The report, along with a minority report by Alfred Goldstein, a member of Serpell's committee, was presented to the Secretary of State for Transport on 20 December 1982, but it would be a further month before it was published. However, some aspects of it had already been leaked to the press and had attracted criticism prior to publication. As railway historian David Spaven later wrote, the reaction from the public, press and politicians to the report was 'overwhelmingly adverse'. An editorial in "The Guardian" in January 1983 described it as 'a really rotten report', while "The Glasgow Herald" reported that its publication 'attracted almost universal condemnation' causing David Howell, the Secretary of State for Transport, to immediately acknowledge that the Thatcher Government was unlikely to accept any of the 'more extreme options' it outlined. Meanwhile, leader of the opposition Michael Foot called for the report to 'be "strangled" as soon as possible' and the leader of the National Union of Railwaymen also opposed the report which he described as 'a disaster'.