David Webster – 1967 Comments on Dismissal of Gerry Fiennes by Barbara Castle

The comments made by David Webster, the then Conservative Transport spokesperson, on 26 September 1967.

The peremptory and humiliating sacking of Gerald Fiennes is in sharp distinction to the treatment of Lord Robens. In Lord Robens’ case he was, in my view rightly, asked to stay on after the disaster of Aberfan and after the tribunal had found the Coal Board, of which he was the head, to be seriously at fault and also to have been most unsatisfactory in their giving of evidence.

In Mr Fiennes’ case, this distinguished and faithful servant of the railways has said what many people would heartily agree with in criticising the apparent lack of interest of the railways board to attempt to attain its financial objectives. He had been summoned to HQ and sacked immediately – with hardly time even to tidy his desk.

At one moment a lifetime with the railways is suddenly severed, although acute shortage of top railways management is everywhere acknowledged. I suspect that in this case the hand that caused the sacking is that of Mrs Barbara Castle. We know that Mrs Castle has little interest in the financial objectives of the railways. We know that Mrs Castle is impatient of independent opinion, as in the case of the removal of the chairman of the British Road Safety Advisory Council and in her attempts to dominate the road research laboratory. We will demand an inquiry into this grisly affairs as soon as Parliament reassembles.