CLAIMS that the transport secretary Andrew Adonis was involved in a secret arrangement in connection with the ending of the National Express East Coast franchise are being dismissed by him as ‘pure fantasy’, but the Conservatives are calling for an inquiry by the Cabinet Secretary.

The allegations are connected with a forthcoming Channel 4 Dispatches programme about lobbying of ministers by MPs in which former transport secretary Stephen Byers compares himself to ‘a cab for hire’, charging up to £5,000 a day for his services.

My Byers has already retracted his statements, and admitted that he had exaggerated his influence. He has invited the Parliamentary Commissioner John Lyon to investigate his conduct, but he has been suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party, along with another former transport secretary, Geoff Hoon, and former health secretary Patricia Hewitt. All three appear in the programme. Mr Hoon said he had ‘no idea’ why he had been suspended.

But the allegations have prompted Lord Adonis to make a statement in the House of Lords. He told peers that he had indeed had a brief conversation with Mr Byers over the problems being experienced by National Express, but that was because Mr Byers had been in office when financial crises were affecting the railway industry, including Connex as well as Railtrack.

In his statement, Lord Adonis said: “There is no truth whatever in the suggestion that Stephen Byers came to any arrangement with me on any matter relating to National Express. It is equally untrue to suggest that National Express was allowed by the Government to avoid any of its rail contract obligations when the company's east coast subsidiary announced its intention to default on its franchise on 1 July last year.

“Stephen Byers had a brief conversation in the House of Commons with me last June about the east coast main line. We discussed his experience in dealing with rail franchise difficulties when transport secretary. As regards the situation then facing National Express, I told him that despite the company's difficulties, I had no intention whatever of renegotiating the east coast franchise on terms favourable to the company as the company was seeking in its approaches to my department.

“I told Mr Byers that such a move would undermine the rail franchise system and would not be in the best interests of taxpayers.”

But his statement has not pacified opposition MPs. Conservative Sir George Young said the claims of lobbying for cash would have ‘deeply appalled’ the public who would expect them to be treated ‘with the seriousness they deserve’, and that the prime minister's decision to rule out an inquiry before the programme had been broadcast ‘was simply the wrong response’.