Brown is warned on rail debts
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Your support makes all the difference.Gordon Brown's spending plans suffered an embarrassing rebuff last night from the head of the Whitehall spending watchdog.
The Chancellor has argued that Network Rail's £21bn debts should be excluded from Treasury books as it counts as a private company. But Sir John Bourn, the head of the National Audit Office, said he believed the public coffers would have to carry the costs of a collapse. He told the Commons Treasury sub-committee: "If Network Rail goes down we are not going to have no railways in country. The Government will provide them."
Adding such a large sum to government balance sheets would push Mr Brown, who was forced to increase borrowing massively in the pre-Budget report last week, close to his borrowing limits.
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