Major travel disruption across London amid strikes on Tube, buses and trains

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Londoners are facing severe disruption as Tube and bus drivers strike on Friday.

The vast majority of Tube lines services are suspended, with a very limited operation elsewhere, according to Transport for London (TfL), as Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) workers take industrial action over issues including jobs and pensions.

This has led to severe traffic jams as people to try to complete their journeys by car. At 9am, the congestion level was 40%, compared with 26% at the same time last week, according to location technology firm TomTom.

Sixty-three bus routes in west and south-west London and parts of Surrey are also disrupted due to a strike on Friday and Saturday by bus drivers who are members of Unite.

Around 400 workers employed by Arriva Rail London, which is responsible for running the London Overground network, have also walked out on Friday after rejecting a 5% pay offer.

Mainline train services started later than normal on Friday due to the knock-on effect of Thursday’s RMT strike at Network Rail and train operators across the country.

Just 70% of services will run across Friday as a whole.

A further walkout on Saturday will reduce service levels to 20%.

"They want to decimate the pensions"

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch claimed London Underground workers’ pensions are at risk.

Speaking at a picket line in Acton, west London, he said: “We’re out on strike today because we haven’t got an agreement from the TfL LUL (London Underground Limited) about the future of the pension scheme, which is under threat and, at the moment, there’s negotiations going on between the government, the Treasury, and Mayor (Sadiq) Khan’s office about the future funding of London Underground.

“They’ve cut £2 billion from the funding and that has put at risk our members’ pensions.

“They want to decimate the pensions and change it into an entirely different, cheaper scheme, which will make all our members poorer in retirement and probably pay more while they are working.

“We haven’t gotten an agreement. There’s also threats to terms and conditions. We wanted a promise that terms and conditions won’t be diluted and there is a threat of a loss of jobs in certain sections of the Underground.”

He said he is “very sorry” that people are being inconvenienced by the strikes but defended the action, adding that the union has to show it is “deadly serious” about the livelihoods of its members."

"No proposals currently to change the TfL pension scheme"

Nick Dent, TfL’s director of customer operations, says TfL conducts negotiations with the government "confidentially."

“We of course conduct those negotiations confidentially," told Sky News. "They are market-sensitive. We’ve explained that very clearly to the trade unions.

“But we have been working with all of the trade unions, including the RMT. We’ve been very open and transparent about the impact of the pandemic on our finances all the way through the last couple of years.

“We’ve assured them that we’ll continue to keep them updated.

“But, importantly, we have assured them that there are no proposals currently to change the TfL pension scheme, and if there were proposals in the future, then of course they will be consulted in detail.

“They’ll be involved very closely.”

"Deliberately provoking strikes"

London Mayor Sadiq Khan accused Transport Secretary Grant Shapps of “deliberately provoking” strikes.

“The way the government is behaving, it’s almost like they’re deliberately provoking strikes across the country, not just in the transport sector but in other sectors, as a precursor for legislation to curtail the rights of trade unions to go on strike," Mr Khan said.

He continued: “The only reason for the strikes in recent weeks in London is because of the conditions the government is trying to attach to a funding deal, and the trade unions are concerned about the consequences of those conditions on their members.

Mr Khan said he and the striking RMT union were “on the same side here, nobody wants the government to be attaching unreasonable conditions to our deal”.

He said: “I’m keen to make sure we get the best possible deal for TfL because we won’t get a national recovery without a London recovery.

“We simply will not get a London recovery unless TfL fires on all cylinders. What we don’t want are unreasonable draconian strings attached by the government.”

Mr Khan added: “Today it’s ordinary Londoners, commuters and businesses who are caught in the crossfire – the government and Grant Shapps aren’t affected at all.”

Mr Shapps said railway reforms will be imposed if workers do not agree to new deals.

“If we can’t get this settled in the way that we are proposing, which is ‘Please put the deal to your membership’, then we will have to move to what is called a Section 188; it is a process of actually requiring these changes to go into place so it becomes mandated," he told Sky News.

“That is the direction that this is moving in now.”

Liz Truss, the frontrunner to become the next prime minister, said she will not let the UK be “held to ransom” by strikers.

“As Prime Minister, I will not let our country be held to ransom by militant trade unionists.” she tweeted on Friday.

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