ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV

Transport for London chief Steven Norris has attacked London mayor Ken Livingstone's plans to instigate a judicial review of the government's Tube proposals.

Speaking at a Tory conference fringe meeting, Norris said the review would create an 18-month delay in improving the underground's infrastructure, leading to further decay.

He said: "It will be stalemate. London will get nothing and the lawyers will be the only ones to benefit. There is a real fear of paralysis as we are dragged through the courts and not a penny gets spent."

This swipe at Livingstone follows the publication last week of an Industrial Society report into the part-privatisation of the Tube. The report, which was commissioned by Livingstone, highlighted defects in the proposed financial structure and questioned the new arrangement's value for money.

Norris was also concerned that the contracts for the public-private partnership placed too much risk on the private sector.

Speaking to ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV, Norris said that, although he was firmly in favour of the PPP system, he thought that the contracts needed to share risk between the public and private sector.

He said: "If you throw the whole risk of, say, a tunnel collapse on the private sector, then the private sector will build in an insurance margin to their bid. We have to recognise that if you share that risk you get better value."

He added: "There is a concern about the nature of the risk allocation which is not an objection to the spirit of the approach. But when you are going to get contracts for 30 years you need to get the wording right."

A spokesperson for Tube bidder Metronet said it was not worried about the level of risk.

Norris said he was behind Livingstone's drive to increase the amount of affordable housing in the capital. However, he felt that the proposal that affordable housing should constitute half of every new development had not been thought through.

"That figure sounds as if it was chosen out of the blue – 50% is a mark in the sand. Although I wouldn't commit to that figure, I think it is important that social housing is the most vital infrastructure need."

• Shadow construction minister Robert Syms has called for the construction industry tax scheme to be abandoned. He told ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV at the Conservative Party conference that the CIS was "a nonsense" and welcomed the fact that it was under review by paymaster-general Dawn Primarolo.

  He said: "If it is not possible to get it into a workable form, it should be scrapped.

  "How it could have been implemented in the first place is anybody's guess."