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Tube shake-up must avoid 'extravagant' fees

The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions should give full details of professional firms and the fees involved in the re-organisation of the London Underground, say the Commons Transport Committee.

The Committee's report added: "The department and London Underground will together be spending more on consultants in connection with the public-private partnership for the Tube than the additional money that will be spent on rural public transport.

"The department must publish full details of which professional firms it and LU employ, the work each firm performs, the fees paid to each, and the reason why the work could not have been performed in-house."

The committee also concluded that:

• It was unacceptable that the cost to the taxpayer and the passenger of public transport services in London should be increasing while services were failing to meet most of their quality targets

• The department should explain how it proposes to address this problem

• Confirmation should be given that the same funding mechanism for financing the Channel Tunnel high-speed rail link be allowed in the case of other capital projects

• The department should ensure that the extra rural transport money is used to provide long-term benefits for public transport users, rather than for temporary service improvements which may be withdrawn

• The committee also said it was "deeply concerned that a ban on the importation, supply and use of white asbestos continues to be delayed"

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