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

Are they going to drop Crossrail, which is what the question is about?

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

You still have not told us what you would like to see in the statement on Crossrail, which would cause you to welcome it.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

I am looking forward to a time when the GLA can speak with some unity on issues which are of value and interest to Londoners without doing that being seen as some kind of party-policy suicide pact. I hope you would agree with me that in answer to Graham Tope's (Assembly Member) question, we should in fact say that nothing currently appears as though it will have to be dropped. Some things might be postponed, but we should be very pleased that the funding announcement so far, which is still unfolding, appears to set in train the ability for us...

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

You partying with the Chancellor is an interesting vision. You told us before the election that you had to be smuggled in anonymously to the Treasury so it did not cause too great a stir. Have you ever considered inviting the Chancellor to visit City Hall?

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

But hybrid bills also do not actually deliver the goods at the end, do they? In answer to the question about Crossrail you told us about all the Ministers you have met, the Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Transport and even the Home Secretary. One person you still do not seem to have met is the person you now say handles the economy so well, though I do not recall you always saying that. Why is it that you continue not to meet your old friend Gordon Brown (Chancellor of the Exchequer)?

• 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.