Large tracts of the London Underground network are likely to handed to London mayor Ken Livingstone because private firms bidding to run them cannot guarantee value for money for taxpayers, according to today's Independent.

In what would be a major blow to the Treasury, which has long insisted that the planned PPP for the tube represented the best policy for guaranteed investment, the new plans would see the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines being placed under the control of Bob Kiley, the mayor's transport commissioner.

Such a move would be due to "serious concerns" within Whitehall that the planned contract with a commercial consortium to run the three lines would prove too expensive for the taxpayer.