VIRGIN Trains East Coast has hit back after a Minister suggested its franchise could fall apart before 2020 and taxpayers will be left out of pocket.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told MPs it was inevitable the Government wouldn’t make as much money as expected because Stagecoach and Virgin would be allowed to hand back the franchise for the York-London route in 2020 – three years early.

He suggested to the Commons transport committee that the franchise had failed because the Government had accepted an “overambitious” bid, and it was unlikely to survive even until 2020 as it struggled to honour its payments.

But the York-based company told The Press it was continuing to meet all its financial commitments, and making around 20 per cent more contributions to the taxpayer than when the route was operated by the public sector.

“We remain focused on completing the remainder of our planned £140 million investment programme which has already seen a complete upgrade of the existing fleet as well as new services and extra capacity – for example, customers can now benefit from 42 additional services between Edinburgh and London every week, and an extra 22 Saturday services between Leeds and London – a total of 1.74 million additional seats since May 2016,” it said.

“As a result, Virgin Trains East Coast has amongst the highest customer satisfaction of any franchised rail operator.”