• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 06 December 2006

So how are you going to meet that gap?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 06 December 2006

I think you and I would agree about the desirability of Crossrail being funded, but whenever I talk to colleagues who seem to have spent half their lives in the House of Commons on the Bill Committee, they frankly say: `We think we may be wasting our time because there is absolutely no prospect of the money coming from Government'. What concerns me is that we have seen the Treasury, quite wrongly as I think you and I agree, fighting like cats in a sack over the Woolwich station, which is a tiny percentage of the cost, but clearly essential...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 06 December 2006

All of that is entirely dependant on the goodwill of Government. At the end of the day, you are going to have to seek to find the funds yourself. There are three alternatives which you set out in Transport 2025. There is the option of increasing fares, and I would like you to set out precisely what your proposals are for increasing fares over the period because you indicate that you can keep down the increase in fares over the period to an increase in the Retail Price Index (RPI) but, as I have indicated, for you to meet all...

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 06 December 2006

My concern is obviously the construction costs, peoples' ability to get off of trains and the length of time. The Circle line is so important in that sense.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 06 December 2006

The relevance is the funding which Tony [Arbour] brought up. I am suggesting that the Eddington report has shown the future in which TfL can look for sources of funding for these projects.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 06 December 2006

Peter, it was very timely, that the vision of TfL, that the Transport 2025 came out before Sir Rod Eddington's report. Some of the difficulties Tony [Arbour] is having about understanding the funding are answered in the Report; the suggestion that the cash moves from the rural rail lines to the commuter rail lines, that we extend the road pricing nationally. Can we expect TfL to be picking up some of the proceeds of those changes in funding priorities nationally?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 06 December 2006

Thank you very much for that. I found Transport 2025 absolutely fascinating and I very much hope it is not fiction. What does concern me, and I am sure concerns Londoners, is the gap between income from the fare box and the increase in expenditure which is indicated in the report. The income from the fare box is estimated to go up by 31%, but your expenditure is estimated over the period to go up by 48%. How are you going to meet that funding gap?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 06 December 2006

I am grateful for that. Perhaps we can follow up some of those specific points on funding outside the meeting? I am happy to do that. I know, for the record, that TfL remain very firmly committed to the Woolwich station; that is very important to my constituents. That was the other point I wanted to raise. If you put aside the question of the Woolwich station, my reading of the Plan does not suggest there is very much for people in South East London. The Thameslink upgrade is the one thing that might be of use. Can I just...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 06 December 2006

So let us get this clear. You are saying that it is not you who sets the fares, it is the Mayor who sets the fares? On the assumption that the Mayor sticks to raising fares in line with the RPI ' I'm not sure that we can make that assumption, but let us assume that he sticks to RPI - it is not likely that that is going to cover your entire shopping list is it?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 06 December 2006

Going back to the line of questioning that my colleague, Tony Arbour, was pursuing. Would it not be at least sensible, if you were going to have to shed projects that did not find the money, to shed the ones that were least popular? Would it not be obvious to drop the West London Tram, given that it has not got popular support in the area where it is meant to be operating? It looks like it is going to be extremely expensive. Would that not be an obvious one to drop off your wish list?