Claire Perry resigns as rail minister as Southern chaos continues

Rail minister Claire Perry fell on her sword on Friday, and resigned, as the poor performance of Southern Railway continued to plague commuters.

The Department for Transport gave no reason for her resignation, which she reportedly turned in on Thursday evening, though earlier in the week she admitted in the Commons that she is “often ashamed to be the rail minister”.

“If I thought it would help by falling on my sword, I would,” Perry said in the debate over Southern’s operating company Govia Thameslink Railway on Tuesday.

“This feels like a failure.”

Commuters have been lumped with an “emergency timetable” for Southern services from this week, seeing almost 350 trains cancelled each day in a bid to “normalise” the busiest and most disruptive services.

Both politicians and the public have expressed their dismay at the timetable, which has left some areas with very limited service, and others with no rail service at all.

Govia Thameslink Railway is majority-owned by FTSE 250 firm Go-Ahead, which has previously issued a profit warning over the performance of its Southern operation.