Tube union RMT warned today of another potential privatisation collapse on the Tube as a £2 billion funding row broke out between Tube Lines and Transport for London which could put essential works and thousands of jobs at risk in the run up to the 2012 Olympics.

Tube Lines, which holds the contract for the repairs and refurbishment of the Piccadilly, Northern and Jubilee Lines, has attempted to hack £2 billion from it's estimated costs of £ 7.2 billion on the work programme for the next seven and half years with a significant scaling back of the scope of the planned works.

TfL have estimated that the full scope of the essential upgrading and modernisation programme could be delivered for £4.1 billion and the government arbiter concluded it should cost no more than between £5.1 billion and £5.5 billion - leaving a £2 billion black hole on the Tube Lines budget.

Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary, said today:

"It is clear that there is a £2 billion stand off between Tube Lines and TfL on the works programme on the Piccadilly, Northern and Jubilee Lines with tube users and tube workers caught bang, smack in the middle.

"This row all stems from the botched PPP privatisation of the Tube and it is not out of the question that we could see another failure similar to Metronet or National Express on the East Coast with Londoners left to pick up the pieces.

"Meanwhile, jobs and essential works on these lines are left at risk in the run up to the 2012 Olympics. Our advice to Boris Johnson and TfL is to seize this opportunity to get rid of Tube Lines, take these works back into direct public control and work out a funding programme which protects jobs and the upgrade programme in the run up to 2012 and beyond."