• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Yes, but with respect, you promised that this would be met by central government. You are now actually going halfway. You are saying some of it is going to be met by the Council Tax. How much is going to be met by the Council Tax- payer, next year?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

You previously said that any new funding for police officers would have to come from central government. Yet, if you put the first step-change officers on the 2004/05 budget, which it now sounds like you are agreeing to, that is an extra £32 million that is going to be borne by the Council Tax payers. So have you gone back on your word to Londoners, and secondly, what incentive, in the future, is there for government to cough up the money when you are agreeing the first part of the programme and adding it on the Council Tax? Is it...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

In the past you have been reluctant to make the findings in audit papers for TfL public. Will you make the results of that safety audit public?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

This decision does send a message that perhaps the board of TfL is not as focused on safety as it should be. What sort of steps are you taking at board level to ensure that safety remains a priority for TfL?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Bearing in mind the incidents on the Underground in the last month or so, do you have a greater confidence or a lesser confidence in the Health and Safety Executive than you had pre the letting of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) contracts?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Having taken on the Underground and bearing in mind the incidents we have seen and certainly the Chancery Lane incident was preceded by a couple of other derailments that could have given us warnings, are you not concerned that by reducing the number of meetings that the board have on this, and I appreciate there are other people doing it, but it is the board who are going to be held responsible if there is a serious accident, are you not concerned that the board is less able to spot those type of trends as they develop?

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Could you tell us, in your own view who is the most amenable to investing in public services? Is it Gordon Brown or Michael Howard?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Have you given up your ambitions to lead the Labour Party?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Thank you for your interpretation of history, on which we may beg to differ in certain parts, but let us get to the here and now. You are trying to get all this extra money out of a Government, which has pressure from other parts of this country to get money. Your particular internal discussion about going back to Labour or not going back to Labour and the divisions between various Ministers and MPs about whether they will accept you back, or might accept you back, is that not obscuring your ability to stand up for London and this extra...

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

A commendable change of tone I seem to remember, was there not a reference to aliens at one stage at the Treasury in our early years? I think it included the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown.