THE part-privatisation of London Underground is costing the taxpayer 20 times more than the state-run system yet has failed to reduce train delays, according to a Commons report published today.

More than £1 billion of public money will be spent on the network this year, most of it going to the two private companies that maintain the trains, tracks and stations.

The report by the Transport Select Committee says that in 1998 the network received only £44 million but achieved a similar level of performance. Punctuality has declined on many lines and safety breaches have increased since the Public Private Partnership began two years ago.

The report shows that Metronet and Tube Lines have persistently failed to meet their targets on the Victoria, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly, Central and Waterloo and City lines. The targets were achieved only on the District Line.

The committee says that the true extent of the companies’ failures is hidden by the soft targets set under the contracts.

The companies, which made profits of £100 million last year, were allowed to cause 5 per cent more delays in their first year than London Underground’s historic level.

They received bonus payments despite performing “a little worse than in the past”.

Derailments have quadrupled and there have been sharp increases in broken rails and signals passed at danger since the PPP began in 2003, the committee finds. It says that one derailment, at White City in May last year, was caused by Metronet failing to pass on critical safety information to its staff. Senior engineers at London Underground had given Metronet detailed instructions on track repairs but it failed to pass on the information to its track team.

The MPs demand assurances that “the complex interfaces between the many organisations involved in the Underground do not increase risks”.

The committee acknowledges that stations and trains are cleaner but says: “Such an increase in funding would have produced improvements anyway, without the PPP.”

Graffiti on trains has almost been eliminated but this “is less important to customers than a speedy, reliable service”.

The committee concludes: “To meet their targets on train availability, the infrastructure companies actually only had to meet slightly lower targets than the previous benchmark, but they failed to meet even these.

“The committee has no confidence that they will meet the more demanding targets expected in future.”

The committee voices concern that London Underground, which continues to operate the trains in the public sector, had been given “no public-interest right to terminate the PPP contracts”.

It criticises the companies for failing to supply information on their performance, describing this as astonishing.

The MPs emphasise that the Government cannot prevent Metronet and Tube Lines from being sold on to other companies, in which case performance could get even worse.

Lynne Featherstone, chairman of the London Assembly Transport Committee, said: “The deal struck by this Government on the Tube was ill-judged, ill-conceived and poorly implemented. It has led to many Londoners questioning why the Tube was privatised in the first place.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• The Times celebrates its 225th birthday
• Heath discussed IMF loan during 1974 crisis
• Britain’s loneliest café opens for business