Christopher Austin interviewed by Michael Lee

Oral history interview with Christopher Austin, conducted and recorded by Michael Lee at the interviewee's home in Bromley, Kent on 25 January 2019. Duration: 1 hr. 20 min. 20 sec. Personal background; Parliamentary Affairs Manager role; privatisation of ancillary businesses 1980s; Conservative 1992 manifesto; alternative methods of privatisation; Parliamentary Affairs team work; Grant Woodruff; Robert Adley; Peter Snape; Railways Bill debates; House of Lords debate; working with Richard Faulkner (Westminster Communications); privatisation implementation work; staff briefing; Future Rail 1991; Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) bill; staff attitudes; personal reflections; activity at party conferences; Brian Mawhinney (Secretary of State for Transport); Professor Philip Goodwin (University of Oxford)

One of over 150 oral history recordings made as part of the Britain’s Railways All Change (BRAC) archive project. BRAC was set-up to cover gaps in documenting the railway privatisation process in the United Kingdom, between 1994 and 1997, when the government-owned British Rail was dismantled into over 100 privately-owned companies. The interviews capture the recollections of people involved in the planning and implementation of the privatisation process, the management of change and running the railway during privatisation.