• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 20 November 2013

I think it is important that we come back on this. I think you are at risk of becoming captured by the bureaucracy of TfL. I have a report here, June 2013, “Casualties in Greater London during 2012”, published by TfL, which tells us the number of fatal and seriously injured cyclists between the calendar year 2011 and 2012 rose by 18% from 571 to 671 cyclists killed or seriously injured, and that is a pretty significant increase. That is a matter of record published by TfL. I do not want to quibble; This is a statement of fact but...

• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 20 November 2013

Mr Mayor, we have already seen this morning the reaction from some Members to your response to a direct question about cyclists wearing headphones, and I am very conscious that a period immediately after a series of terrible incidents like this is often the hardest time to have a dispassionate conversation, quite understandably so. In light of that, and so that we can all make our decisions and policy choices in an environment of hard fact, will you be willing to commission a small discrete piece of statistical research done by a completely independent body, perhaps one of London’s academic...

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 20 November 2013

Can I ask you, even though, as you have accepted, the number of fatalities has reduced, that the actual number killed and seriously injured (KSI) has remained stubbornly the same - a little worse, a little better - but it is actually stubbornly the same, and that needs to be addressed. One of the expectations I think of the public is that safe cycling in London should get safer, not just be capped at the current level. I would ask you to attend to that and that you be driven by evidence.

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 20 November 2013

Mr Mayor, I want to follow up on John Biggs’ point about CS2. Cross-party, the leads on Transport Committee here have just met the London Cycling Campaign and they basically advised us that you should now have over 10,000 emails in your inbox. London’s cycling community want you to respond very urgently and speedily on the specific problems of CS2 and on the need to revisit and refit some sections of the Cycling Superhighway network because quite frankly they are confusing, they are weak, they very often let cyclists down just at the moment when they need protection. I think...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 20 November 2013

Mr Mayor, I do not know whether you know, but in the last half‑an‑hour or so Chris Boardman, the well-known Olympic cyclist, has actually said that he thinks you are taking very positive steps to deal with this problem, but he also asks when or how you are going to proceed to the idea of perhaps limiting heavy lorries and tippers particularly during the peak hours when of course the maximum number of cyclists are on the roads. There are two other things: one is when are we going to see far more lorries with audio warnings on them such...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 20 November 2013

Following from Jenny Jones’ point, I think there is an underlying problem, which is that too much of our cycling policy is written by what I call ‘gung-ho alpha males’ and it is at risk of creating road conditions that are not safe for people who are not of that disposition. For the record, the safest Cycle Superhighway, which runs through my constituency - in my experience, I may be wrong on this - but it is Cycle Superhighway 3, which was built under your predecessor and when you were elected, you have changed the colour of the tarmac, and...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 20 November 2013

You keep talking about the deaths but you are ignoring the figures on the seriously injured and the fact is cycling is not getting safer in London. These are your figures, Mr Mayor, in 2008 - when you were first elected - on average a cyclist could do over 400,000 cycle trips before being killed or seriously injured. In 2011, three years after your smoothing traffic flow and changing traffic lights and so on, the average cyclist could only make 364,000 trips before being killed or seriously injured. Cycling is not getting safer. You have been asking me to apologise...

• Question by: Caroline Pidgeon
• Meeting date: 20 November 2013

Mr Mayor, at the Cycling Vision launch last week, Transport for London (TfL) explained how they took just 18 months to install a cycle lane on a really straightforward bit of road; 18 months. London cannot wait 18 months for you to correct some of the issues on Cycle Superhighway 2 (CS2) and some of the other dangerous junctions in London. What are you going to do to speed up this urgent work on the highway?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 20 November 2013

Mr Mayor, would you not agree that taking advice from a Labour politician about health and the A&Es is not dissimilar to taking investment advice from that other famous Labour politician, the Reverend Paul Flowers?

• Question by: Fiona Twycross
• Meeting date: 20 November 2013

I just wanted to go back to the point about older people and their access to food. During the investigation into food poverty in London that I led on behalf of the Health and Environment Committee, we found that two‑thirds of organisations taking part in a survey on food poverty in the over-65 age group thought that the older people they worked with were finding it harder to access food. Meals on Wheels probably needs reinventing for the 21st century, but there are 10 boroughs in London who have now completely withdrawn the service. Touching on Onkar’s point, the biggest...