• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

Thank you. A lot of people talk about the screening of immigrants coming into the country; a lot of them do not show up the fact that they have TB, but they may be carriers, like you said, and it is poor housing conditions, overcrowding and dampness that actually brings the TB out into their system, so there actually is no point spending a lot of money on screening.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

Have they given you any indication how long they think it would take?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

Obviously one of the questions that I think will strike a lot of us is, do you really think that Capita is going to be able to cope with such a potentially complex regime. I think many of us feel that Capita find it pretty damn difficult to cope with what it is already dealing with.

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

As you suggested we are really happy about this and we are probably going to make your life somewhat easier in putting this scheme forward because we will be saying you are going soft in your old age and it is far too easy and it is not enough. There is going to be a balance to be struck between not encouraging more vehicles coming in because congestion is pretty bad and you are trying to reduce pollution at the same time, so how are you going to strike that balance? Are you going to review this every six months...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

Can I risk this new friendship by saying that whilst this is absolutely welcome it would not be necessary if we had a national scheme that had vehicle excise duties that actually deterred the sort of vehicles we are concerned about from ever being bought anywhere in the country; So will you add to this local few square miles scheme some effective lobbying of Central Government so that we can shift the balance of taxation onto environmentally damaging activities and away from environmentally benign activities?

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

I certainly support the principles of this, but are you now going to guarantee that you will have an open mind on the detail?

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

Well that is one thing, but the other thing is the total cost for people travelling in London; you see you are opening yourself to criticism that this is a scheme which is going to cost Londoners more, unless you give us some assurance about the total income that you are targeting.

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

You have been talking about increasing the Charge from £8.00, which was the increase figure this year, up to £10.00, so clearly you have changed direction again. Is the total revenue you are looking for going to be totally consistent with a flat £8.00 charge or is it going to be related to an increased £10.00 charge?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

It occurs to me that there would be some small businesses with perhaps just one delivery van, and there could be a lot of damage done to small retailers who may suddenly find their vehicles do not meet with your approval. I hope you will be doing a lot of consulting with small businesses.

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

The other thing you mentioned, and when Angie (Bray) was talking about consultation, you yourself were critical of consultation processes earlier on. Is this not really going to be the case again? How on earth can you say anything different if the scheme is being worked on, it has come up very quickly and very suddenly, we knew nothing about this at all before this morning. It really could cause a hell of a lot of damage in Central London and if the consultation has effectively been decided, and if all that is going to happen is it is going...