• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 20 July 2005

The Commissioner, the Prime Minister, and indeed everybody else who grabs a soapbox at the moment, have been saying that the Muslim community must come and talk; we must given information, etc., but they never say how. The only numbers we publish are for the anti-terrorist hotline, which is in English, advertised in English. It is not reaching out to the extended families that exist within the Southeast Asian world who understand what nephews and obscure people within the groups are doing. We do not make it easy for them to talk to us.

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 20 July 2005

I am sure you are right on that. I suspect that most people who leave their bags unattended are probably visitors and quite likely not English speakers. I wonder, therefore, whether consideration should be given to notices in other languages and even possibly the announcement that all of us hear every few minutes on the London Underground in a different language, but certainly notices in different languages. It is more likely to be visitors who simply do not think of that, and you are right: there is not much point in fining them.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 20 July 2005

You see no problem with that?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 July 2005

Will you be echoing calls by the local Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn & St Pancras, Frank Dobson, and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), that the Fire Authority review its decision for the removal of fire engines from central London?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 July 2005

Perhaps we should be careful about the term `backlash,- as well, because it implies that the effect is on those who are responsible.

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 July 2005

Maybe information could be posted at points of entry, particularly the airports, and maybe Londoners could be encouraged not to be embarrassed to ask whose bag that is.

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 20 July 2005

I do not know, but I suspect the reason for a drop in visitors from elsewhere in the United Kingdom (UK) to London is partly, of course, fear of possibly being caught in an incident, but much more of it is about perceptions of travel difficulties as a result. Indeed, we still experience travel difficulties. What can we do, do you think, to counteract that perception ' and indeed, that reality sometimes ' that travel in London and around London is not only safe, but is not as inconvenient as sometimes people imagine?

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 20 July 2005

In terms of the emergency services and the staff on the various different transport services, they have been working at full capacity and beyond capacity ' particularly the police and the other emergency services ' now for a considerable period of time. Many have been working overtime for more than is reasonable. How long will that continue, and what plans are there, then, to take on the actions that are required?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 20 July 2005

The next practical thing I wanted to move onto was the relief fund, if I may. Now that it is up and running, how are we actually going to work out how that is going to operate, how one decides how the monies are to be disbursed, what criteria? Have we started to take legal advice as to how that can be operated, because it can be a bit of a difficult area?

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 20 July 2005

I echo your view that things could have been a lot worse, given the terrible atrocity that took place, but one of the reasons why it was not so bad was precisely because of ' Roger Evans (AM) has referred to it ' the power outage being seen to be the problem. That is why people on the Underground system did not panic, because they had seen and experienced those before. It may happen again, in which case panic may set in. What plans are there to try to combat that?