In response to the announcement of a six-and-a-half-month extension to Transport for London’s (TfL) emergency funding settlement, Labour’s London Assembly Transport Spokesperson, Elly Baker AM, said:
“This is an outrageous trade-off that the Government has imposed upon TfL and Londoners who did the right thing and avoided using public transport during the pandemic.
“TfL has been pushed to the brink after its fares revenue plummeted by over 90% due to the COVID-19 outbreak and has struggled to recover since.
“In return for another short-term, sticking plaster deal and to stop transport services from grinding to a halt, Ministers are now demanding potentially devastating long-term cuts and a further fares rise, with no end in sight to the extension of the congestion charge.
“Holding London’s transport system to ransom will do nothing to level-up the country. With one hand the Government has given private rail companies a blank cheque pandemic bailout, but with the other, it has ordered cuts of at least £300 million from TfL’s overstrained budget in this year alone.
“Ministers must urgently go back to the drawing board. It is clear that TfL should be given a no strings attached, multi-year funding deal, for the sake of not just London’s economic recovery, but that of the whole country”.
ENDS