• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

Yet in your Mayor's Report which you have submitted for our consideration at this meeting, looking back on London Underground you state that it has a safety record to be proud of. Your view seems to have changed a great deal in 18 months. Which is it, a record to be proud of or a disgrace?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

It is interesting that you use the words `where people want to travel" and `want to use it". You will obviously have related this to the West London Tram that has two-thirds of its length running through my own constituency. People there have read this report and not drawn the positive conclusion that you have reached. The report actually says that none of the schemes in England and Wales have achieved the passenger numbers forecast, that their revenue streams were not as forecast, they did not reduce congestion and they certainly did not improve regeneration. One wonders how and why...

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

Would you agree with me that the National Audit Office report is very welcome because it is really worthwhile when we have these major capital projects to have an individual understanding of whether they do give benefits? Would you also agree that the second sentence of the question is totally inaccurate? It said that some of these schemes did not perform in their business case as well as was expected. It did not say that they did not reduce congestion; it did not say that they did not improve regeneration; it did not say that they did not get passengers...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

It is an interesting way of avoiding the question. It did not bring enlightenment to the debate, or indeed comfort to the residents of West London. Your tram avoids Hayes, it avoids 4,500 new houses that you want to build on the Southall gasworks site, it actually avoids the centres of business and those that it does hit, it destroys. Come and visit West London. I know you were there twice during your election campaign. Come and walk the length of it and let me show you what it is really like.

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

The other issue you have stressed in your answers to the Assembly is that you were recently re-elected and the electoral mandate is very important to you. In my own constituency I received more votes than you did. Are you going to listen to the people of Hillingdon and Ealing and reject the West London Tram, because they have clearly expressed the view they do not want it?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

It is an interesting way of avoiding the question. It did not bring enlightenment to the debate, or indeed comfort to the residents of West London. Your tram avoids Hayes, it avoids 4,500 new houses that you want to build on the Southall gasworks site, it actually avoids the centres of business and those that it does hit, it destroys. Come and visit West London. I know you were there twice during your election campaign. Come and walk the length of it and let me show you what it is really like.

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

So your criteria for the use of public money is solely your political views, provided it is lawful of course?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

Do you agree that the Association of Nuclear Free Local Authorities is doing important work in terms of pushing for the decommissioning of the old Magnox nuclear power stations in the South East and that as soon as they are decommissioned then we will be close to ending nuclear waste travelling through London, which would be a very popular move with Londoners?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

In the context of your doubled taxation over the last four years, your Mayoral approval form report that comes with this meeting, is almost like a file that has fallen out of a cupboard in County Hall during the old GLC (Greater London Council) days. Joining this particular Association is redolent of that great municipal call for nuclear-free zones that we had in the 1980s. You have also granted money to CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). However worthy their aims are, can I understand how it is that investment in the Association of Nuclear-Free Authorities or giving money to CND...

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

One of the other grants you have given, or perhaps I should say benefit payments, in this set of post-election payments, is a £50,000 payment to the National Assembly Against Racism. I do not know very much about this body. Is it a GLA body? What is our relationship with them and what are we getting back from them?