LABOUR today called for railway maintenance to be “brought back in-house” after the recent deaths of two track workers in south Wales.

Shadow transport minister Rachael Maskell urged the government to ban zero-hours contracts and end a culture of “exploitative and unsafe work practices” on Britain’s railways.

She asked Transport Secretary Chris Grayling in the Commons: “Will the Secretary of State bring an immediate end to zero-hour contracts, as advised by the regulator for road and rail, bring this work back in-house, and bring an end to these exploitative and unsafe work practices?”