• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

If I could pick on one of those areas and make your life a little harder, then: graduate unemployment levels in minority ethnic communities. Much has been said about this and yet the levels of unemployment remain massively higher than in the white communities, for example. What examples of success can you give in that area, and to what extent is it a priority that you can address? Alternately, is it an issue which you, in the end, accept that you cannot make a difference on and that you should withdraw from?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

It does seem a very complicated perk. What astonished me when I asked the original question was when I was told that this perk apparently goes back to the 1930s, which makes it quite a modern kind of embellishment to being employed by the Underground. We issue over 109,000 free passes at a cost of £168 million, and 85% of those passes, that is 93,000 passes at a cost of £143 million, are to people who are not employed by TfL, some could be retired, some could be partners, what you will. It does seem to me, that in the...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Do you not think it is normal that in most places around the world you have more bridges at the source of a river, where a river is small, than towards the estuary? That is a fact of life.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Why is TfL a better arbiter of deciding where bus stops should be than London boroughs?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Why did you not do it with the Thames Gateway Bridge?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

It is the consultation on bus stops; it is a matter I have raised before, and Bob Kiley said he thought you could have too much consultation. But right across London residents in London boroughs are irritated by the fact that their only locus in the matter of locating bus stops is their right to be consulted. Boroughs do not have a veto on this. In the light of the disturbance which new bus stops can have on existing residents, will you suggest to TfL that they accept that the views of London boroughs and of local residents should actually...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Consultation has only got validity if those who are being consulted believe they can influence the outcome of the proposals, either to change and stop them or, indeed, at the end sometimes agree with them. TfL are planning to build a new bus depot at the corner of Horn Lane and Western Avenue in Ealing, and in a written answer at the last Mayor's Question Time you stated there would be no special consultation procedures for the bus depot. But Ealing itself is giving the impression that the planning permission which is sought is virtually a foregone conclusion. I wonder...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Thank you very much, and I thank Peter Hendy for acting so fast. He told me the reason for this error was the printing timescale, which went all wrong. But this is a very sensitive issue in this area because of the closure of Richmond Park. So there is a lot of transport that goes up and down Roehampton Lane and Priory Lane and is now going to go to Roehampton Estate. That is our worry, with two schools in there and lots of children around, the worry that all this transport that cannot get down Roehampton Lane because of...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

When you are consulting on a new project, do you think it is responsible to draw people's attention to the environmental impact of that scheme?