TRANSPORT Secretary Grant Shapps was lambasted today after suggesting that train companies should be financially rewarded for running services on time.

Speaking on Sky News, Mr Shapps said that railway companies should be “incentivised” to run properly after figures showed fewer than two-thirds ran on time in the last year ending in June.

He said train operators are “not really paid for the trains running on time specifically, and that’s something we can change structurally on the railway.”

Conceding that the railway system he inherited from former transport secretary Chris Grayling was a “deeply dysfunctional system,” Mr Shapps added: “What’s happening at the moment, just to sort of drill into what you’re saying is they’re paid even when they don’t run trains on time.”

He also drew attention to the Williams Review, a government-sponsored investigation into potentially reforming Britain’s struggling railway system, which is due to be released at the end of the year.

Labour shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald said: “The Conservatives have been forced to acknowledge that private train companies prioritise profits over delivering reliable and affordable services, but paying train companies extra for running services on time is absurd.

“Nurses, teachers and police officers aren’t paid extra money to turn up on time to work. They do it because it’s their job and they care about the public. So why should private train companies be treated any differently?

“That the transport secretary believes train companies aren’t being paid enough to incentivise them to run trains on time demonstrates how broken privatisation is.

"The railway is an essential public service that should be run in the public interest under public ownership.”

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “When even hard-line Tories start openly admitting that private train companies are putting profits top of their priorities then you know that the days of this rail racketeering are well and truly numbered.

“Safety, access and quality of service are mere afterthoughts on Britain’s rip-off railways. It is no longer a question of if the whole‎ system is taken into public ownership. It’s a question of when.”