A walkout by Tube drivers was causing Boxing Day travel misery in London as strike action crippled London Underground (LU).

Underground drivers belonging to the union Aslef were yesterday staging a 24-hour strike over the union’s demand for extra pay for its members working on the public holiday.

Last week a High Court judge concluded that the strike was lawful and could go ahead following a legal challenge by LU.

Services on the Circle, Central, Hammersmith & City lines were suspended due to the strike, with most other lines running reduced services.

Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said the demands for extra pay and voluntary working on Boxing Day were “negotiable”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “My team that has been in there for the best part of two years has offered various solutions that would underwrite or part underwrite what we are seeking to achieve. There’s various transfer and training agreements within the company that if we changed them would subsidise what we are seeking to achieve. The original dispute two years ago was about quality time off.

“We agree that we made an agreement with the company in the mid-90s. At that time very few trains ran on Boxing Day. In the last decade and a half we have run as many trains on Boxing Day some years as we run on any day of the week so the intended quality time people were expecting to get has never happened.”

Mr Whelan said the union had “no intention” of staging a strike during the Olympics.