U.K.’s Greening to Vote Against Bonuses for Network Rail Chiefs

U.K. Transport Secretary Justine Greening said she’ll vote against proposed bonuses for senior executives at Network Rail Ltd., which runs the country’s railway lines, though it may not be enough to stop the payments.

“I won’t be able to stop it from going through,” Greening told the BBC. “The governance structure that the last government set up means that I can go and vote against it,” which won’t necessarily change the result.

According to media reports, the company’s chief executive could be in line for a bonus of as much as 340,000 pounds ($540,000). The bonuses will be decided at a meeting on Feb. 10. Some lawmakers have called for the payments to be waived after the company admitted health and safety breaches in relation to the deaths of two teenagers at a level crossing.

Network Rail took over the national network in 2002 from Railtrack Plc. It is a private company accountable to members, who are made up of rail industry representatives, the public and the government.

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net; Dick Schumacher at dschumacher@bloomberg.net