Byers may survive Railtrack row

STEPHEN BYERS' hopes of Cabinet survival - despite charges of lying to Parliament over Railtrack - rose today after the Tories failed to press home their attack. Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa May said on Wednesday that Byers 'appeared' to have misled Parliament, the one offence that could bring him down. Today she said only that she would be consulting colleagues later in the day over what further offensive, if any, to launch.

The Liberal Democrats, at a private meeting on Wednesday night, decided not to go for the Transport Secretary because they agree that he was right to cut off Railtrack's funds and take direct control.

The Lib-Dems' transport spokesman, Don Foster, said: 'The emphasis on who said what to whom and when does not alter the basic fact that Railtrack's position was untenable. To ensure the creation of a safe, reliable and affordable railway it had to go.'

Byers looks certain to secure continued backing from Prime Minister Tony Blair and a Government machine which has always been determined to stop the Opposition or the media gaining a scalp, whether of a Cabinet minister or a political adviser.

Provided no new shock emerges, he should escape the sack. But the series of recent setbacks, from the misconduct of his political adviser, Jo Moore, to separate allegations of dishonesty from Railtrack's chairman, could leave him permanently damaged.

Byers had looked in danger after the rail regulator, Tom Winsor, suggested he was threatened by the Transport Secretary not to attempt a Railtrack rescue. Winsor told a Commons committee last night that Byers had warned him that any attempt to bail out the ailing company would be scuppered by emergency legislation to strip the regulator of his powers.

Winsor told the Transport Committee Byers had spoken, at a meeting on 5 October, of introducing emergency blocking legislation if he applied for an interim review - the mechanism which could have unlocked hundreds of millions of pounds for Railtrack by bringing forward fees from other parts of the rail industry. Winsor said: 'After pausing to consider whether I had really heard what I had heard, I asked whether that would be to overrule me in an interim review or in relation to all my functions. Byers said it would cover everything but in practice would be in relation to an interim review, which the Government did not want to proceed.' That appeared to fly in the face of an assurance by Byers in the Commons last Monday that 'there was no threat' from him to Winsor.

Byers issued two statements shortly after Wednesday night's hearing. The first, from the Department of Transport, said again: 'There were no threats.' A second, personal statement said: 'There were no threats made to the regulator and clearly he didn't feel threatened because he indicated to Railtrack on 6 October that he was willing to consider conducting a review of charges if they applied for one. Railtrack failed to do so.'

The Secretary of State was busy organising his fightback today. After he left his Hampstead, north London, home and climbed into the back of his chauffeur-driven Rover, Byers could be seen scribbling a statement which appeared to blame Railtrack for the fiasco.

Headed 'stark new evidence' and dated 7 October to 23 October, it reads: 'Railtrack had been the author of their own misfortune. They failed to understand the simple reality...' It continues: 'You do not neglect your assets and you are not hostile to your customers.'

In the absence of political attack, it was left to Railtrack's shareholders to make the running. Simon Haslam, of the Railtrack Shareholders' Action Group, said that Winsor's statement to the committee provided the first independent evidence that the Government was using its powers to stop the company raising money by other means, having refused Treasury cash to bail it out. 'The company was solvent until the Government said no more grants and you cannot go to the regulator,' Haslam said, adding that the evidence would strengthen the legal case against what Byers had done.