• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 22 October 2003

I want you to repeat, because it will be a very short answer, what you said before that in relation to this poll that was in The Guardian yesterday which they say your office commissioned, that no penny of GLA resources was spent commissioning it or giving it to The Guardian or giving it any publicity?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 22 October 2003

There we are; I have a witness.

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 22 October 2003

(to Mike Tuffrey) I will second you

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 22 October 2003

You have said on the record at the Liberal Democrat Conference that you are spending £30,000 a month on polling, which rather seems to give the lie to you saying that there is less than we think.

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 22 October 2003

Funny you should say that because we noted a MAF at the last Mayor's Question Time for £150,000. There is your big survey coming up. There are hundreds of thousands of pounds being spent on polling and it is exceedingly difficult to get to grips with what this money is being spent on and what questions are being asked. The irony is that you rush down and give us your own poll that you have paid for within a couple of days of polling ending, but the stuff the London taxpayers have been paying we have been asking for for...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 22 October 2003

This is the first time they have said they have given it, and from what I remember of the site you are talking about I do not believe that that can be true.

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 22 October 2003

What we have been asking for, and what I do not believe is on that site, is a list of every poll that has been commissioned out of public funds, the questions that have been asked, and such of the answers as do not constitute Mayoral advice. That is what you have promised to do repeatedly and it has not happened. Will you again promise to do that today?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 22 October 2003

Well that is news to everybody.

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 22 October 2003

TfL seems to be having problems coming up with a few million to finance the draft Walking Plan and a few million to complete the London Cycle Network. But why are these sorts of small projects being squeezed when we understand TfL has proposals to spend hundreds of millions on new roads and bridge strengthening so that juggernauts can travel through residential areas and that sort of thing?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 22 October 2003

I very much welcome that statement. The problem I have on reading the Business Plan is that it seems to be saying that the vast majority of the grant will be taken on meeting subsidy costs on existing services, and everything else, all those capital schemes, not just in East London, will have to wait and be dependent on the Government's largesse. It strikes me that by looking at efficiencies and being clear about the prioritisation within the resources we have, that we could have a far more constructive and imaginative way of approaching that.