TRANSPORT SECRETARY Justine Greening (pictured) is to be replaced by former Chief Whip Patrick McLoughlin, while rail minister Theresa Villiers is moving to become Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
The changes, part of the Prime Minister's cabinet reshuffle, come during a critical time at the Department for Transport.
The long-running saga of the Thameslink rolling stock order, for which Siemens has been preferred bidder for almost 15 months, is still unfinished. Theresa Villiers told MPs yesterday that financial close can now be expected in 'early autumn', but would give no firm date.
Meanwhile the incoming transport secretary will face a much higher hurdle if Virgin wins legal approval for a full judicial review of the West Coast franchise competition. The existence of a legal challenge by Virgin has already caused the the DfT to concede that it cannot sign the franchise with FirstGroup for the time being, and should a full hearing be held it seems likely that both Mr McLoughlin and Ms Greening would be potential witnesses.
Hard on the heels of the reshuffle, the RMT union has called for a full disclosure of the bids from both FirstGroup and Virgin following the official admission that the competition is still 'live' and seems set to remain so until the merits of Virgin's arguments have been tested by a High Court judge.
The union's general secretary Bob Crow said: "The new Transport Secretary will also have the toxic West Coast franchise shambles dumped straight on his desk and there’s plenty of mileage left in that fight as we expose the bankrupt shambles of rail privatisation foisted on the British people by an earlier Tory Government."