• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 14 October 2009

Thank you, Mr Mayor. This problem is a symptom of a wider problem about buses in-between Walthamstow and Wood Green. Concerns have been expressed by the Waltham Forest PCT about the lack of direct bus services from the north of Waltham Forest to Whipps Cross Hospital. I would hope that any consideration of this matter on this one bus route that we would consider the wider route between Walthamstow and Wood Green and, in trying to solve this problem for this group of residents, I would hope that we could improve those bus services for everyone using Walthamstow Station. Just...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 14 October 2009

Are you aware that this is a proposal from one allegedly respectable Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament in London who is proposing that there should be an additional tax on properties in London worth more than £1 million? Are you aware that there are more than 55,000 such homes in London, many of them are in my constituency, and are lived in by elderly and retired people who are capital rich but income poor and this sort of regressive tax will have a very unfortunate effect on people like that?

• Question by: Caroline Pidgeon
• Meeting date: 14 October 2009

Network Rail has advised me that the British Rail residuary body still actually own the Eurostar platforms and it has not yet abandoned plans for actually selling them off for commercial property development, rather than bringing them back as actual train platforms. What steps are you going to take to stop that happening?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 14 October 2009

): Are you aware what a scandal this is, Mr Mayor, because there are five platforms standing unused and that has been the case since Eurostar transferred to St Pancras? The security and so on is costing the taxpayer £500,000 each year and, meanwhile, there are trains coming in, particularly from the Windsor direction, which, in some cases, have to stand outside Waterloo Station waiting to get into a platform, commuters are held up and, meanwhile, this Government and this Department for Transport faffs around, frankly, with this. These platforms could be available. Mr Sadiq Khan, the Rail Minister, himself...

• Question by: Victoria Borwick
• Meeting date: 14 October 2009

I think that is disappointing as you did obviously give us a slightly more encouraging answer last time I asked this question and, in view of the congestion you might say there is during the sale process when, of course, we do continue with the post-Christmas Congestion Charge-free time - in other words when people can shop without paying the Congestion Charge - it would seem that, at the moment, we encourage the sales but we do not give that same opportunity the week before Christmas.

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 14 October 2009

): Very quickly then. This is a kind of agree or disagree question. Do you agree with the statement or not, 'Road user charging can be highly effective in altering travel patterns and can be tailored to support sustainable transport objectives'?

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 14 October 2009

Look, a lot is said about the Evening Standard and the coverage. Why is it then it is all over your strategy? I am looking at 5.25, road user charging, economic and environmental aims. Are you pre-empting the strategy by saying you are not going to do it but you put it in the strategy to chance your arm like you do on many other things in running London?

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 14 October 2009

Just briefly, Mayor, thank you. I obviously welcome your commitment about no extension to congestion charging. The rather scurrilous edition of the Evening Standard two nights ago set all sorts of hares running all over the shop, particularly in Croydon I am afraid, because the Evening Standard wilfully fingered Croydon as somewhere where you were looking at introducing road pricing. So can I just have your --

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 14 October 2009

Mr Mayor, there is a difference between delivering the diversity agenda and just looking as though you are delivering the diversity agenda. Can I urge you, Mr Mayor, to reject Stonewall's invitation to enter into the Stonewall Index which, nominally, was supposed to be about ensuring the employment rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) community when, actually, Stonewall has proved itself to be motivated for party political reasons, as recently we saw at the Conservative Party Conference. I would urge you not to take up its invitation to enter into the Stonewall Index.

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 14 October 2009

Mr Mayor, you will know that the good folk of Barnet and Camden are avid readers of the Daily Telegraph and, of course, particularly look forward to your weekly article. You will recall the excellent piece that you wrote on 21 September 2009 on the subject of cuts - yours and my favourite subject - where the agenda, I think, has moved on considerably since we last spoke on the matter. In that piece you made a rather powerful point about saving front line services; very important. You also made the point about the legion of officials whose responsibilities have...