Nicola Shaw’s review is one of three promised by the government against the backdrop of mounting costs, debts and delays

Network Rail could be privatised as the government seeks a solution to its financial problems, according to the industry executive leading a review of the state-owned operator of Britain’s rail tracks and stations.

Nicola Shaw, who is due to report back to the government early next year on the future structure and financing of Network Rail, said she could not rule out recommending privatisation.





“I have been asked to consider the structure and financing of Network Rail. On the former point I am considering Network Rail’s relationships with its customers, how its structure works with government devolution and how the industry works where there is growing demand for the railway,” she said.

“On the latter, I am looking at all the issues and options on the spectrum from where we are now to full privatisation.”



Her comments come as new Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn prepares to announce full renationalisation of the railways - by taking privately operated franchises back into public ownership as they expire - as his first major policy at the Labour conference in Brighton next week.



Shaw, the chief executive of the HS1 rail line, which runs from London St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel, said earlier on Sunday in an interview with the BBC that political considerations would not influence her review of Network Rail.

“I haven’t been asked to think about it politically. I have been asked to think about it starting from what is going to work,” she said.

The suggestion that Network Rail could be privatised prompted an angry reaction from the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) trade union.

“Any threat to bust up and sell off Network Rail will meet with the hardest possible industrial and political response from RMT. This union will never sit on the sidelines while public and staff safety is threatened in the name of private greed and corporate profit,” said RMT general secretary Mick Cash.



Shaw’s review is one of three into Network Rail promised by the government against the backdrop of mounting costs, debts and delays at the operator of stations, tracks and signalling.



Network Rail’s new chairman Sir Peter Hendy, former transport commissioner for London, is reviewing whatcan be delivered from an original £38.5bn five-year plan that the government had trumpeted as “the biggest investment in rail since Victorian times”.

Economist Colette Bowe is due to report soon on what lessons can be learned from the crisis at Network Rail and how to improve investment planning.

The announcement of Shaw’s review into funding had already prompted warnings from trade unions that Network Rail could be taken out of public hands. Shaw told the BBC she was looking for a “way forward that people will support.”

“I am talking to unions, and to representatives of staff and to other members of different parties so I hope we have strong engagement because I think it matters,” she said.



Escalating costs at Network Rail have emerged as the government tries to cut public spending further in a bid to bring down the budget deficit. Concerns about the operator’s ballooning debt intensified after Network Rail was reclassified a year ago as a public body. That brought greater oversight from the government but meant Network Rail was no longer able to borrow freely to meet rising costs.

Problems at the operator have also dealt a blow to chancellor George Osborne’s plans for a rebalanced economy that includes a “northern powerhouse”, a cornerstone of which is better transport links between cities in northern England. But the government was forced to announce in June that it had shelved promised and vital upgrades to major rail lines in the Midlands and the north of England due to cost overruns and delays at Network Rail.

Earlier this year, a damning report from the rail regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, found that Network Rail had missed more than a third of its targets in the first year of its control period - or five-year plan for 2014 to 2019 - raising “serious questions about its ability to deliver future projects”.

Train operators on long-haul routes have grown impatient with delays caused by track faults. Discontent among rail passengers has also risen. A national survey by Transport Focus showed customer satisfaction levels fell to 80% in 2015, meaning one in five journeys was deemed unsatisfactory.

Responding to Shaw’s comments on possible privatisation, a Department for Transport spokesman said it awaited her recommendations on how the government should “approach the longer-term future shape and financing of Network Rail”.

“We will consider her final report when it is produced in time for the budget next year,” he said.