The UK government has begun seeking buyers its 40% stake in the cross-Channel train operator Eurostar.
The government announced its intention to sell its Eurostar stake along with a number of other public assets as part of the National Infrastructure Plan, from which it hopes to raise around £20 billion by 2020.
Other possible assets to go up for sale as part of the plan include the government’s student loan book, legacy Royal Mail pension assets, and the government’s stake in uranium enrichment company URENCO.
The Chancellor plans to use the proceeds from the sales to reduce public sector debt, but the plan has been widely criticised by Labour and the unions.
Shadow Transport Secretary Mary Creagh MP has called for a “value-for-money enquiry” into the possible sale to avoid a repeat of the “Royal Mail sale fiasco, which lost taxpayers a billion pounds”.
RMT Union General Secretary Mick Cash called the sell-off “short sighted” and “a gross act of betrayal of the British people by a right wing government hell bent on selling off the family silver regardless of the real cost.”
Companies interested in purchasing the government’s stake in Eurostar have until November to notify the Treasury of their plans, with the government looking to reach “definitive agreements” in the first quarter of 2015.
After beginning service in 1994 as a partnership between public rail operators SNCF (France), SNCB (Belgium) and British Rail (later London and Continental Railways (LCR)), Eurostar became a single unified corporate entity owned by the three rail operators as shareholders.
The UK government transferred its holding in Eurostar from LCR to the Treasury in June in preparation for the sale.
