. The question is the price that we
got for it - that you, we - the taxpayers - got for it. Wouldn't it have been
more honourable to have waited until after the Election and then gone ahead
with the share flotation? And, then, you could have maybe got a sensible
price for it. Instead of this fire sale that we've seen.
YOUNG: No, no, certainly not. The legislation
which we passed in 1993 gave us the powers to privatise Rail Track. We made it
quite clear that that was our ambition and it would be a betrayal of what we
stand for, for the railways, if we hadn't gone ahead with the policy.
HUMPHRYS: So, the political pressure was there for
you to do this. See what I mean? (phon)
YOUNG: I believe - No, no. There are real
benefits to passengers in this policy. That is why we are doing it. I believe
that when the next Election comes, whenever it comes, people will say: Yes,
actually, they were right. The private sector is making a better fist of
running the railways than British Rail used to. And, those who say we want to
wind the clock back, we want to give it back to British Rail, we want to give
them more subsidies, because we're reducing the amount of subsidy that is
needed, that will be seen as a vote loser for our opponents. So, I'm confident
that this is the right thing to do in political terms, but also in Transport
terms.
HUMPHRYS: Can I suggest to you another way in
which the taxpayer is being ripped off here? And, that is that that money -
the income, the profit which should have gone back to the taxpayer last year -
is, instead, going to be used to pay a socking great dividend to those people
who bought shares in the sale. That money shouldn't have gone to them. It
should-
YOUNG: Well-
HUMPHRYS: -have gone to us - everybody.
YOUNG: Yes. I reject that argument as well.
Firstly, with British Telecom we did exactly the same procedure. But, more
important, the existence of the dividend in October-
HUMPHRYS: Don't make it right because you did it
with somebody else - with great respect.
YOUNG: But, more importantly, the existence of
the dividend in October will, of course, influence the price that people pay
for the shares.
HUMPHRYS: I'll say.
YOUNG: So, of course, the taxpayer will benefit
because the taxpayer will get a higher price for the shares because of the
dividend in October.
HUMPHRYS: But, we've already established that at
least a lot of people have accepted that the price for those shares was
dismally low to begin with. All that the effect of that was doing was saying
to people: look, here's another bribe. If we don't offer you that. All those
people you say wanted people to buy shares, without that extra dividend, would
have said: forget it. It would have been a flop. That's why you did it,
wasn't it?
YOUNG: No. The existence-
HUMPHRYS: A bribe.
YOUNG: No, no. The existence of the dividend
may have reflected on the value that people were prepared to pay for the
shares.
HUMPHRYS: They have.
YOUNG: To that extent, the taxpayer benefits.
If the share price is higher because of the dividend, the taxpayer gets a
bigger receipt on disposal of the shares.
HUMPHRYS: So, in other words, you're taking it out
of one of our hands. You know, this is our taxpayer's hand and you're giving
it to the other hand in order to make this sale work.
YOUNG: No, no. It's perfectly normal.
HUMPHRYS: I mean that's an economic nonsense,
isn't it?
YOUNG: It's perfectly normal for a company in
October to pay a dividend to those who are on its shareholders' lists.
HUMPHRYS: Alright.
YOUNG: We've done it with British Telecom
Three and I don't accept - we spent about twenty minutes dealing with the
argument that it was a giveaway. I strongly reject that.
HUMPHRYS: Alright. Well, let's move on.
YOUNG: I think, it is a fair balance between
shareholder and taxpayer.
HUMPHRYS: Alright. Let us move on and now imagine
a world in which Rail Track is owned by a private company. It will have an
asset worth more than it paid for. Now, you have at least acknowledged that
because the asset itself on the bare value of the thing...
YOUNG: Well, I'm not sure I have but go on.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, well OK. How are you going to
stop the company borrowing money against that asset and, then, distributing
that to the shareholders to keep them sweet?
YOUNG: On the property side?
HUMPHRYS: On the entire value of the thing.
YOUNG: Well, well-
HUMPHRYS: Yah, property, particularly.
YOUNG: You can't. Your programme implied that
people could go round closing tracks and closing stations. They can't.
HUMPHRYS: I think, we talked about closing
tracks. We talked about them closing various things. We didn't talk about
- but, anyway.
YOUNG: They can't, they have a licence. Yeah,
I think, they did mention closing stations. They can't do that. They have a
licence. They have not one regulator but two regulators and the notion that
Rail Track can go round closing stations and closing tracks-
HUMPHRYS: No, but that's not the question I'm
asking you.
YOUNG: -is absurd. But, the answer to your
question is there is a regulator and the role of the regulator - part of the
role of the regulator - if they do make exceptional profits on property -
twenty-five per cent of that goes straight through to those running the train
operating companies. But, in assessing what Rail Track charges the train
operating companies, he has taken into account the income from property not
only what they're getting now but what they're likely to get. That is already
deemed to be part of Rail Track's income available for modernising the
railways.
HUMPHRYS: How are you going to stop a takeover?
YOUNG: There are - I have powers and also the
licence has powers to prevent-
HUMPHRYS: Right, will you stop the takeover?
YOUNG: Well if anybody wants to take it over we
have the powers both of the licence and the Secretary of State's consent to
prevent a control of Rail Track changing hands. That is written into the
licence.
HUMPHRYS: Do you, will you care? Do you care? Do
you?
YOUNG: Well we'll have to see, I mean, you've
spent a lot of the time saying this isn't really worth buying and now you're
saying it's so worth buying-
HUMPHRYS: On the contrary, I said it was one hell
of a good buy. I said exactly the opposite.
YOUNG: You are now saying that it's now likely
to be taken over by another company.
HUMPHRYS: I'm asking-..entirely. If I can just
clear that up because that is entirely consistent with the whole thrust of this
discussion.
YOUNG: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: My point is that you have given it away,
that it is a very, very good buy indeed which is why so many people want the
shares.
YOUNG: The short answer to your question is
'yes' we do have powers to stop control.
HUMPHRYS: Well, but the question was would you?
YOUNG: Hypothetical. I have not the slightest
idea - hypothetical.
HUMPHRYS: Do you-Alright, well let me ask you a
very direct question then. Do you happen to have any-
YOUNG: I haven't sold it yet John, I've still
got it until tomorrow morning.
HUMPHRYS: Alright. But, tomorrow you will have
sold it and tomorrow lunchtime, let's assume that you get, I don't know an
American company for instance saying: we'd rather like to buy this and here's a
decent price for it. Have you, in principle, and I'm not dealing with the
detail of this, but have you in principle any objection to it being taken over
by them?
YOUNG: Well we have the powers to do that-
HUMPHRYS: I understand that.
YOUNG: And we have taken the powers precisely
to prevent Rail Track, control of Rail Track, changing ownership from one
company to another company.
HUMPHRYS: That isn't quite the same is it? You
haven't actually said we will stop anybody taking it over.
YOUNG: We have the powers to stop somebody
taking it over which we will use if we deem it to be in the national interest.
But I have to say, just at the moment, that isn't right at the top of my order
of priorities.
HUMPHRYS: Well, but, perhaps it ought to be
because we therefore have the prospect that Rail Track could be bought by, let
us say, an American company, or a German company or a French company.
YOUNG: Right or the Government if it wanted to
could stop it.
HUMPHRYS: If it wanted to.
YOUNG: If it wanted to.
HUMPHRYS: But you're telling me-.
YOUNG: It's a hypothetical question. It has
not been put to me.
HUMPHRYS: It isn't at all hypothetical.
YOUNG: And, anyway-
HUMPHRYS: It is entirely conceivable that somebody
will come along and offer to buy it. We've seen it happening with electricity
companies and heaven knows what else, so it's entirely feasible.
YOUNG: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: And, what I am saying to you is do you
have a principled approach to this?
YOUNG: Well, let me-
HUMPHRYS: Do you say we don't want a foreigner
owning Raill Track for instance?
YOUNG: Well let me answer the question in this
way. We have invited to run one of the franchise train operating companies, a
company which is foreign owned. They have got the contract for London South
Central. They put in the best bid, they already run a railway company in
France.
HUMPHRYS: Just a bit of Rail Track.
YOUNG: And, I see no reason why they shouldn't
run that particular service and that franchise for seven years.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, so in other words not much
difference between that and Rail Track is there?
YOUNG: No, there is a lot of difference between
that and Rail Track because it's a franchise for seven years. With Rail Track
not only do I have the powers to stop control changing, it's also very heavily
regulated. They can't put up the tariffs, they can't close services without
the approval of the regulator. So it's not quite like some other companies
that people might want to buy and take over. It is fairly heavily regulated in
the constraints on what people can do with it.
HUMPHRYS: BT and Rail Track has the strategic
responsibility for that service, for the entire network. That was made quite
clear by your predecessor. What you seem to be saying this morning is that
you've no objection in principle to that responsibility being taken over by a
foreigner?
YOUNG: I want the responsibility for developing
Rail Track to be with the company that is investing in it. I haven't begun to
think about what would happen-
HUMPHRYS: Alright.
YOUNG: - if somebody put in a bid to take over
Rail Track because as of now, it isn't even a private company. It's still
publicly owned.
HUMPHRYS: Right, let's-
YOUNG: But I have those powers if I need them.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's-let's look at another
incentive that you gave people to buy those shares. Independent forecasters
said it would cost about ten-ten point six billion pounds, over ten years, to
look after the tunnels and the bridges and all the rest, to keep them in good
maintenance. Now, when the prospectus came out that figure had gone down to
one point four billion. That was simply dishonest, wasn't it?
YOUNG: It most certainly was not dishonest and
if I may say so, that's a very serious accusation to make against those who
published the Rail Track prospectus. What happened was that initially, a
report was produced at York for Rail Track, that put the figure that you've
just quoted on bringing the infrastructure up to good condition. That was done
in a very short space of time, on a very small sample. Not, frankly, using the
best techniques.
HUMPHRYS: On a very distinguished organisation.
YOUNG: No, you've made a very serious
accusation John, let me deal with it. Rail Track then commissioned WS Atkins
(phon) to do a much more authoritative broadly based exercising- exercise,
using the best techniques that are available and they did that. That was the
one that is in the prospectus and Rail Track, and, indeed, the Department
believe that is the information that investors need.
HUMPHRYS: And it came out at a tenth, a tenth of
the verdict, a ninth of the figure. That's extraordinary... isn't it?
YOUNG: It is also more consistent with what
British Rail had historically been investing in the railway network. The York
figure quite frankly was a figure that was inconsistent with what British Rail
had been spending.
HUMPHRYS: A tiny amount has got to be spent
therefore on maintaining the tunnels and the track.
YOUNG: No.
HUMPHRYS: What the danger must exist, if I may
just put this one very briefly to you, the danger must exist surely that the
intention is to run down the network. That's the point that Bill Bradshaw was
making in that film.
YOUNG: Absolutely not, absolutely not. It is a
wholly untrue allegation. What Rail Track did in December was to publish a
network management strategy, committing themselves to a very substantial
investment. They are going to spend eight billion pounds over the next five
years. That is probably more than British Rail would have spent had it
remained in the public sector.
HUMPHRYS: Sir George Young, thank you very much.
That's it for this week - the Grand Prix
is forcing us off the track a bit early. See you at the same time next week.
Good afternoon.
...oooOOOooo...
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