Go-Ahead - Flotation

EDM number 1206 in 1993-94, proposed by Nicholas Brown on 10/05/1994.

That this House notes that the Go-Ahead group, a former public company running transport services in the North and bought out, principally by three senior managers for ú2.9 million in 1987, has reached a value of over ú40 million on flotation; considers the resultant huge increase in the personal wealth of just three men, compared with the deterioration in the wages and conditions of the workforce responsible for the success of the company, to be shameful but not untypical of the results of privatisation policy; further considers the comments of directors regarding the opportunities for employees to purchase shares 'on no more favourable terms than any other investor' to be a sop rather than an ESOP; and regards the minimal improvements in some services at the expense of others, when compared with increases in congestion, pollution and fares, to be small compensation to the travelling public and a prime example of the principal objectives of privatisation, which are to enrich the few at the expense of the many.

This motion has been signed by a total of 53 MPs.