RAIL trade unionists likened Transport Secretary Mark Harper to an ostrich after he said the government “won’t throw money” at train drivers today.

Mr Harper was asked how negotiations over the bitter pay dispute and more than a week of industrial action this month were going on LBC.

He insisted an offer was on the table “that everyone says I should get round, it’s there.”

But “we’re not going to throw more money at train drivers,” the Tory minister said.

“I want train drivers to get a pay rise and to stop disrupting the railways.”

Aslef train drivers union general secretary Mick Whelan urged Mr Harper to meet him within a fortnight to discuss the dispute, which has been running for more than a year.

He added: “We have experienced nothing but bad faith since you took over.”

A spokesman for Aslef said: “What we want Mr Harper to do is sit down and talk to us. Or, at least, to allow the train companies to sit down and negotiate with us.

“Mr Harper needs to stop sticking his head — like an ostrich — in the sand.

“There is no deal on the table and Aslef members have, time and time again, indicated their complete rejection of the offer that was made in April by voting, on enormous turnouts, overwhelmingly for strike action.

“We don’t want Mr Harper to ‘throw money,’ as he puts it, anywhere — although we note that Mr Harper, like [rail minister] Huw Merriman, has admitted that it would have been cheaper — much cheaper,  to have settled this dispute.”