LIVINGSTONE FAILED PPP CHALLENGE COST LONDONERS £1.6MILLION IN LEGAL FEES

12.01.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 6th Apr 2005

London Assembly Liberal Democrats will later today quiz London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, and Commissioner for Transport, Bob Kiley, on new figures that show Ken Livingstone spent more than £1.6million of Londoners money on the failed legal challenge to the Tube PPP agreement.

The figures, revealed following Freedom of Information requests to the Mayor and Transport for London by the Lib Dems, show that £597,000 was spent on legal fees and costs between December 2000 and August 2001, with a further £1,023,300 spent on the appeal between May 2002 to July 2002. The full external legal costs total £1,620,300 but does not include the costs incurred by either the Greater London Authority or Transport for London for work done by members of staff.

Liberal Democrat London Assembly Transport Spokesperson, Lynne Featherstone, said:-

"It is simply staggering that the now Labour Mayor Livingstone spent such huge amounts of taxpayers' money fighting people who are now his Labour Party friends and colleagues.

"In a year that has seen the Congestion Charge increase by 60%, bus fares rocket and the Mayor's share of Londoners Council Tax bill increase by double the rate of inflation, it is almost unbelievable that the Mayor could spend so much on what he must have known was a lost cause.

"When Tube users are already paying for the most expensive underground system in the world, it will come as a bitter blow that millions of pounds were frittered away in legal wrangling rather than on reducing ticket prices or investing in improvements on the Tube.

"Londoners paid a very heavy price for what was really an unpleasant internal squabble in the Labour Party typical of the personal rivalry that still dogs relations between this government and Ken Livingstone."

ENDS

Notes to editor Mr Livingstone and Mr Kiley will be quizzed by the London Assembly from 9am on Wednesday 6th April 2005

A copy of the response letter from Transport for London detailing the external legal costs can be found below:-

Your ref:

Our ref: DF/10093

Graham Tope

Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group

City Hall

The Queen's Walk

London SE1 2AA

18 March 2005

Dear Sir

Request Dated 16th February 2005 under the Freedom of Information Act

Thank you for your letter received on 18 February 2005 addressed to my colleague Richard Bevins to which he has asked me to respond. Your request has been considered under the Freedom of Information Act.

Transport for London challenged the Tube PPP in two separate judicial review applications, the first running from approximately December 2000 to August 2001 and the second from May 2002 to July 2002. The Mayor was a joint party to the second application. Costs of the separate actions and ancillary proceedings are set out below:-

December 2000 to August 2001

TfL incurred external legal costs of £525,000 in relation to these proceedings. During the same period, LUL/LRT obtained an interim injunction restraining TfL and the Mayor from publicly disclosing a report produced by Deloitte & Touche. TfL and the Mayor obtained an order from the Court (which was affirmed by the Court of Appeal) lifting the injunction and were awarded their costs of this action. As a result, these awarded costs were offset against 80% of LUL/LRT's costs of the first judicial review and TfL made a net payment to LRT/LUL of £72,000.

TOTAL: £597,000.00

May 2002 to July 2002

Fees incurred by TfL and the Mayor, including counsel's fees totalled approximately £988,000 for this period. In an adjunct to the judicial review and as a result of an application for an injunction by LRT/LUL preventing disclosure of a document, in addition to the costs set out above TfL also incurred approximately £68,600 of legal costs in respect of a hearing before Mr Justice Neuberger. LRT/LUL were ordered to pay 50% of those costs, £34,300.00

TOTAL: £1,023,300.00

If you are dissatisfied with this response to your request you may seek an internal review of our decision. The internal review will be conducted by someone other than the person who made the original decision, in accordance with the FOIA complaints procedure published on our website at www.tfl.gov.uk/foi. Requests for internal review should be addressed to: The Information Access and Compliance Manager, 6th Floor Windsor House, 42-50 Victoria Street, London, SW1H OBD.

If, following the internal review, you remain dissatisfied with the way TfL has handled your request, then you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Yours faithfully

David Farmiloe

Solicitor, For Head of TfL Legal

Email: [email protected]

Direct line: 020 7941 0071

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