• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

Okay, so you don't think that they can actually do much more than that?

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

I would rather the LDA trained up Londoners who are unemployed to do the work as well.

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

Another one of their excuses is there are not enough plumbers, and there is a skills shortage. The London Development Agency (LDA) is under your direct responsibility, so have you instructed the LDA to sit down with Thames Water to tackle the high unemployment in London, to train people to dig up the road and relay the pipes?

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

It is not either or. They should be doing that and you and we Londoners should not be paying for it.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

I just wanted to go back to Elizabeth (Howlett)'s point about how hopeless Ofwat had been and your off the cuff remark that they should be abolished. Would it not be better to do a Judicial Review of them and the lack of bite in the present circumstances and actually look at the whole structure of the water industry here? It would be much better to have, I would suggest, mutual ownership along the Welsh Water model. That would be much more effective in the long run, I would have thought.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

Mr Mayor, I am sure you would agree with me that Thames Water have to clean up the drinking water as well as the leakage, and I do not agree with my colleague Peter Hulme Cross that they should only deal with leakage. Are you as disappointed as I am that in fact Ofwat have been a bit soft with them? In fact Ofwat have accepted the solution that Thames Water offered them. Thames Water have been leaking for three years and not reaching their targets, and if the target that Ofwat has given them is reached there will still...

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

The replacement of pipes is, to some extent a long-term solution. Over the next few years it will happen and, as you say, the disruption will be considerable, but Thames Water do say that there are no other sources of water that they can exploit. With the increase of population in London that is expected, there is likely to be a shortfall of water. Do you not think that there is a very good argument that in fact this is a very good argument for the desalination plant at Beckton to go ahead?

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 12 July 2006

On the issue of water quality, I think we agree that we do not want water quality compromised; the regulations are based on World Health Organisation guidelines. On the issue of the leakages, I welcome the fact that the penalty that Ofwat put on Thames Water does not go to the Treasury it goes into pipework, but what all our Committee were extremely concerned about is that also in that package Oftwat actually relaxed Thames Water's targets for the next four years. Would you agree with me that that was exactly the wrong message to give to them?

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

It is not a question of your powers. Why are you giving them money to do something that they absolutely should be doing? You should be criticising them.

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

But why are you giving them the money?