The under-fire rail operator Avanti West Coast has been “rewarded for failure”, Labour said, after the company was paid more than £17m in taxpayers’ money by ministers for performance and management fees in just two years, despite being the worst-performing operator on the rail network.
The figures from 2019-20 and 2020-21 include almost £4m in bonuses to Avanti for “operational performance”, “customer experience” and “acting as a good and efficient operator”.
