Network Rail chair Lord Hendy CBE has been named as a minister of state in the Department for Transport.

Peter Hendy, 71, started his career in public transport in 1975 as a graduate trainee with London Transport, having gained a degree in Economics and Geography at the University of Leeds.

In 1989 he became managing director of CentreWest London Buses in 1989, under London Transport ownership.

Five years later he led CentreWest through a management buyout. After the company was taken over by FirstGroup in 1997, he became Deputy Director UK Bus, at FirstGroup.

He returned to London Transport’s successor Transport for London in 2001, when he was appointed managing director of Surface Transport. He became a CBE and commissioner of transport in 2006.

He was responsible for transport during the 2012 Olympics, and was widely praised for the effectiveness of the arrangements, gaining a knighthood as a result.

He was appointed chair of Network Rail in 2015 and received a life peerage in 2022. He had most recently been leading the arrangements for the Railway 200 festival next year.

His move to the Department for Transport will be a change of direction, as he will now be helping to oversee Network Rail and in due course Great British Railways, on behalf of the government.