Petition · past parliament

Stop Chris Grayling handing control of Network Rail to private operators

Rejected 12 signatures

What the petition asks

Chris Grayling has announced that he intends to hand back control of Britains rail infrastructure to the private operators (TOCs) that run trains on it. This is fundamentally unsafe as we have seen with Railtrack after the Potters Bar and Hatfield derailments.
14 years ago, the private company that had been running the UK's rail infrastructure since 1994, Railtrack, went bankrupt after being unable to inspect and repair the miles of track that had been woefully under maintained in order to boost the profits of the private company.
Chris Grayling intends to go back to this system where TOCs run the whole system for profit, unacceptably squeezing safety margins to boost shareholder valu.e

Why it was rejected

There was already a petition about this issue. Duplicates are rejected so signatures collect in one place.

Timeline

6 Dec 2016 Petition opened for signatures
9 Dec 2016 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 12
Status Rejected
Rejected 9 Dec 2016

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.