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Hapless former Tory minister Chris Grayling is expected to return to front-line politics as chairman of a prestigious Parliamentary committee.

The Cabinet minister finally left the government in summer 2019 (at his own request, we should add) after nine years littered with failure, incompetence and catastrophe.

But even leaving office didn't end the accumulation of foul-ups to his name - the most recent being the Court of Appeal overturning his decision to back a third runway at Heathrow Airport.

Now he's in line for the top job on Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee - a highly desirable role usually doled out as a reward for long and competent service to the Government.

Well, if there's one thing you can say about Mr Grayling's service to the Government, it's that it was inexplicably long.

Dubbed Failing Grayling for the numerous controversies to have played out during his time in office, it seems the 57-year-old wasn't born on April Fool's Day for no reason.

Mr Grayling was Justice Secretary when he pioneered the part-privatisation of the probation system in 2014. Other failures on his watch have included legal aid cuts, train timetable changes, the East Coast rail line, court and tribunal fees, Saudi prison training and benefits 'workfare'.

Mr Grayling has previously insisted he's targeted unfairly, blaming the criticism he receives on "left-wing" unions and his support for Brexit.

So what exactly are the biggest failures that have happened while he's been at the helm? You'd better get comfortable. Here's a full, unabridged round-up.

1. Heathrow's third runway

In February 2020, the Court of Appeal struck down a statement allowing Heathrow Airport's third runway which Mr Grayling drew up as Transport Secretary.

Three top judges said the National Policy Statement was "unlawful" because it did not take into account the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The UN's Paris Agreement, which came into force in November 2016, commits signatories to tackling climate change by taking measures to limit global warming to well below 2C.

The court said Tory ministers could choose to draw up a new NPS. But that would mean Boris Johnson having to back it - which is a highly political and vexed decision.

2. Privatised probation

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The government was forced to take the supervision of offenders in England and Wales back in-house after a five-year part-privatisation project ended in failure.

Low and medium-risk cases had been handled by private probation firms since 2014, but were handed back to the public National Probation Service (NPS) in 2019.

The reforms were found to have led to "skyrocketing" numbers of released offenders returning to prison for breaching their licence conditions after serving short sentences.

And the number of people murdered by convicted criminals being monitored by the firms rose from 42 in 2015 to 71 in 2018.

Meanwhile the Government was forced to spend £170 million to scrap contracts with a string of private probation firms in 2018.

Agreements with 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies were due to end in 2020 instead of 2022 and be replaced with new ones under the reforms.

The £170 million included £115 million the CRCs owed in fines for failing to meet performance targets, but which they will be allowed instead to reinvest in services to keep them going for the last two years of their contracts.

Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon branded the deal a "bailout".

Sir Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office (NAO), said the ministry "set itself up to fail" in how it approached the reforms.

And Chief inspector of probation Dame Glenys Stacey described the model as "irredeemably flawed".

David Gauke, Mr Grayling's successor as Justice Secretary, admitted the quality of the service was not good enough.

But he refused to drop outsourcing altogether, saying private firms could still play a valuable role.

3. £14m handed to a ferry firm with no ferries

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Near the top of any list is the disastrous, now-cancelled contract for post- Brexit ferries with a firm that didn't have any ferries.

Seaborne Freight's £13.8m deal fell apart after the firm was mocked for lacking ships and apparently copying terms and conditions from a takeaway website.

Kent's Port of Ramsgate, where the services to Ostend were meant to depart, wasn't even ready for the non-existent ships.

Yet as Transport Secretary, Mr Grayling swung fully behind the firm, claiming the deal was "no problem" because "it's a new start-up business" and the contract was "tightly-drawn-up".

Weeks later, the Department for Transport admitted: "It became clear Seaborne would not reach its contractual requirements with the Government".

Money was blown on government lawyers drawing up the contract.

In the meantime the boss of Calais port banned Mr Grayling altogether over his Brexit "disrespect".

And on 1 March the government was forced to settle £33m in a court case with Eurotunnel they were accused of a “secretive” process of handing out no-deal contracts to ferry firms.

Eurotunnel wrote to Mr Grayling in January to complain that it had not been considered when the contracts were awarded despite having already run a cross-Channel ferry service (MyFerryLink, which closed in 2015) - unlike Seaborne Freight.

Labour's Andy McDonald said of Mr Grayling: “His conduct as a minister is one of serial failure and routine incompetence. In any other sphere of life he would have been sacked long ago. I say yet again: this trail of destruction has gone on long enough. It’s time for Chris Grayling to go.”

4. THAT disastrous train timetable launch

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Passengers on Thameslink and Northern Rail suffered months of severe disruption after a botched change in timetables in spring 2018.

A damning report by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) found "nobody took charge", adding the DfT was "aware of the risks" and its slow response "aggravated the challenge of rewriting the timetable".

The government launched the biggest review of the railways since privatisation after the verdict, which also blamed rail industry "failures".

Yet Mr Grayling washed his hands of the problem - saying "it would have been irresponsible" to intervene because he was not a "specialist in rail matters".

He refused calls to quit, instead blaming "fragmented decision making" and "the way the whole industry works".

Pressed on whether he would take responsibility, he proclaimed: "Actually no, I don’t run the railways."

5. The great Virgin Trains East Coast 'bailout'

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The flailing East Coast rail franchise had to come back under state control last year in what Labour branded a massive taxpayer-funded "bailout".

Virgin Trains East Coast - a joint venture between Stagecoach (90%) and Virgin (10%) - was awarded the franchise to run trains for eight years in 2014.

Yet the private operators complained of losing money on the line, which runs from London to Edinburgh.

The government decided to end the franchise three years early in 2020 - which Labour said could cost taxpayers £2bn in lost payments to the Treasury.

Then Mr Grayling announced the franchise would end even sooner, on 24 June 2018, to allow the process of finding a new operator to start.

MP Grahame Morris called for him to quit, complaining: "The Transport Secretary isn’t fit to run a model railway."

But Mr Grayling insisted it wasn't a bailout - and refused to block the private firms from bidding for future contracts.

6. A book ban for prisoners that the High Court crushed

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Before his fine work as Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling spent two and a half years as the Justice Secretary - where countless policies he pioneered have been unpicked.

Top of the list is the ban he placed on family members sending books to prisoners in 2012 - which sparked a wave of public outrage.

Campaigners said it was unnecessarily cruel and that it was in everyone’s interests for prisoners to be able to read in jail as part of their rehabilitation.

Thousands of people signed online petitions and 40 top authors including Irvine Welsh and Mark Haddon wrote to Downing Street demanding the rule be changed.

In December 2014 the ban was deemed unlawful by the High Court. And it later emerged the government blew £72,000 defending the case.

7. Court fees that 'pushed the innocent to plead guilty'

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As Justice chief he pioneered 'unfair' court fees that were accused of making innocent people plead guilty - and scrapped months after he left.

The flat fees of up to £1,000 were designed to fill funding gaps in the system.

But MPs warned the fees were 'grossly disproportionate' because they were charged on top of other fines - and not linked to the ability to pay.

The charges also rose five-fold if defendants said they were innocent but were later found guilty. Experts warned that would push people to take the rap for crimes they didn't commit.

One woman aged 32 in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, had to pay £300 including a £150 criminal courts charge for stealing a 75p pack of Mars bars because she had 'not eaten in days'.

More than 50 magistrates quit in disgust after the scheme began in April 2015.

By December 2015 - barely six months after Chris Grayling left the post - his successor Michael Gove scrapped the charges in a massive U-turn.

8. Employment tribunal fees ruled illegal by the Supreme Court

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In 2013, Mr Grayling oversaw new fees of up to £1,200 for launching tribunals against rogue bosses - in a drive to resolve issues more quickly, outside the court system.

But an impact review showed there had been a 70% drop in the number of cases since they were introduced.

Low-paid women, especially those treated unfairly when they were pregnant or on maternity leave, were the biggest losers, an analysis by Unison found.

Finally in July 2017 the Supreme Court ruled the fees were unlawful, forcing the government to repay £27million to around 100,000.

Top judges ridiculed the government’s misunderstanding of “elementary economics, and plain common sense”.

And they ruled the fees had a "deterrent effect upon discrimination claims, among others” and put off more genuine cases than ‘vexatious’ claims the government claimed the fees were supposed to deter.

9. Legal aid cuts that unfairly hit domestic violence victims...

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A cut that forced domestic violence victims to show evidence before getting a lawyer was declared flawed by the Court of Appeal in 2016.

Three top judges blasted a key rule change, launched under Mr Grayling in 2013 amid sweeping legal aid cuts, after protests by women's groups.

Campaigners said rape and beating victims were unfairly being forced to "face their abuser in court" without a lawyer.

That was because the new rules forced victims to include evidence of abuse, ranging from criminal convictions to a social services letter, in their application for state-funded legal representation.

Labour peer Willy Bach, the leader of the party's legal aid review, told the Mirror the rules were "shameful".

10... And prisoners

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In April 2017, the Court of Appeal ruled cuts to prisoners' legal aid were unlawful and "unfair" - especially for the mentally ill and prisoners with learning difficulties.

Eligibility for inmates was tightened up in 2013, while Mr Grayling was at the helm.

But campaigners had warned the policy left prisoners "stuck in a broken system". The Howard League for Penal Reform said almost 300 people took their lives in the policy's wake.

In its 147-paragraph judgement, the Court of Appeal said it was "inherently or systemically unfair" to cut prisoners' legal aid in three out of five categories.

These were certain Parole Board reviews involving moves to open jails, reviews of high-risk Category A prisoners, and cases where prisoners are placed in a 'close supervision centre'.

In January 2018 the government tabled a new law fixing the problems.

11. A £6m jail training contract with that bastion of human rights, Saudi Arabia

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Chris Grayling presided over a £5.9m deal with Saudi Arabia to run “training needs analysis” in jails under the Arab state's brutal justice system.

But the deal was unceremoniously dropped in October 2015 after a Cabinet row over the nation's chequered human rights record.

Warring ministers said the UK should not help a regime that uses beheadings, stonings, crucifixions and lashing to punish its citizens under strict Islamic law.

Labour's Jeremy Corbyn said at the time that Tories had "been shamed into a U-turn on this terrible contract".

Since then, Saudi Arabia has become an international pariah - but continued to buy arms from the UK - after the murder or journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

12. An 'unsustainable' £200m jail maintenance contract

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As Justice Secretary (yes, AGAIN) Chris Grayling presided over a £200million contract to Carillion to run facilities management in prisons.

But after Carillion collapsed in 2018, Justice Minister Rory Stewart admitted the deal had been "completely unsustainable."

He told the Justice Select Committee: “What effectively happened there, I believe, is we had a contractor come in to us... who effectively offered, at their own risk, to do our maintenance for considerably less money than it would cost us to do.

"In effect £15m a year less.

"We signed up to that and in retrospect, more weight should have been given to saying, ‘Wait a second, what on earth is Carillion proposing here?

“They are basically proposing to do this and lose £15m a year.

"Is that really sustainable or are we going to end up back in a situation where we are paying for it?"

He added it had been a “real, real lesson” for the Ministry of Justice.

13. A £23million prisoner tagging scheme

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The Tories dumped a £23million prisoner tracking scheme they had claimed would give Britain "one of the most advanced GPS tagging systems in the world".

Mr Grayling awarded the contract for a new generation of ankle bracelets in 2014 - bypassing normal competition rules.

But it was thrown out under his successor Michael Gove - who has also ditched Mr Grayling's prisoner book ban, legal aid cuts, court fees and training deal with Saudi Arabia.

In an embarrassing statement, then-Justice Minister Dominic Raab admitted the plan for Redditch firm Steatite to develop bespoke GPS-tracked tags had been "challenging".

He said the Ministry of Justice would instead use cheaper off-the-shelf technology instead after the project was beset with "significant problems" and "considerable delays".

He confirmed: "The Ministry of Justice will be terminating our contract to develop a bespoke tagging product with Steatite Limited and will shortly begin a new procurement process for proven tags already on the market."

14. Benefit claimants working without pay

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Last but not least, we must not forget Chris Grayling's stellar two-year stint as Employment Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Or as an aide to one senior Tory grumbled today: "He was no f***ing good."

Mr Grayling was a key figure behind the so-called "workfare" schemes that urged jobseekers to work for free or lose their benefits.

In 2013 graduate Cait Reilly won a Court of Appeal victory over her unpaid work placement in Poundland.

Details released last year showed between 3,789 and 4,305 people - a small fraction of those affected - were expected to be paid back £1.7m to £1.9m in lost benefits, one example of the fallout of the court case.

But Mr Grayling heavily defended the scheme in 2012, insisting it was voluntary and claiming "militant campaigners" wanted to undermine the "most effective" scheme for tackling youth unemployment.

He said: "So far our experience has been that a significant number of placements turn into jobs, with the employer getting to like the young person and keeping them on. We have had cases of jobs being offered within days."

15. Years of misery for Southern Rail passengers

A long-running dispute over driver-only trains between Southern and unions saw passengers in the South East endure years of misery with repeated strikes and disrupted services.

The National Audit Office found that, while industrial action was a "major contributor" to delays and cancellations, the DfT made decisions that "negatively impacted on passengers".

16. Drone scare at Gatwick

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The drone chaos before Christmas caused huge disruption and ruined holidays for many families.

Tens of thousands of people were affected after the airport cancelled flights to avoid a potentially dangerous collision between a drone and a plane.

Although it would be churlish to blame Mr Grayling for the drone itself, Labour do hold him responsible for delays to legislation they say could have prevented the crisis.

And the party's analysis suggests the whole debacle cost between £50m-£70m.

17. The third runway at Heathrow

Opponents of the Government's backing of a third runway at Heathrow have been critical of the DfT's handling of the long-running process that resulted in the west London airport being picked over other contenders.

A group of councils, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Greenpeace have launched a legal challenge against the decision.

They have formally notified Mr Grayling of their intention to seek a judicial review.

18. Taking out a cyclist with his door

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Transport Secretary Chris Grayling knocked a rider off his bike - just days after complaining about cycle lanes.

The Cabinet Minister was caught on video sending a cyclist flying when he opened the door of his ministerial car near the Houses of Parliament.

The film shows Mr Grayling going over to speak to the man, Jaiqi Liu, and shakes his hand after checking he is OK.

Mr Liu, 35, who works for the World Bank, said he suffered pain to his legs, back and head after the incident.

His bike was left with a damaged wheel, brakes, mudguard and lost its lights.

It came days after Mr Grayling claimed "there are places in London where cycle lanes cause too much of a problem for road users."

19. Failing to get elected to a job he was parachuted in to

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When Chris Grayling finally left the cabinet in Boris Johnson's February reshuffle, rumours started to circulate about what had finally dislodged him.

One such rumour was that he'd been promised the plum job of Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

So it was no surprise when after nearly seven months out of action, Number 10's proposed membership of the reformed committee had Mr Grayling's name on it.

It's thought Number 10 wanted him to get the job, and the Tory whips were behind him getting the job. All that had to happen was for the members of the committee - which was loaded with Tories - to vote for him to get the job.

Unfortunately for Mr Grayling, fellow Tory MP Julian Lewis had other ideas. He voted for himself, and all the opposition MPs on the committee apparently voted for him too.

A Number 10 spokesperson said: "Chairman of the ISC is a matter for the committee".