• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

You spoke very eloquently of the impact of aviation on climate change and the dangers. Less than 25% of the passengers at Heathrow are business-related, so surely London and the southeast is perfectly well catered for in terms of airport capacity. We do not need any more additional airport capacity or runway capacity anywhere in London and the southeast, and building more will just encourage them.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Can I say, I was grateful to hear what you said about opposition for night flights, which I think, to be honest, I share. Have you made representations to BAA, to the appropriate Ministers, and the other agencies setting out clearly that absolute opposition to this proposed increase?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

I am glad you have drawn our attention to the LDA, because they are clearly out of step, because Honor Chapman (former Acting Chair, LDA) when she was your appointee on the LDA, said the LDA supports the expansion of Heathrow, because of the `significant impact of effective air-transport links on London's economy and that' ' it links with what you have just said ' `environmental issues arising could be mitigated.' Given that you appoint the members of the board of the LDA, I think you are in a position to tell the LDA what to do, so will you...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

The danger is, Mr Mayor ' and I have indeed identified those marginals, starting at Greenwich and going right the way through ' that to speed up the planning process, Mr (John) Prescott's (Deputy Prime Minister) proposals of major planning issues being dealt with by the House of Commons and not by public enquiry could well be resurrected. What would your position be then?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

I am glad you continued to speak in a trenchant way against the third runway. Do you also speak for the GLA family?

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Given that in Monday's newspapers, there was an opinion poll showing that the public were very strongly against any additional charging for air traffic and the fact that, therefore, demand is likely to increase for London's air space, how is the need for air traffic going to be solved in the London area? Does it not mean that some extra expansion is needed at some of London's airports?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Mr Mayor, I am part of an informal group led by John McDonnell (MP for Hayes and Harlington), which involves MPs, GLA Members ' I think Darren (Johnson) is part of it ' and boroughs who are concerned about the problems of Heathrow and prospective problems. I was intending to phone your office today to follow up conversations requesting a small amount of money ' boroughs are putting some money in ' to do some work in order to be able both to anticipate and answer what the Department for Transport is saying. Can I tell Mark Watts (Senior Policy...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

I think the challenge we have here is that within all of the main political parties, there is a divergence of views on this issue. The planning for growth in the southeast and maintaining our competitive position pretty unambiguously points, on current behaviour, towards us needing probably two extra runways in the next 30 years somewhere in the southeast of England in order to meet that demand. While I appreciate your comments about displacing people from air travel, do you recognise that that is currently the case?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Could I just follow that up briefly, because you are talking about changing the technology, but I think this question is about changing the behaviour of people. One can do that through tax and pricing, which I think is a very constructive way of looking at the problem, as you have illustrated with a £6 flight to Europe. It might also be that London could play a useful role in promoting, for example, a high-speed rail link to somewhere like Manchester, where there are currently 40 flights a day, I believe, which do not really make sense, if you can...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

That points me very neatly, Chair, onto the second part of my question, then, and I think that follows very neatly, also from the climate change question and the work launched yesterday, which is that London has a role to help set better terms of debate on the use of energy to encourage more sustainable uses of transport. First of all, I suspect you agree with that.