• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

Well, I am happy to tell you that I have kicked Bob Kiley around. I am sure you would have done it in a more sensitive place than I, and he has undertaken that this funding will be used, and the CCTV will be in place, but if there are going to be obstacles put in front of organisations like CDRPs who acknowledge, as most Londoners do, that this is a very important thing to occur, this ought to be fast-tracked by TfL, because this funding, as you know, is only available once.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

You mentioned other funding for CCTV. Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) have been offering money for CCTV provision at railway stations. Hounslow, for example, have offered money to TfL to prime the pump for CCTV at Turnham Green. We are going to be extremely lucky if it is going to be installed before the end of the financial year and that funding is lost.

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

I absolutely agree with everything that Val (Shawcross) has said, but my concern is when we do get these CCTV cameras inside trains, what is actually going to happen when there is an incident on a train. How is it going to be responded to? Whose responsibility is it going to be? I had a very, very nasty experience last night at 7.30pm going home on the Shepperton train to Hampton, where there were a gang of youths - two girls and three boys. One of the boys was 11, and the other one was 14, and they were about...

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 17 November 2004

Sometimes you do seem to treat Members a little bit with disdain, if I may say so. The Assembly's only real power lies in its scrutiny role, and your office seems to prevent that sometimes. For example, over a month ago, UK Independence Party (UKIP) requested information from your office about The Londoner, and I understand several requests for this information have since been made to you and your staff by the Secretariat on our behalf. Over a month has elapsed since the first approach, and we still have no answer.

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 17 November 2004

Overwork is your excuse in that case.

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 17 November 2004

You are, as it were, 'King of the Castle.'

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 17 November 2004

Certainly, I think Labour Members have great sympathy with the view about GOL and its inexorable growth and welcome the work of the scrutiny commission. I have one question which is about lessons out of the north-east referendum, which is I think touched by something you said earlier, and it is that, although that may be viewed as a defeat of the Government's agenda on devolution, it actually points to another very important area of work, which is working with the UK's other great cities, because I think there is still a very strong case that cities such as Manchester...

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 17 November 2004

That is not accurate, Mr Mayor. The Assembly is not a best-value authority and not subject to scrutiny by the Audit Commission.

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 17 November 2004

I am just going to make this very, very brief point, and the Mayor was absolutely correct - when we arrived, within weeks we were faced with a Tory move which would have led us to, for four years, rowing about the cost of paper clips and arguing about all sorts of absurd things, and we took a decision to ring-fence the budget. What was so extraordinary then - and I must tell everybody here and remind everybody - is they then, having done that, went and took over £100,000 of that budget for themselves. In other words, they have...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 17 November 2004

I am sorry, I never went along with any deal. That is inaccurate. You know I always opposed that deal.