A single agency should run the rail network, according to a House of Commons committee.

The transport committee said yesterday that the industry is “out of effective control” and has fragmented into “competing baronies” that absorb more than three times the subsidy granted to British Rail but deliver worse performance.

“The fundamental failure is one of government policy,” the report concluded. “(The government) has had six years to construct a policy and structure for the railway that works, but our report shows that it has failed to do so.”