Wednesday newspaper round-up: Train travel, Greensill, Spire Healthcare

Rail travel in England risks losing out to cars in the recovery from Covid because the Department for Transport lacks urgency and does not “appreciate the scale of the challenge ahead”, MPs have warned. A critical report from the Commons public accounts committee said that taxpayers could also be left on the hook for large additional costs because new contracts had been awarded without sufficient transparency “to inform oversight”. - Guardian

The collapsed finance firm Greensill Capital was given access to a government-backed loan scheme without being subjected to detailed checks, leaving UK taxpayers facing a £335m loss, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found. The National Audit Office said the government-owned British Business Bank [BBB] carried out limited due diligence on the firm’s application before giving permission to access the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loans Scheme (CLBILS). - Guardian

Lady Tina Green, wife of the former retail tycoon Sir Philip, has been handed £50m by Topshop’s administrators, even as pensioners and smaller suppliers face a further wait to recover what they are owed by the collapsed chain. The Green family’s Aldsworth Equity, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and controlled by Lady Tina Green, received the payout in May. - Telegraph

Shares in Jaguar Land Rover’s parent company Tata Motors fell by 8.4 per cent on the Mumbai stock exchange after it cut its forecast for deliveries to car dealers because of the global chip shortage. The company said yesterday that supply disruption of semiconductor chips was worse than expected in the latest three months of its financial year, but noted that the situation would improve in the second half. - The Times

The boss of Spire Healthcare admitted that investors have a “difficult” decision to make before a vote that will settle the future of the private hospital operator. Justin Ash, chief executive, admitted that the fate of the £1 billion bid from Australia’s Ramsay Health Care was too hard to predict ahead of a shareholder meeting next week. - The Times