TRANSPORT Secretary Patrick McLoughlin is today expected to reveal whether Virgin will continue to run the West Coast Main Line.
He is due to make a statement to Parliament over whether the Department of Transport (DfT) will bring in its own company as he explains the U-turn that saw the decision to award the franchise to FirstGroup scrapped over "technical flaws" in the bidding process.
FirstGroup had initially beaten current operator Virgin Trains to win the 13-year franchise for the West Coast route, which serves 31 million passengers travelling between London, the West Midlands, the north-west of England, North Wales and the central belt of Scotland. However, the award was halted after Virgin took legal action over the decision and the tender will now be rerun.
Mr McLoughlin's review of the "unacceptable mistakes" by officials during the tendering process will be carried out by Sam Laidlaw, who is the chief executive of Centrica and a non-executive director of the DfT.
However, Shadow Transport Secretary Maria Eagle has said he is not an appropriate person to carry out the investigation.
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