RMT, which today gave evidence to the Greater London Authority's transport committee, expressed alarm that, despite the debacle in recent days over the failure of Northern Line trains' emergency braking system, Metronet intends to sub-contract train maintenance to Bombardier.

"Anyone would have thought that the 'don't-blame-me-blame-him' nonsense between Tubelines and Alstom over Northern Line trains would have been enough to show that fragmentation of Tube maintenance is dangerous, and potentially disastrous," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.

"It is simply staggering that Metronet, which controls two-thirds of London Underground's infrastructure, is planning even more fragmentation, by farming out train maintenance to Bombardier.

"That means the same crazy set-up on the Northern Line would be imposed on the Barkerloo, Central, Victoria, District, Circle and Hammersmith and City Lines, with one company running trains, another responsible for overall maintenance and yet another maintaining the trains.

"The government should give the Mayor the power to prevent that happening, but the complex, expensive and underperforming PPP itself is at the heart of the problem, and it is time to return all maintenance and engineering work to London Underground," Bob Crow said.

ends

Notes to editors: RMT general secretary Bob Crow gave evidence at City Hall to the GLA transport Committee, together with Tubelines and LU, from 10:15 this morning (Thusday 20 October). His introductory remarks follow

An Early Day Motion, tabled in the House of Commons by London Labour MPs John McDonnell, Harry Cohen, Rudi Vis, Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John Austin and calling for LU maintenance to be brought back in-house, also follows.

Introductory remarks made by RMT general secretary Bob Crow on Northern Line to GLA transport committee

Drivers on the Northern Line refused to take trains into service due to a problem with the train emergency braking system.

Although passengers were inconvenienced by the withdrawal of services we believe that the drivers were correct to take the action that they did in order to protect the safety of both the travelling public and the London Underground workforce. The consequences of trains colliding as a result of a braking system failure do not bear thinking about.

Even the Evening Standard supported the actions of RMT and Aslef members.

Identifying and fixing the fault has proved to be more a difficult process than should have been the case. RMT believes that this is a direct result of the complex contractual relationships created both by the PFI maintenance contract held by Alstom and the PPP itself.

In our submission to the Committee we raised our concern about the outsourcing of train maintenance staff currently employed by Metronet to Bombardier. The disastrous situation on the Northern Line will be replicated from 2007 on the Bakerloo, Central, Victoria, District, Circle and Hammersmith and City Lines.

This will mean that for all these lines there will be one company running the trains, one company responsible for overall maintenance and another for maintaining the trains. After the events we have seen last week this would be sheer lunacy and the government should give the Mayor the necessary powers to stop this madness.

It is quite frankly unbelievable that we have a situation that London Underground privatisation is even worse than on the mainline where, even after the disastrous Tory privatisation, nearly all train operating companies have in-house train maintenance.

RMT believes that the best course of action for the safety of the travelling public and the London Underground workforce is to scrap the overly complex, expensive and underperforming PFI and PPP contracts and to return all maintenance and engineering functions to unified management control under London Underground.

Text of Early Day Motion tabled in the House of Commons�by John McDonnell, Harry Cohen, Rudi Vis, Jeremy Corbyn, Dianne Abbot and John Austin

LondonUnderground PPP and Train Maintenance

"That this house expresses its concern at the severe delays on London Underground Northern Lines services caused by faulty train design; congratulates London Underground drivers for protecting the travelling public by refusing to work for safety reasons; believes that identifying and fixing the fault has been made more difficult by the fragmentation of train maintenance resulting from the ill conceived part privatisation of the tube; is therefore alarmed that the largest PPP Infraco, Metronet, is pressing ahead with proposals to out source its train maintenance from 2007; calls on the Government to ensure that the necessary powers are made available to allow all London Underground maintenance be bought back in house."