• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

The hybrid bill is no use without the money.

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

I mean when you are in.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

It is a shame to always have to take one's lead from the French, but I would have thought even more so in your case to be taking your lead from the Liberal Democrats. If you are so desperate to shore up the flagging revenues from your Congestion Charge, would it not have been a slightly more grown-up way of making policy in this area to set some proper rules so people can understand? For instance, would it not have been more sensible to introduce graded taxes for engine size as an environmental policy? Would it perhaps have been fairer...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

Can I congratulate you now on having adopted five out of eight of the Liberal Democrat policy initiatives on Congestion Charging? When your manifesto arrived only very shortly before polling day, I wondered why it was so late, and now I know it was because you were waiting to see what the Liberal Democrat think-tank had put in. You are dropping the charge between Christmas and New Year, making the finishing time earlier, allowing block purchasing for fleet payments, working on developing road prices and doubling the charge for 4x4s, but you have omitted three of our policies. Can I...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

But they are much bigger cars in America.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

In comparison to the off-road vehicle problem we have, and clearly the numbers are growing, how much of a problem is excessive speed in residential areas and near schools?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

I would hazard to say that you are absolutely wrong about the extra day payments. It is not about whether you end up with more revenue or less; it is about fairness of the policy. If people do, as you suggest, forget again the next day, they will at least feel they had a flying chance to pay and it is their own fault if they forget. Two hours is not a proper window of opportunity for people who lead very difficult lives and may have rushed in for whatever reason. I would suspect they would have no grounds to...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

Do you know where that 2% figure of London residents cycling to the Games came from? It seems such a low target.

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

One of the things you could do, for example, is to encourage people to set up bike hire businesses, of the sort they have in numerous other European cities so that you can use a card to hire a bike to use for a certain amount of time. That would certainly take pressure off the roads leading to the Olympics' site as well.

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

This is likely to be an issue that is looked at by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and if we do not aim high enough or do not have the enthusiasm to start thinking about zero emission vehicles and cycling and encouraging this sort of transport, then I think the bid will be less attractive. I am quite clear that they are extremely concerned about the public transport aspects of the London bid. I think aspects such as the cycling and zero-emission vehicles could be a big bonus if we can get those going.