A former Tory minister has been left red faced after being dismantled during a debate on the rail strikes.
Robert Jenrick, Housing Secretary from 2019 to 2021, challenged RMT general secretary Mick Lynch about the industrial action which is taking place this week over pay and working conditions.
During a heated debate on Peston the Conservative MP said the union bosses were "alienating" customers by going on strike today and on Saturday.
READ MORE: RMT boss brands Tory minister 'a liar' 15 times during heated TV interview over rail strikes
While, Lynch said Jenrick didn't understand the situation or the union's position in the dispute.
Around 40,000 members of the RMT union at Network Rail and 13 train operators are involved in the industrial action.
Major disruption is expected across the UK with just a handful of routes operating in Scotland.
Jenrick and Lynch clashed on the ITV show on Wednesday night, here's the exchange between Jenrick (RJ) and Lynch (ML) on Peston:
RJ said: "One is the modernisation programme and its merits or otherwise. I'm not an expert on that, but what I've heard, it feels like the unions are opposing a degree of that modernisation."
ML : "But you don't know that, do you? You haven't examined our position."
RJ : "Well I do know a few things. You've lost 20 per cent of the passengers on the railway since covid."
ML : "I haven't lost them, covid did. We operated the trains through that period."
RJ : "We need to encourage those people back. The worst way in which you can do that is by alienating your customers by going on strike and making their lives much more difficult."
ML : "The worst way you could do it is insist that the fares go up by RPI, ripping off the commuters but you won't give workers RPI.
"Fares go up by RPI every year, the retail price index. That's the government regulations. Last year profits were made by the train operators.
"£500 million out of that subsidy you gave went to those companies. First Group and Go-Ahead who we're negotiating with are both subject to takeovers from private equity companies.
"They're going to be worth billions because they know that you're gonna keep syphoning money from the public purse into private sector operators, just like you are doing in health, education and care."
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