OK, if we do want to make a political football out of this, then I look forward to discovering who was on watch when the process was put in place.
If it was sometime in the last ten years, then for the first four of those Alistair Darling was in office. He then went on to the Treasury and look what happened there ...
No other minister held the post for much longer than a year. Darling held it for four.
At least in this case, thanks to Branson/Virgin more than any MP of anyy persuasion or the civil service, we pulled back from potentially making a very big mistake. Unlike the East Coast line, where a similar process appeared to be followed and did result in a big mistake. The East Coast franchise was awarded in 2005, under Darling's tenure. Try reading the "History" and "Demise" sections of this page:
http://en.wikipedia.o...al_Express_East_Coast
Highlights:
Sea Containers was awarded a new 7 year franchise by the Department for Transport from May 2005 with a 3 year extension dependent on performance targets being met. GNER committed to pay a £1.3 billion premium to the Department for Transport over ten years.
However due to the financial problems caused by it having overbid as well as financial difficulties encountered by the parent company, on 15 December 2006 the government announced it was stripping the franchise from Sea Containers and would put it up for re-tender, with GNER running the franchise on fixed fee management contract in the interim.
On 20 February 2007 the Department for Transport announced that Arriva, First, National Express and Stagecoach/Virgin Group had been shortlisted to lodge bids for the new franchise.
On 14 August 2007 the Department for Transport awarded the InterCity East Coast franchise to National Express. National Express committed to pay a £1.4 billion premium to the Department of Transport over 7 years 4 months. At the time rail analysts had speculated that the Group had paid too much for the franchise. National Express East Coast commenced operating the franchise on 9 December 2007.
On 1 July 2009 it was announced that National Express planned to default on the franchise, having failed to renegotiate the contractual terms of operation, with National Express stating that it would not provide any further financial support necessary to ensure NXEC remained solvent. This meant NXEC would run out of cash by the end of 2009. As a result, the Department for Transport announced it would establish a publicly owned company to take over the franchise.
In prior negotiations, the Group had reportedly offered to pay over £100 million in order to be released from its commitment to operate the franchise. Transport Secretary Lord Adonis had rejected this on a matter of principle. He stated: "The government is not prepared to renegotiate rail franchises, because I'm simply not prepared to bail out companies that are unable to meet their commitments". In defaulting on the franchise, under the franchising system, National Express Group only directly incurred losses of £72 million by forfeiting bonds.
The franchise failure sparked public and industry calls for the permanent public ownership of the InterCity East Coast franchise, or even the complete scrapping of the entire franchise system. In response, Lord Adonis reiterated the findings of a 2008 National Audit Office report, which had concluded that the rail franchising system delivered good value for money and steadily improving services.
National Express East Coast continued to operate the franchise until 23:59 on 13 November 2009, when the Department for Transport took over through its East Coast subsidiary.