• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

But you are willing to make a commitment that they will not increase beyond inflation?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

So you are telling us that you are not going to put up bus fares or the precept to cover the costs of those extra buses.

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

But how do you plan to pay for it?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 June 2003

You claim credit for your budget for your bus achievements but one of the things you do not often add to that is the fact the budget is spiralling out of control and we are looking at a cost of £800 million projected in 2005/2006 and no doubt on towards £1 billion after that. How do you propose to pay for that?

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

With you as Mayor it is very unwise.

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

In your medium?term financial projections, funnily enough next year is the lowest predicted Council Tax increase of your Mayoralty of 7.9%. I am sure that is nothing to do with an election coming. If this Government money does not come through, presumably you envisage in 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 very large rises in the precept to cover these gaps.

• 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...