HC Deb 09 March 1998 vol 308 c11W
Dr. Marek

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to his answer of 2 February 1998,Official Report, column 454, if he will make it his policy to take an equity stake in the railway industry equivalent in value to the amount of subsidy planned for the next three years. [33497]

Ms Glenda Jackson

We have no plans to make this our policy. As I made clear in my earlier answer renationalisation of the railways would be extremely costly and cannot be a priority given the other pressures on public expenditure. Our main task is to improve the railways as we found them, not as we would have wished them to be.