PPP plan for Tube 'would risk repeat of Railtrack'

The Government risks a repeat of the Railtrack "debacle" by pressing ahead with plans for a public-private partnership for the London Underground, the Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody said yesterday.

Opening the first full Commons debate on the PPP, Ms Dunwoody, who chairs the Commons Transport Select Committee, told MPs: "It is better to tell people, 'We've made a mistake and on the whole we think it's better to start again'."

Speaking after Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Transport, announced a deal to buy out Railtrack, she said: "It is perhaps instructive, on a day when we have just been discussing the debacle of Railtrack, to say to the Government that we are not convinced as a select committee that the public-private partnership is the way forward, will provide what we want or is what the general public want.

"What we are talking about is a scheme which is so complicated ... and replicates the problems we saw in Railtrack. We felt we were almost in danger of doing the same thing again."

She told MPs that an independent study into the scheme's value for money had found that many figures were still subjective. "Frankly, I find that very worrying indeed. If a Government is entering into very massive commitments then it seems to me essential it should do so on the basis of very clear facts, very clear responsibilities," she said.

Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrat transport spokesman, attacked the "obscene" sums spent on the PPP and insisted that a bond issue would prove better value for money. He said the PPP was "unworkable, unwanted and we should put it out of its misery now".

But Geoffrey Robinson, a Labour former paymaster general, said: "We had to go for a public-private partnership. There was no other way forward."

Chris Grayling, Conservative MP for Epsom and Ewell and a member of the Transport committee, accused the Government of inaction. He said: "There has been no infrastructure project started on London Underground since 1997." The PPP proposals would merely delay big improvement projects. "Passengers are going to have to wait for the improvements they really want."