What is needed, he suggests, is simple government funding of the necessary investment in infrastructure, which he estimates at 500m- 700m a year. It is complicated by there being distinct two camps - the Treasury, which wants to push through PPP, and the Prescott camp, which is more open minded about alternatives and has some of Mr Blair's sympathies. The cost of reorganising the tube system could amount to 13bn over the next 15 years and the Treasury appears adamant that this should be kept out of public accounts, which an unmodified PPP plan does very neatly. They do not want taxpayers to be ultimately responsible for the risk, as they would be under Mr Kiley's vision. The Treasury's argument is that, although the work would inevitably cost much more if done by profit-making, private firms, this would be recouped by the heightened efficiency of private managers.
Ministers are concerned that public-sector management is irreparably inefficient.
They point to the Jubilee line extension, which doubled in cost to 3.5bn and was completed 18 months late. The government are also concerned that, if PPP were not adopted, it would also leave Aslef in too powerful a position, as it showed today and earlier this month by closing almost all of the network for a day.