• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

But you have already lost some transport grant this year and your very argument about the £1.5 billion. Is that not why Ministers (and we would be interested to know which Ministers you have been lobbying on this) will turn round and say they have given enough already; they are already committing themselves to the Olympics so why should they commit to all these endless other schemes when, presumably, as I said, the rest of the United Kingdom also has a whole wish list of schemes. Moreover, given the problems, Gordon Brown probably could not finance it anyway. Plus there...

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

But what is difficult to understand is that you are gambling the millions you need for something like Crossrail, the hundreds of millions gap in terms of your transport and buses, then you have the Olympics and this police thing coming. Do you seriously envisage this Labour Government, which has taken so much from London and for which you have got precious little back, to be honest, despite all your campaigns, is suddenly going to sign huge cheques for literally billions to fund London in a general election year when the majority of its MPs are actually outside London, and...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

On the contrary, as a South Londoner I would like to see better public transport like a Tube station in Camberwell perhaps " that would do me very nicely Ken. So you are not going to cut any road building are you?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

I have some suggestions about savings you could make in the budget. I would like to thank my friend and colleague Darren here who has actually produced a short report on savings that could be made. They all depend on depend on you giving up you giving up road building plans. However, you could actually make a saving of £1.2 billion if you scrap the £670 million Thames Gateway road crossing, the £500 million North Circular widening, the £50 million Lea Valley spine road and the £21 million Thames Road widening in Bexley. It is a saving of £1.2 billion...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

Obviously, we live in uncertain times. Mr Mayor, I think you are right not predict Council Tax levels next year based on what grant you may or may not receive. But in terms of predictions and pro?investment issues, one thing we can be certain about in the realms of fantasy is that if the Tories ever got into power how would you achieve a 20% cut in TfL's budget? Because that is what their national leader was suggesting in terms of their national plan whenever they get back into power? Can you give us a flavour of what a 20%...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

So you had already predicted in effect that Congestion Charge revenue was only going to be half what you were predicting a year ago? So you had already got that in mind and, therefore, you have been misleading us all along?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

Can I start by suggesting that you might like to get Transport for London to amend their website because in the best Livingstone tradition, as we speak, they are still pumping out some highly misleading public information. Basically, that the Congestion Charge revenue is still going to be £130 million for the year, and we all know now since you have had to come clean that it is only going to be half that much. But it is more serious than that because the Government has already nicked the amount of congestion charging revenue that you had originally been predicting...

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

As prudent politicians, we are trying to look at medium?term financial planning, something which you seem to fail to have a grasp of. You seem to think that your friends, or your ex?friends down the river at Westminster will deliver for London. Some of us here with our Borough experience in particular, who have been stuffed year after year after year by Government, are not as confident as you are.

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

If we can come back to the issue of funding for London's services. I am sure you welcomed the settlement of the Fire Brigade dispute, although I do not think you actually contributed to bringing that dispute to a quicker conclusion. Do you recognise the pressures there are on the Fire Service budget in London? The pay settlement in 2003/2004 will cost an extra £2 million. The development of integrated fire risk management planning, which I am sure you welcome along with us all, will impose significant costs and budgetary pressures on LFEPA, particularly if the Government fails to come...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

Giving £20 billion a year; you cannot get it back.