Ken demands Cameron officially repudiate Johnson’s ‘entirely wrong’ Routemaster cost claims
Ken Livingstone has demanded that Boris Johnson officially withdraw his ‘totally falsely costed' transport manifesto for London now that the independent transport consultancy TAS yesterday confirmed that Boris Johnson's claim that his policy of introducing a ‘replacement Routemaster with conductors' would cost only £8 million a year is ‘entirely wrong.'
Ken Livingstone also demanded that David Cameron, who is campaigning with Boris Johnson in London today, either publicly defend Boris Johnson's claims on the costs of his transport policies or join with Mr Livingstone in demanding Boris Johnson withdraw his transport manifesto and present honest and accurate costs to London's voters. Ken Livingstone said if David Cameron ‘deliberately allows Boris Johnson to campaign on figures which David Cameron knows to be false that means that voters will understand they cannot believe a single word the Tories say about their tax and spending policies either in London or nationally.'
TAS, one of Britain's leading independent expert transport consultancies yesterday confirmed that the real figure for Boris Johnson's bus and transport policies would be £114 million a year, ‘slightly above' the figure previously calculated by Transport for London.
Ken Livingstone said: ‘For months Boris Johnson has made his central transport policy a loudly trumpeted claim he would scrap London's articulated buses and replace them with a replacement Routemaster with conductors. He stated that this would cost only £8 million a year. It has now been confirmed by independent transport experts that this claim on costs is completely false.
‘The real cost of Boris Johnson's policy would be £114 million a year - equivalent to a 15% bus fare increase across the whole of London, with the price of a single journey on Oyster going up from 90p to £1.05, and a weekly bus pass going up by £2 a week.
‘It is completely unacceptable that a candidate for Mayor of London continues to present a transport policy to London's voters which both Transport for London and independent transport experts have confirmed has totally false costings concealing its real impact on London.
‘Boris Johnson must therefore officially withdraw his transport manifesto and present honest and accurate costs to London's voters.
‘David Cameron must either publicly defend Boris Johnson's claimed costs of his transport policies, and therefore stand exposed as being as incompetent as his candidate for Mayor of London, or join with me in demanding that Boris Johnson officially withdraw his transport manifesto. David Cameron by now knows that his candidate's claimed costs for his transport policies in London are completely false and if he deliberately allows Boris Johnson to campaign on figures which David Cameron knows to be false that means that voters will understand they cannot believe a single word the Tories say about their tax and spending policies either in London or nationally.'
TAS, one of Britain's leading independent expert transport consultancies, in an article published yesterday, said: ‘It quickly became clear that, even on the most generous of assumptions, Boris's figures were entirely wrong... It seems that the £8m figure was based on the number of conductors required being one per bus, paid the same as the staff manning the remaining Routemasters in service on the two ‘heritage routes', £24,600 a year.
‘In fact, of course, on these routes, the buses would be running for around 20 hours a day, needing three shifts for each vehicle on each day. Then there's sickness and holiday cover, spare cover, signing on and signing off time, travelling time and all the other rings and bells associated with crew scheduling. To man a fleet of 341 buses a day running 20 hours would, we estimate, require a workforce of over 2,000, costing some £58m a year.
‘Then there would be the extra costs associated with restoring the capacity - 217 more buses, 543 more drivers and a similar number of extra conductors. We cost that little lot at another £41m a year, taking the total to just over £100m. Add a 10% premium to the capital costs for a small production run on a non-standard design and you get to £114m - slightly above the figure quoted by TfL.
‘Sorry, Boris. You're wrong on this one.' http://taspublications.co.uk/blog/?p=17
Notes to editors
Government ministers have repeatedly shown that Boris Johnson's claimed costs for his bus policies in London are wrong even before the confirmation of this by independent transport experts yesterday. David Cameron has however refused to distance himself from costs produced by the Conservatives candidate for Mayor of London which by now David Cameron knows are false.
Gordon Brown at Prime Minister's Questions on 12 March replying to Replying to Emily Thornberry MP: ‘there are more people using buses in London than at any time for 40 years. I understand that that would be put at risk by proposals that would cost £100 million if applied by the Conservative party. That would mean that bus fares rose. It would discourage ordinary people from using the bus service. We are determined to maintain bus services in London.'
On 11 March Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Transport, issued a statement describing Johnson's bus policy as in "tatters". She stated: ‘Boris Johnson's transport policy is in tatters given his extraordinary underestimate of the cost of his bus policy by £100m a year... Boris Johnson's got it wrong and it's time for him to come clean to Londoners.'
On 12 March Leader of the House of Commons Harriet Harman replying to Mike Gapes MP in Business Questions: ‘I agree with my hon. Friend that one of the reasons that London has taken such strides forward is the improved transport infrastructure-not just buses, but the tube. The hon. Member for Henley, who represents a seat in Oxfordshire, did not turn up to vote on Crossrail, so it is no wonder that he does not understand the figures, and that his proposals for London transport are short of the required funding by £100 million.
Jim Fitzpatrick, Transport Minister, and Labour MP for Poplar and Canning Town, said on 6 March: ‘David Cameron will be embarrassed to find that the basic figures about the cost of running a bus service are beyond his candidate for Mayor. This serious blunder proves right all those who predicted that Boris Johnson would be a disaster for London. To put forward a policy for London that is over a £100 million pounds short and then to stand by it when all the facts show it is wrong, demonstrates that Boris Johnson could not be trusted with London's transport system.'