• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

That was my pleasure. I think the point that I am trying to make here, and if this was the Tories trying to make a point you might dismiss it, but given I am a Liberal Democrat, who are staunch supporters of the congestion charging scheme I am sure that you will understand that there are some genuine concerns about the haste even on going ahead on consultation when we do not have any of the social, business or economic impacts in. The Assembly response to your statutory consultation has to be in next month when we have almost no...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Two things one is on the fact that it is extending the existing technology as far as it can go, but also it is not a very targeted technology. The polling that you refer to actually showed that London wanted congestion charging to be focused either on a road or a small area or a time of day or a day of the week and actually progress towards the Government's programme of road charging where you can be more accurate. In fact Transport for London are spending £17 million now on the new technologies. So, in my view, this is...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

I would also like to ask you about the figures that we saw in the TfL business plan, because it looks as if the projection for the revenue you expected to raise from the charge in the extended area, two or three years in, once it has settled down, is only about £5.2 million per year. Now, a) is that really a sum of money that is going to go anywhere to do anything important at all; and b) can that small sum of money really justify the damage that the business community in Kensington and Chelsea, through the survey...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

It is mildly irritating when Liberal Democrats who failed to win constituencies at the last election start poking their nose into other people's territories. They jump on the bandwagon, which I have been in charge of driving all the way along and there is the depressing prospect of seeing Lynne Featherstone popping up at all sorts of photo opportunities in all my local newspapers. Never mind, it is a free country. I just wonder whether you are as surprised as I am that the Liberal Democrats find it possible to describe the scheme as you set it up with the...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Okay, that was not the case when I last asked about that. In terms of the area charging, one of the illogicalities about this particular extension is, because it could be any of the boroughs that have congestion on the boundary that you went to, that you are discounting a further 90% of residents and giving them a privilege that the rest of London does not actually have. Whereas the first area for the congestion charging scheme was incredibly logical because people come into the West End and out and it is work-targeted, here you have a huge residential area...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Finally from me then, perhaps you could provide a constructive critique on Steve Norris's alternative of banning white vans from Central London. Do you think that will achieve any congestion relief benefits for Londoners?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

I think I will worry about that, but I do not think I need to. We were originally promised that there would be money raised on the back of the congestion charge for transport improvements. That was part of the original deal, put to Londoners in your original consultation. So, there was mention of money being raised to improve public transport. You now agree with me that £5.2 million is going to do nothing in that line. But, let me just put to you, we heard from Peter Jones department store at a meeting, very well attended a couple of...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

From the Liberal Democrat perspective and from the few short months that I have been here, I have repeatedly raised housing and said that housing is a Mayoral responsibility. But I feel that this particular topic is one that ought to have been addressed. Another thing that the Crisis survey found was that women and people from certain minority ethnic groups are more likely to be staying with family and friends, sleeping on sofas and so forth and therefore if there is a problem with that group of people, getting them into the system, then actually there is a sort...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Indeed the Crisis sample showed that only 15% of the people they identified actually made it to be recognised as homeless, partly because, in terms of statutory definitions, people are tightening up these definitions, exactly as you said. Surely, given that you accept this is a major problem and given that you highlighted it as one of the key themes, is it not therefore disappointing that you are only now getting round to doing a survey to actually quantify the extent. I have been looking, I just looked yesterday, at the GLA website What is the Mayor Doing About Homelessness...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Did you see a piece of work that Crisis did and published about 10 days ago, Your Place, Not Mine, where based on a sample they found that fewer than half of the homeless people in London who have been staying on people's sofas, just as you described it, fewer than half of those actually approached the local authority to explore housing options. Do we not have a problem, getting the message out to people who everybody accepts are homeless or sleeping on people's sofas and so forth, getting them into the system so they can be assessed?