• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 17 December 2003

Would you then not agree that perhaps one of the biggest and most effective Christmas presents this Assembly could give to London would be if yourself and Tony Arbour could snuggle up under the Christmas tree and find a more consensual way of resolving this rather than through the local newspapers and London newspapers in west London? I sense that it is giving the very ammunition you talk about for other people to shoot down this proposal.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 17 December 2003

What about south west London?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 17 December 2003

I think we should remind ourselves that the private sector is not the fairy on top of the Christmas Tree and if there is private sector funding towards this it will be based on a return on the money they have put up. What we are talking about is a way in which this deal is structured which involves the banks and the corporations in the City alongside Government planners. Potentially, travellers will have to pay this back through part of the fare income on the concession. There is no free lunch in this, but it is an interesting discussion...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 17 December 2003

If you do not manage to raise all the money but go ahead on a smaller budget, what criteria are you going to use to justify it on the route?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 17 December 2003

On the west London issue at the moment, Greens are concerned that we are spending a huge amount of money in London that is not benefiting local Londoners as much as it is benefiting the private sector. Particularly with west London you have all the regeneration areas that do not have good links at the moment, and yet there are no plans to put those links in places like West Drayton, Acton, Southall, Hanwell, and bits of Hillingdon. Is it not the private sector that is actually designing the route, and is it not something that is for the benefit...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 17 December 2003

If that is so and that is your thinking, no doubt that will be part of the discussions you will be having in the near future. But, in the meantime, some dozens of residents of Richmond along this proposed line have received letters from Crossrail which have effectively blighted their property, they think for a decade, clearly, from what you are saying, for an even longer period than a decade. Could you be saying to the SRA, who are of course your partners in Crossrail, that jointly you will lean on Crossrail to get them to withdraw these letters, which...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 17 December 2003

It seems from what you are saying on this project, that if you are not going to get the business sponsorship, it is going to be left to the poor old Council Tax payer to pick up the tab. I specifically want to ask you about something that was said at the last TfL board meeting. Your Commissioner, Bob Kiley, said when he was talking about the Kingston extension that it was hanging by the slenderest of threads and it was probably not do-able. If that is so, why is TfL progressing with it?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 17 December 2003

But there was a time when you advocated Congestion Charging at Heathrow to fund Crossrail. Have you moved away from that?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 17 December 2003

That extra terminal is called the `village of Sipson" at the moment. But in the absence of Crossrail, in the absence of improved surface access, in the advent of increased air pollution in that particular area with multi-modal use of the runways, the only thing that the Government offered was Congestion Charging around Heathrow. Are you supporting that as well?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 17 December 2003

Does that not fly in the face of what the Government wishes and what the industry wishes, and what the Party you are currently joining wishes?