• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 13 September 2006

Okay, thank you. I know perhaps you do not have too much detail there, but there were also some debts that needed to be chasing up from contractors, basically, mopping up some other problems of the past; do you have any information on what is going on there?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 13 September 2006

I do not disagree with anything that you have just said, or the point that Val Shawcross has raised, but I wonder also if you would look at the other aspect of this, which is the efficiency and transparency of TfL Street Management as against the members of the public, and residence and users of the road where works are being carried out. I certainly had two instances recently, within the last year ' one in West Wickham, and one very recently in Bexley ' where specific assurances given by the contractors to residents and the borough council as to...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 13 September 2006

This follows on from the conversation we had earlier in the year, when we discussed the need for more transparency in the audit arrangements of TfL, and I am pleased that TfL have definitely taken that on board. I think they have been open with me about the problems they have had in street management, and as you say, the program that they have for improvement. However, I think there are some outstanding issues from all of that reorganisation that has to take place; for example Peter Hendry (Transport Commissioner,TfL) told me that there were nine contracts that there were...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 13 September 2006

I agree, Mayor. The thing that needed doing was that the externally employed middle man needed taking out, and that has actually happened.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 13 September 2006

Can I also make the point that it is important to have something similar for members of the public. That is a helpful suggestion ' and I will accept that in the spirit in which it was given obviously - but at the A2 Midhurst footbridge at Bexley, for example, members of the public made the specific point ' and they had no axe to grind ' that they knew how to get hold of Bexley Council; it was much harder and more remote for them to get hold of TfL when the fairly blatant breaches of the deal that...

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 13 September 2006

I just want to start my question by saying just how important this question is. Chair, I really didn't understand what you were talking about regarding the Mayor's powers. The Mayor is charged in the GLA Act with a watching brief on health issues, particularly the public health issues of this city, and he does that through the work that we are doing on the London Health Commission. That is absolutely not helped by any public sector or any body saying at this time that they should still be investing in tobacco company stock when we know the latest figures...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 13 September 2006

Why has it taken six years for you to wake up to the evidence that Jennette (Arnold, AM), for instance, has given?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 13 September 2006

But given your responsibilities?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 13 September 2006

Given your responsibility for health promotion, is it not extraordinary that, today, the LPFA ' to whom you appoint the board and have done for six years ' is currently investing in two tobacco companies?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 13 September 2006

Good.