The Mayor of London has promised no more “golden goodbyes” for Transport for London (TfL) staff amid severe concerns about its financial state.

Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon questioned Sadiq Khan at Mayor’s Question Time about TfL’s performance.

Mr Khan pointed out that there had been over 80 per cent customer satisfaction recorded by the transport body, a freeze on fares since he became Mayor and said that “severe disruption” on the Tubes had dropped by two-thirds since 2015.

But despite the mayor’s positive response Ms Pidgeon pressed the mayor on TfL’s financial state.

This year TfL recorded a deficit of nearly £1 billion pounds, although earlier this month told the assembly they were “confident” they would get rid of this by 2022.

At the end of May this year Mr Khan also launched a review into the pay of senior staff after it was revealed that the transport body paid £51.4 million last year in senior staff pay-outs.

Ms Pidgeon raised this issue with the mayor yesterday, asking him: “When did you first know about TfL pay-outs for TfL officers?”

“Some TfL staff were paid thousands of pounds on retiring because of so-called ‘loss of jobs’”.

The highest earners from last year’s pay-outs were Andrew Wolstenholme, who received £736,157 when he quit as Crossrail chief executive and Leon Daniels, TfL’s former bus chief, who left last December with £641,480.

Mr Khan told Ms Pidgeon: “I was worried for some time about pay-offs, but all new contracts created from now on will prevent huge pay-offs and stop ‘golden-goodbyes’”.

Ms Pidgeon then asked the mayor if he would be joining the TfL remuneration committee – the board which deals with TfL pay-offs and staffing- to make sure TfL was “not wasting public money”.

However, he dismissed the idea, saying: “I would join if I was told it would make a difference, but I don’t need to because of regular TfL pay reviews.”