A REPORT from the House of Commons Transport Committee following its inquiry into the collapse of the West Coast franchise competition has condemned the ‘irresponsible’ decision to award the contract to FirstGroup, for which it says ministers were ultimately to blame. However, there is no suggestion that FirstGroup or any other bidder contributed to the problems.

But this report is only a majority verdict, and not unanimous. Three Conservative members of the Committee - Karen Lumley, Karl McCartney, and Iain Stewart - said they disagreed with the conclusions of their colleagues.

In a joint statement issued today, they said: "We believe the evidence in the Laidlaw Report shows that Ministers asked the right, penetrating questions during the process but were given inaccurate responses by officials. It has further been shown that resources were available to officials to commission external advice and support should they have required it. We do not believe that it is was 'irresponsible' to run the new franchise process first on the WCML as the Department has shown itself perfectly capable of managing other complex projects in this period."

The report highlights ‘major failures’ by civil servants, some of whom are suspected of misleading ministers. It calls for a full examination of departmental e-mails, in a bid to discover whether officials tried to ‘manipulate’ the result.

It was the controversial calculations of the loans – financial buffers which act as an insurance against failure -- which were challenged by Virgin. Its High Court case derailed the process and led to the award being withdrawn last October.

A report by Centrica chief executive Sam Laidlaw has already exposed major flaws in the DfT’s processing of the 15-year contract, and transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin admitted that his findings made ‘uncomfortable reading’.

Louise Ellman, who chairs the Committee, said: “This episode revealed substantial problems of governance, assurance,  policy and resources inside the Department for Transport. Embarking on an ambitious -  perhaps unachievable - reform of franchising, in haste, on the UK’s most complex piece of railway was an irresponsible decision for which ministers were ultimately responsible. This was compounded by major failures by civil servants, some of whom misled ministers.

“Many of the problems with the franchise competition, detailed in the Laidlaw report, reflect very badly on civil servants at the DfT. However, ministers approved a complex – perhaps unworkable - franchising policy at the same time as overseeing major cuts to the Department’s resources. This was a recipe for failure which the DfT must learn from urgently.” 

The Committee is calling for a full account of the costs of the collapse, which have already been put at £50 million.