• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 29 January 2003

The Bain Review also talked about middle managers and their reward structure, saying their terms and conditions should be based on similar principles to those of the main pay group. There has not been a great deal of discussion about this. Are you able to tell us anything about them, and are they included in that £2 million?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

I don't want to suggest that security should be secondary to the financial implications, and I don't even particularly want to know the financial implications at the moment, but I wonder if you could arrange for members of the Budget Committee, who yesterday were looking at the budget for next year, and that included an increased budget for security, could be informed in due course of what the implications of this might be.

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

It's a regrettable necessity. I wasn't clear whether you were saying that this should now be in place permanently or is this just a response to current warnings?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

That Londoners will not hold you responsible for delaying work on the Tube. Moving on to your presentation on the budget gap, again I think it's very healthy that you should present to us this, what I think, is the worst case, but I think you need to acknowledge that there are at least three areas, where it remains very uncertain. First, you're not sure how much you're going to get out of the congestion charge. Secondly, as you already said, the Government hasn't settled its grant for London for TfL yet. It may well be in line with the...

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

The case in Europe, if you win it, it's not going to bring more money into the Underground. So, to use your words, what else can you do by way of making a hell of a fuss?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

But my understanding is that it is unlikely to be the case, and there's a fair chance - and I think The Financial Times predicted this - that the Government will tough it out with you, and will simply go ahead with the PPPs and will offer an indemnity, which will not fall in breach of state aid. I think the problem you have, politically, because you are acting in a political capacity here, is that if the Government really didn't do that, and they allowed you to delay the PPP by another three years, Londoners will not be exactly...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

Finally then, and I think at the Budget Committee, we've examined this in detail, the big iceberg within this transport budget is the escalating costs of bus contracts, as I think you've hinted already, and the question of whether London can afford that. I know that politically you will argue that we can't afford not to do that, and there needs to be a debate with Government about the right level of grant to support bus services, and I know that Labour members will join you in supporting a healthy debate on that issue. And I think that that is...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

As you are expecting to take Tube on some time later, possibly as late as 2006, will Bob Kiley still be the Commissioner at that time. Do you feel Londoners will have got good value out of the package which you paid him, principally for his expertise in running an underground railway?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

Is the main battle through the courts then, or are there other weapons you can use?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

You got some rare support from Simon Jenkins recently, when he said that the PPP was so flawed it was just a matter of you keeping kicking until you went for the final kill. Are you closer to seeing the defeat of PPP now, than when you were first elected?