• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

From our side we want you and London to have proper engagement. Why is it that the cost of individual trips is going up? Two years ago the average cost per trip was £500, last year it was £1,000, in the first three quarters of this year it is £2,000. Is it not the truth that you are taking more and more people on these trips?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

It does not just make me happy, it makes the tax payers of London happy, because two years ago you were spending about £30,000 a year on this, last year it went up to £100,000, this current year it will be £300,000. That is a huge increase over two or three years, which is not reflected in any kind of strategic change in London's role in the world economy. Is it not the fact that you have lost control in this area and you and your staff are now taking off on these trips without a proper plan?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

Thank you. You will know we had an entertaining, although perhaps not totally enlightening, session with Simon [Fletcher] and John [Ross] last week. I wanted to ask the question to check that there was indeed a strategy, because is it not true that until we started asking questions you and your staff did not actually know the extent of spending that was going on on overseas visits and international relations generally?

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

It is equivalent to about Euros 150 I think, yes. What are you doing to increase the penalty fare so it is a real deterrent?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

That is good, because I was promised that by David Brown last week and it still has not arrived, so it will be a timely reminder. I would imagine you base it on an average fare?

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

Good. One of the problems on articulated buses is that at least 40% of passengers have some kind of ticket which does not need to use the Oyster reader. Would it not be better to move to a system where everyone has to wave their pass or ticket at a reader?

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

So what do you now say is the total revenue loss on the whole bus service per year?

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

There is also a bit of a problem with your mathematics here, because when you responded to my question earlier this year about the revenue loss, you said that there was £8 million on the articulated buses and £22 million on double decker buses. David Brown, the Managing Director, did confirm that £30 million was the loss last year for total bus service. Do we not seem to have forgotten the single decker buses?

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

OK. It would be useful to actually know what the figure is - rather like the Olympics. Otherwise we cannot check to see if it is improving.

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 21 March 2007

So we may have them in future?