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A travel perk enjoyed by Transport for London staff cost a record £42 million last year, it was claimed today.

The perk allows current and retired TfL staff to nominate a member of their household — even a lodger — for free travel on the Tube, bus, London Overground and DLR network.

Research by the City Hall Tory group shows TfL issued 52,015 “nominee passes” last year amounting to a claimed £41,612,000 in lost revenue.

Keith Prince, GLA Tory transport spokesman who revealed the figures, today called on Mayor Sadiq Khan to scrap the “unfair” scheme.

The Tories said the figure of passes issued was supplied by TfL following a Freedom of Information request.

Mr Prince said the money saved each year “could be spent on paying off a portion of TfL’s debt, investing in infrastructure upgrades or putting up to 700 additional cops on the streets of London.

“Londoners shelling out hundreds of pounds a year on travelling around our city will rightly question why a handful of lucky people get to use the TfL network for free, just because they live with a TfL employee.”

He added: “If Sadiq Khan is serious about cutting the flab at TfL he should scrap this unfair and expensive scheme straight away.”

The perk has been in place for a number of years. In 2017, TfL issued 51,608 free passes resulting in an estimated £39,944,592 in lost revenue.

Nominees are entitled to free travel in Zones 1-6, where annual season tickets cost £2,568.

The Tory group estimates only half the nominee passes are used to travel regularly in Zones 1-3, where an annual season cost £1,600 last year. They say the £42 million lost revenue is a “conservative estimate”.

The Mayor’s spokesman called the Tory proposal “nothing more than fantasy numbers and nonsense”.

He said: “In reality, there is no ‘cost’ to TfL because the number of journeys involved is a tiny proportion of the 11 million Tube and bus journeys made per day, meaning no additional services need to be operated.”

Boris Johnson, when mayor, said he had never taken advantage of the scheme but had no wish to end it.