Rail boss set to receive huge £800,000 performance bonus despite soaring cancellations

The boss of Britain’s biggest transport company has been handed an £800,000 bonus as train cancellations mount.

Graham Sutherland’s performance-related pay is almost double his annual salary, despite the company’s three rail companies cancelling tens of thousands of trains over the past year.

Among his performance targets for the year was to ensure the billion-pound company makes “progress” on diversity. Mr Sutherland is set to receive an £800,000 bonus on top of his £567,000 salary, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

His total salary for this year, including pension contributions and other benefits, is £1.4m. But around 61,000 trains have been partially or completely cancelled on Avanti, South Western Railway and Great Western Railway over the past year.

This is an increase of a fifth compared with the year immediately before the Covid-19 lockdown began in March 2020. First Group said most of the delays and cancellations were due to bad weather and rail infrastructure issues. Louise Haigh, the new Transport Secretary, said Labour would “deliver the biggest overhaul of our railways in a generation”.

She added: “We will not stand by and watch failing rail companies profit from passenger misery. That is why we will draw up plans to bring rail franchises back into the public sector.”