• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

Do you remember that seven days after the Congestion Charge was introduced you sat there and said that the police will be alerted to look for them - those who have failed three times - to seize cars and eventually crush them. My view is that freeloaders are not going to be allowed to get away with it but in a sense they are if you have only done seven so far. Would you not agree, given your last answer to Valerie Shawcross, that if you do not enforce existing laws, then you are soft on crime?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

And out of those seven, how many are being crushed or are going to be crushed?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

But that is since I asked the question publicly to you. I do not mind if they gave me an answer and you at the same time when I enquired six weeks ago. I do not mind if they give you the same information they have given me but I do mind this. I lay down the question so they provide you with an answer and they do not provide me.

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

Could you tell us under the PPP contracts who would bear the cost of such replacements?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

The £500,000 million?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

Since you have decided on balance that you should not resign having failed to resolve the Tube in 36 hours, it seems to me that we should try to take this matter forward in a more constructive fashion. I am reminded - and I think it has been reported in the press now - that the longstanding dispute between Canary Wharf Group and London Underground on the Jubilee Line extension has been resolved. As a consequence of that, the purchase and construction of new carriages for the Jubilee Line extension is being brought forward, which I think is very welcome...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

The report that London Underground issued contains a lot of good safety recommendations and it was quite scathing about these trains. For example, it states that the bolt design is barely adequate for the amount of load it is going to be carrying. On the motors, it states that the safety brackets were never adequate, either in concept or in production. That is quite damning criticism of these vehicles. What steps are you taking to make sure that these recommendations are implemented and what have you done since you took over London Underground last week to ensure that the lessons...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

You say they cannot be replaced but we are 10 years into their life at the moment but there is a scenario where it became a political imperative to replace the trains and then presumably it would be the taxpayer that would underwrite that replacement and Bombardier supplying the trains. There is a conflict of interest within all of this, is there not?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

The half a billion pounds that it would cost, do you think that very frightening figure would give anyone, Metronet for example, an incentive to delay replacement? That they might continue to recommend or be forced into doing modifications and God forbid another engine fell off because we have not really got to the bottom of what happened. If there was an accident this would be called for because they could not go on using trains where they have not been able to find the cause of the accident. There is a perverse incentive here to not come up with...

• Question by: Noel Lynch
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

Is there any way you can lobby against these costs for London?