Letter: Rationale for railways policy

I WAS NOT the intellectual father of rail privatisation in its current form - nor of the poll tax, for that matter ('Breaking up is hard to do', Business, 27 March). The White Paper setting it out was published in 1992 before John MacGregor became Transport Secretary or I his special adviser. Neither am I an academic nor have I been one for 16 years. In so far as I have had an influence on the development of railway policy, I gave a speech at the University of Leeds on 10 March, 'The Economics of Rail Privatisation', which set out a rationale for it: how, through a mixture of franchising and privatisation, it would provide incentives to all parts of the industry to deliver a better quality service.

Sir Christopher Foster

Coopers & Lybrand

London WC2