• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Therefore, a vote against your budget is a vote against further reductions in crime in London?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

There is proof if you believe your own propaganda you will believe anything.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

How many of the 680 staff currently employed are engaged in work which directly relates to your statutory as opposed to your non-statutory functions?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

You characterised the central Government funding for the police as not just better than it has ever been ' I am not in the business of trading figures on that; we are delighted to see the support ' but also characterise it as objectively good. That is the message I hear. Mr Martin, as Treasurer of the MPA, wrote to the Home Office on 6 January, using I think quite restrained language and pointing to three issues which he says we want to keep on the agenda. I would like your comments on this as someone who now has far...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Given that the fear of crime is rife across London, given that violent crime is escalating, as we saw in the papers yesterday and the day before, and indeed with the Home Office's own figures, and given that the MPS has the second worst detection rate of crime in the whole of the country, where do you think they should be spending the generous allowances that you give them?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

There are many ways of measuring the success of the police in the capital. The 1829 Act said that their function was for the prevention and detection of crime and the promotion of the public tranquillity. Which of those would you have thought was the most important?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

You always say that and I am not trying to have it. You cannot say that there is nothing in the entire budget the size of TfL that you cannot reduce. You can always, always throw the 603 bus in my face, and I am happy to have it, because that is a bus service that was needed and you could still push it to a full service. However, you always use that argument and it is totally invalid in the context in which I am arguing with you.

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Before my question, just to comment on the proposed expansion of Congestion Charging to target hotspots in the boroughs, I would entirely agree with you. I have been nagging you for some to look at it that way, so long as the boroughs are king in all of that. However, I would remind you of the investment you had to put into public transport to make the Central Charging Zone work, and that if you start to bring in targeted congestion in the suburbs to look also at the budget you would need to ensure there are public transport improvements...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

In your introduction you made great play of not betraying Londoners. Do you not think you have betrayed Londoners? In May, before the election, you promised no planned increases to Tube ticket prices. When you introduced the last fare package you said `The new fare package will stand for the next four years, with any further annual increases pegged to no more than inflation.- You made similar commitments with regard to the cost of the Congestion Charge. Later this morning, you talked about being elected because you were a man who kept his promises. Why does nobody believe you today...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

I just feel there is no real sense of urgency about this. It makes me panic for the future of London because it is now that we need to start saying this is protected flood plain, this is dedicated for allotments, or for sports fields. We have got rid of so many sports fields in London. We absolutely must make sure that any school in East London has a sports field and enough allocation of green space for the children to play in, but there seems to be no urgency to it. Helen (Hughes, Executive Director, Resources & Equalities, LDA)...