Striking train drivers to reject £5k pay rise in fresh blow to millions of commuters

Striking train drivers are to reject a £5,000 pay rise as leaked proposals reveal government plans to impose greater reliance on automation across the railways.

In a move that raises the spectre of more strike action, the executive committee of drivers union Aslef will next week vote against an 8pc pay rise, The Telegraph has learnt.

Train companies last week offered a 4pc increase backdated to the start of 2022 and a 4pc rise in 2023. The offer - which takes average train driver pay from £60,000 to £65,000 - was conditional on changes to working conditions, however. It was signed off by the Government. 

The new pay deal, entitled “Pay & Workforce Reform Principles Proposal” sets out the strings attached.

Staff will not be entitled to renegotiate pay to compensate for the introduction of “new technology or automation” where it has been introduced or has previously been in use.

Although not explicitly referencing “driver-only operation” - which scraps guards on trains - many trains already have the technology that allows doors to be operated by the driver.

The wording could also raise concerns about more radical technology that is available, but not used. Thameslink services between London Bridge and St Pancras stations are set up to run driverless if required, for instance. Meanwhile, HS2 trains are expected to run on driverless technology.

Other conditions include a commitment to work overtime on Sundays and hand new starters fewer days of annual leave.

Although Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan stopped short of dismissing the pay deal in front of a House of Commons committee on Wednesday, industry sources said that there was “no chance” that the union’s executive will vote in favour of putting it to a ballot of members.

The Aslef executive is due to meet on Monday afternoon to consider the deal and is expected to formally notify the Rail Delivery Group – which represents train operators – of its rejection on Tuesday, sources added.

Mr Whelan did, however, paint a pessimistic picture of industrial relations in front of members of the Transport Select Committee.

When asked to say how close, on a scale of one to 10, the situation was to a resolution.

He replied: "I think you can include zero. We're further away than when we started."

In an interview with The Telegraph last week, he warned that strike action could go on for “months and months”.

Mr Whelan appeared alongside RMT general secretary Mick Lynch in front of MPs. Both underlined that their unions would never accept driver-only operation, known as DOO, on the railways.

Mr Lynch also bemoaned the Department for Transport’s "Stalinist obsession about central control".

"What we get from the DfT is provocations, provocations in language, and also what is put into the documents,” he said.

"You can also see in the way they run the railway, when there is a Network Rail strike they shut Scotland and they shut large parts of Wales, and they choose to run the parts that connect to England, it's quite cynical in my view."

He added: "It seems to me that there is almost a Stalinist obsession in the DfT about central control and you can see that in the contracts."