• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

Of course you appreciate you are doing this negotiation with Jason Stacey, who is the Conservative Leader of Ealing, and the politics all along the route of the tram changed dramatically last year, almost entirely, I would suggest, on the back of your preposterous plan for the tram. Is that what you are now waking up to and recognising, which is why you are having to talk to Jason Stacey about finding other solutions?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

I was going to say I am ending on a note of political cross-party harmony on the Cross River Tram. I do not know what Angie [Bray AM] is going to say so I should withdraw that! In terms of the Cross River Tram, I was the Leader of Lambeth in the mid 1990s and persuaded the Cross River Partnership to fund the original feasibility scheme, so my support for this goes back more than ten years. Southwark is absolutely on board. In relation to Camden, let me just read you what my brief says; I probably should not but...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

In previous statements you have made you have now questioned whether there is a need to proceed with the tram at all. On the ITV London debate you said, `If we get Crossrail we will review whether or not we proceed with the tram' and then, `Yes, I will be prepared to talk to the Councils to say, `Could we just improve the speed of the buses and see if we can get by with that?''. That is exactly the opposite of what TfL and you have argued for all these years, and it would be a disaster to backtrack...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

I would certainly support what Val [Shawcross] is saying about making the Cross River Tram the number one new priority, but I would be shocked and horrified if you were to be talking about abandoning the West London Tram altogether. Are you still absolutely resolute that the tram is the only real solution for tackling gridlock and traffic congestion along the Uxbridge Road as you have said previously?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

So we have some prospect of real tram developments in south London?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

Earlier on you were talking about capacity to deliver projects and deliverability. I am quite struck by the fact that TfL has put together a good in-house tram development team. These people work to deliver trams and if our trams do not look like they are going to be realistic viable prospects, I worry that we are in danger of losing the expertise that has been collected into TfL. A lot of these people will only be able to work on two or three tram schemes in their career, so if London is not going live on light rail, then...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

I know that as a strategic Mayor you get frustrated with parochial concerns being pressed. It does frustrate me that here we have a tram proposal with excellent cost benefit analysis, regeneration benefits, would take the pressure off the Northern Line, it would bring tram infrastructure into an area, and it is within the Congestion Charging Zone. We desperately want this. You have pointed out yourself we have cross-party enthusiasm for it south of the river, and yet we still find ourselves with this scheme at number two in the wish list of light rail schemes, against the West London...

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

Therefore the priority is for the Cross River Tram or for the South London Trams if there is a transfer of priority?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

I am glad you brought up that item about housing because that is so important to our health. Can I link my question to that? Will you join me in congratulating the partners that have been working with the London Health Commission; Central YMCA, Groundwork London, London Sustainability Exchange, the University of East London, and Arts Council England. The Big Lottery bid that you have produced a press release about this morning will be lost of course because of the other news items. Will you join me in thanking them for their work, and we look forward to working with...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

I am sure the right approach is an intelligent one, not simply to build more and more walls and then put people behind them. The insurance industry - who, obviously have an interest, but if they will not offer insurance, nobody is going to buy the houses or rent them - is saying that, with the £4 billion target for the flood defences that the Environment Agency is still, I think, working to ' although there is no evidence that we are going to have the necessary resources to meet that - the numbers of at-risk properties have risen from...