• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

That is not the boroughs. This is a straight question. I really want to know if there is - just as there is a Government transition fund for families - a Government transition fund for boroughs because boroughs are going to lack the infrastructure and they need help as well? It is a straight question.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

Tony Arbour (AM): -- that the Liberal group on this Assembly is acting as the uncritical mouthpiece for Thames Water and its route for the sewer? Do you not find it odd that any political party finds it strange that when a monopoly proposes a scheme in which it has been able to expend many millions of pounds working up that scheme, that local authorites representing millions of people who are going to be affected by that scheme should not commission a report to look into alternatives? Do you not, further, find it odd, Mr Mayor, that, because of that...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

Good. You have been firmly on the record so I am pleased to see no back sliding. What do you make of comments made just a couple of weeks ago by the Leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council that, 'There is no need for the super sewer in its current form at all'?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

We are agreeing famously so let's carry on. Given the cost of delays - I have got the statistics here. This has been debated about for well more than a decade. The cost of the scheme simply goes up the longer we delay, from £2 billion to £3.6 billion now to £4 billion, and the price on Londoners' bills from £40 to £60 to now possibly up to £80 a year. Given that delay simply costs Londoners more is it not all the more amazing that taxpayers' money is being used to advance arguments to delay still further and thus...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

Yes. There is a suggestion that if it is done through them it puts up the cost. The final point that I hope we can agree on is the use of the river because clearly this is going to be a major construction project and if lorries on roads are used to transport everything in and out, and particularly the waste out, that is going to add to the impact on Londoners. Will you do everything in your power to ensure that particularly the spoil is carried away by the river so that we are making best use of this...

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

Notwithstanding Mr Arbour's comments about Barn Elms will you take this opportunity to reiterate your opposition to the re-opening of the consideration for an excavation site, Carnwath Road in Fulham, and the devestating --

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

Good. Could you then join with me in saying that what we actually need to do is not argue about the principle of the thing but now turn our minds - obviously the route consultation is still carrying on so that must be gone through but we need to focus from here on how this is funded and how the project is actually delivered and whether Thames Water is best placed to deliver it or whether we need some sort of special purpose vehicle that can both raise the money cheaply from the private sector and get the job done...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

Let's not go back there; let's stick with the tunnel. Picking up your point of someone being completely mad, do you agree with me that it is quite outrageous for five London councils, three Conservative and two Labour - so I am being very evenhanded here! - who put £25,000 worth of taxpayers' money into funding this Thames Tunnel Commission that has not come up with an alternative and simply seems to be recommending that we should look again, after ten years of looking again? Do you think that is a complete and absolute waste of taxpayers' money?

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

Lastly, Mr Mayor, people like myself who represent areas on the edge of London have a great reliance on their bus routes around the edges of places like Old Coulsden and North Cheam. It worries many of our residents, many of them elderly or vulnerable, who use the buses perhaps late at night in these dark evenings. The possibility of a cut in fares could see a cut in their services. Would you not agree that is a great concern?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 16 November 2011

Also some years ago we did a review of crime on buses at the Transport Committee and we discovered that, of the top ten routes that were affected by bus crime in London, the majority were served by bendy buses. What is the removal of the bendy buses going to do to crime on the buses?