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JOHN HUMPHRYS: It might seem that Tony
Blair has enough on his plate with foot-and-mouth and all that. But in
London he's facing another big problem. Yesterday talks on the future
of the London Underground collapsed again. Bob Kiley, the American that
Ken Livingstone appointed to run the system, has accused ministers of intransigence
because they're insisting on partly privatising the tube. John Prescott,
who's in charge of transport, said this morning that he's waiting for a
letter from Mr Kiley to tell him what the situation is. Well, Mr Kiley
is with me.... so he can save the cost of a stamp and tell him now I suppose,
Mr. Kiley, just so that people understand, you want, if you're running
the Tube, you want control over the whole system, track and trains, and
you're not being given that but the government says, this is their view,
that they have given it to you, so what is the problem here?
ROBERT KILEY: Well in my dear John letter,
I recount what has happened over the last several weeks, because, early
in February, the Deputy Prime Minister and I reached an agreement, that
unified management control, which is really the issue that I have tried
to bring to the table, that has put the tracks back under the trains, was
really the key question here, and he agreed and said, go out and do it,
and bring me back some recommendations. But we went about ten days into
that period and those talks collapsed, because at some stage others came
to the table and said, this management control in your court is not negotiable,
we're not going to do that. Then he, at the end of February, wrote another
letter, saying, here are five pages of really interesting proposals I'd
like to draw to your attention, and they were interesting. We came back,
we talked, and then hours, day by day, those proposals vanished.
HUMPHRYS: What they withdrew them?
KILEY: They were withdrawn, or
they were diluted. And we got to the point yesterday where we talking
about this very issue of getting the tracks back under the trains, and
they're not, they're just not going to move.
HUMPHRYS: But what he says to this
is that you keep making new demands. You keep adding on new demands and
you're not really playing it seriously.
KILEY: You have to remember, they
own the Underground. This is their PPP, what we've done...
HUMPHRYS: ...that's public/private
partnership yes?
KILEY: Public/private partnership,
I, there, PPP could mean something else, but we'll call it public/private
partnership - and we've agreed to try to modify what it is they propose.
We've gone that far, we say look, because after all, they have the purse
strings, and we have to respect that, there's a big investment. The problem
with the Tube, with the London Underground is that there's been no investment
in it as far as living memory can recall, and that has to change. The
government has owned the Underground for the last sixteen years and they've
done nothing with it except watch it deteriorate. So it's good that they
have a proposal, but it's a dumb proposal, and we're trying to get it back
into the land of the sane and the manageable, and they just don't want
to move, it's amazing.
HUMPHRYS: Well, again, to go back
to what Mr. Prescott said just this morning, he was rather acid about you,
he said, I've been trying to talk to him, don't know really what he thinks
about all this, this, just at this crisis points in these talks he goes
off to America for three or four days, can't even talk to him.
KILEY: Well, I tell you John, I
did go to New York for two days, and I can get back and forth to New York
almost as fast as you can get from here to Edinburgh and back, and you
know, there's a rail crisis all across this land. We're trying to keep
the infection above ground in the rail system from spreading to the Tube,
and they seem to be insistent on doing the same thing that happened five
or six years ago above ground, to the Underground. They going to basically
sell off the system to private infrastructure companies to handle the maintenance
while the Underground is left moving the trains back and forth, which is,
it just doesn't pass the test of common sense. And that's all we've been
saying.
HUMPHRYS: But in that case, we
do have a complete and irremovable log-jam here, don't we, because you
won't accept public/private partnership, they are utterly wedded to it
for all sorts of political reasons, apart from anything else, we can't
go anywhere from here, can we?
KILEY: Well, I think we can. We
wouldn't, they like to say that we've met a hundred times in the last six
weeks...
HUMPHRYS: ...I was going to put
that to you, yes.
KILEY: ...yes, well it's interesting.
It's very boring actually most of the time, because we never get to the
heart of the matter, the heart of the matter is, you know, the Underground
isn't broke, it's the people who are running it who have problems, let's
change them, get a new order in, and get about our business. Don't split
it into four parts.
HUMPHRYS: The trouble is, as they
see it, you are trying to wreck their proposals. This is the government's
policy. To have this PPP and to make it work.
KILEY: It's no secret that I think
PPP is cockamaney scheme. I've said that since the day I set foot at
Heathrow. It is really, it makes no sense, it just basically doesn't pass
the basic rules of common sense. And so, I thought we were working together
to move the frame of reference back to actually running the trains, and
I think, I think John Prescott is largely there, but...
HUMPHRYS: ...do you?
KILEY: ...I think so. I don't
know why.
HUMPHRYS: Prepared to dump PPP
in essence.
KILEY: I think he's prepared to
make the modifications that will make PPP work. Public/private partnership...
BOTH SPEAKING TOGETHER
KILEY: ...who can be against motherhood,
or public/private partnerships? Nobody, of course.
HUMPHRYS: But it's the way it works,
and from your perspective, the proposals they put to you are unworkable.
Are you saying that John Prescott privately is prepared to go along with
your notion and dump it. So if that is the case, what's holding him back.?
KILEY: Well, I don't say that he's
prepared to dump it. I think he sees the flaws in it, which is why he
signed the agreement on the second of February, it's why he sent the letter
at the end of February, saying here are some proposals which I think can
carry us to a new common ground. And I agreed with him on the second of
February and the twenty-eighth of February, and now here we are at the
end of March, and they've retreated. You probably know better than I,
because I am a stranger in this land, what it is that, the dynamic that
goes on in the government, that causes this roller-coaster...
HUMPHRYS: ...well there obviously
is a certain dynamic between Gordon Brown in this case and John Prescott,
no doubt, but just, we've only got thirty-seconds left, as far as you're
position is concerned, are you just prepared to stay there battering away,
or at some point are you going to say, to hell with it, they won't do what
I want, I'm off.
KILEY: Oh no, no, not off. I'm
here to stay. I would like to get my arms around the Underground and run
it in a proper way, but I can't accept something that's unsafe and unreliable.
HUMPHRYS: So if you can't accept
it, and they are not prepared to change it the way you want, what happens?
KILEY: Well, my door is always
open, it's swung wide, we can keep talking, but there's got to be substance
to the discussions and until we get to that point, it is probably not worth
continuing the talks.
HUMPHRYS: Bob Kiley, thank you
very much indeed.
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