• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

So, if you had said, during the election to all of us 'I am going to increase fares well above inflation', we would all have believed you then and still voted for you.

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

That is encouraging. Can you confirm that you have the power to direct the WLWA not to enter into a contract which will be detrimental to your waste strategy? Can you confirm that your waste strategy says that there should be no guaranteed minimum tonnage contracts?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

On the issue of recycling, what are you doing now to prevent boroughs such as Richmond and Enfield selling off waste management sites, which will be needed if London is to deal with waste by reuse, recycling, and composting?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

I do not want to encourage you to be too loose or too casual, but do you agree that building the second largest incinerator in Europe just outside the London boundary will directly conflict with your policies on waste, climate change, air quality, and so on?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 15 September 2004

The question was not implying that Manchester and Birmingham and these others have this problem sorted. The question is saying quite clearly that they are moving ahead and you are not. If you compare the UK position with every other country in Europe, you will see that in Belgium they recycle 60% of batteries sold; in the Netherlands, a third; in Sweden, 55%. In the UK, it is barely 5%. Is it not utterly deplorable that in your fifth year in office, you have done nothing to recycle one of the most toxic elements of the waste stream?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 15 September 2004

You are absolutely right that the boroughs are the waste collection authorities. You put your finger on it: there needs to be the recycling facilities. We cannot have 33 recycling facilities for batteries. There is the need for some leadership in this area. This is a very specific thing. You have taken action on other aspects of waste. You aspire to a greater role for waste disposal, yet on this, five years in " not the new kid on the block " there is no action. That is the charge.

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 15 September 2004

Plastics are welcome, but they are harder to collect whereas batteries, because they are small and portable, can be collected much more easily. Can I ask you a specific question? When the infrastructure is in place, will you use your powers, where you do have powers, for example in TfL, to allow the setting up of collection points so that people can simply deposit the little batteries in some sort of receptacle that is security proof?

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

Thank you for supplying the printed figures. We have all supported the transport policing initiative and I think that the news you have given us is very encouraging. You are half right to say that the police do not track the outcome of offences; they do belatedly keep criminal records. They do, though, keep a record of judicial disposals. I think that knowing what the judicial disposals are is more relevant to judging performance than simply the number of arrests, which is all we have been able to get up to now. Will you give us an undertaking that in...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 15 September 2004

The fact is that crime on the Underground is going up. Last year violent crime went up by 1%; it went up by 22% on the Underground. Therefore, do you stand by your pledge that you made on 20 January 2004 that over four years you would cut London's crime rate in half?

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

Thank you. Not surprisingly, your answer dwelt mainly on the London Underground, where you do have responsibility, but we debate frequently in this chamber the concerns that people have when they are travelling on over?ground rail where, if you are a victim, the crime is just as real. What are you going to do to track and preferably reduce the growing number of offences on over?ground rail?