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Mayor and Adonis clash over £1.4billion Tube funding crisis
Nicholas Cecil, Chief Political Correspondent5 Nov 2008
BORIS Johnson today launched a ferocious attack on the Government for refusing to stump up more money for the Tube upgrade.
The Mayor accused ministers of failing in their “duty and moral responsibility” by ruling out extra money to plug a funding gap of at least £1.4 billion.
His attack came after transport minister Lord Adonis publicly rejected a plea for extra cash, saying Transport for London had already been allocated a £40 billion grant for funding from 2010 to 2017. “We don't accept that TfL does not have the money,” the peer said.
But Mr Johnson said the cost of improving the Northern, Jubilee and Piccadilly lines could rise more than had been forecast and warned of “contractual problems” with Tube Lines, which looks after the three lines.
The private sector consortium says it needs an extra £1.4 billion to complete work by 2017.
Mr Johnson claimed that the way the Government had imposed the Public Private Partnership on the Tube would lead to future problems. “[It is] vital that the inventors of the PPP structure, they know where they are, take responsibility for their creature and what matters is the outcome,” he said.
Direct appeals to Chancellor Alistair Darling for extra cash have fallen on deaf ears. Asked whether more money would be available from the Treasury, Lord Adonis said: “No.”
A spokesman for Mr Johnson's office responded: “The Mayor cannot believe the Government's determination to bury its head in the sand and ignore the financial outcomes of the PPP arrangements it foisted upon the capital.
“Londoners know that the Government has a duty and a moral responsibility to meet the funding gap that has resulted from its mistakes.”
The clash highlights concerns that TfL will struggle to find the funds it has committed to both the Tube upgrade and the £16 billion Crossrail scheme. Ministers are still in talks to secure hundreds of millions from the private sector for the cross-London rail project.
Lord Adonis rejected a suggestion from Underground chief Tim O'Toole that the Tube improvements were more important than Crossrail.
He also reportedly said Mr Johnson had asked for the construction of the new rail line — due to open in 2017 — to be speeded up. But the Mayor's office played down this claim. “At a recent meeting with Geoff Hoon the Mayor noted reports in the media that the Chancellor would like to bring construction of Crossrail forward if possible,” said a spokesman.
Mr Johnson said the huge drilling machines used for Crossrail's twin bore tunnels could be used to extend the Underground: “If we are going to buy these new tunnelling machines, as we are, why not see if we can use them to dig south of the river and expand the Tube network there?”
Reader views (8)
When I arrived in the UK some years ago, I was under the romantic but quite incorrect impression that the House of Lords was an aristocratic leftover from the 17th century, a part of the pomp and ceremony of Parliament and Royal London but not much more: I have since learnt to my horror that many of those who sit in the House of Lords, such as Lord Adonis and Lord Mandelson, are actually unelected politicians and given a peerage and a seat in the House in defiance of the normal principles of democracy. The fine words about the sanctity of democracy trumpeted by many politicians here is a charade and yet another way in which politicians demonstrate their lack of any kind of democratic ideals.
The American colonies were lost as the colonists were adamant that they would not pay tax to the Crown without representation. Gordon Brown and his cohort have obviously learnt nothing from history.
Lord Adonis is playing party politics and not looking at his obligations to meet the needs of all Londoners to the best of his ability.
- Kiwi Expat, London, UK, 07/11/2008 10:43
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Yet again Borish shows how unqualified he is to be mayor of London as he suggests using TBM's used to build Crossrail to extend the TUBE in south London.
Perhaps he should visit Finchley Road Station where he will see that tube trains are much smaller than the sub surface trains on the Metropolitan line, while these are still not as big as mainline trains that Crossrail will use.
There are also two reasons why south london has few tube lines, the first is the opposition of the Southern Railway to trains in its area. However, the main reason is while North London has a clay soil which is ideal for tunnelling South London has the Woolwich and Reading beds which are made up of sand and are therefore liable to collapse and are expensive to tunnel through.
Its no wonder Boris is making such a mess of London's transport plans given the lack of education in the real world he got at school which thought a dead language was importent for the future.
Finally, his predecessor seemed to know how to negotiate deals for London while Boris fails to have these skills. In fact he is putting funding of the Victoria Station upgrade in doubt as he messes around with the developers all for views that are just Blue Sky Thinking!
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex, 05/11/2008 22:29
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The same tunelling machine for a main-line sized tunnel and for a tube tunnel? I believe Boris Johnson has a brain (though I meet lots of people who don't); he really needs to ensure that it is engaged before making such silly comments.
- Alan Griffiths, Forest Gate, LONDON. UK, 05/11/2008 19:37
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Steve, London
"Is there anyone that Boris has yet to blame for his own failings? Who voted for this bumbling fool".
Who voted for Blair's crony Lord Adonis?
Johnson is he elected mayor of London, I and thousands of others voted for him.
- Norman, London, 05/11/2008 16:38
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Is there anyone that Boris has yet to blame for his own failings? Who voted for this bumbling fool?
- Steve, London, 05/11/2008 14:07
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Here we go again, this goverment create these cash cow's
then wash their hands of them, mean while it costs the poor (and I do mean poor)old tax payers an arm and a leg to carry on funding them. This is just one of many such organisations set-up by an old pals act which will go on making cash for years for their shareholders while doing nothing for the people expected to pay-out for years to come. Hospital PFI's being the most costly.
- Hawkeye, multan Pakistan, 05/11/2008 14:06
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I suspect that the work is massively expensive because of the 'Rule of Three'. Whenever you see people working on the tube, water main replacement, etc. they are in groups of three. Only one ever seems to be working with another observing and the third in their own world chatting away on a mobile!
- Conspiracy Theorist, London, 05/11/2008 13:30
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So, let me get this straight; the [unelected?] Labour peer, no doubt still bristling at Boris' demolition of that Labour party candidate (what was his name?) in the Mayoral elections, decides that he can play partisan politics with London's transportation system? Sounds really noble, doesn't it. Can our Government please just get something, anything, right, for once and just pay up?
- St, London, 05/11/2008 13:17
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