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

You come out of a Tube station, you're on the highway, it's a Metropolitan Police area, and there are no police there, and there's a very high incidence of mugging. Isn't that a hot spot, which you should be targeting police at?

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

Do you think it's reasonable the Policing Initiative should be extended, for example, to interchanges in London? We can't get out of a Tube station without it saying "Muggings occur in this area". It's lovely for people on these few bus routes, but what about the real hot spots.

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

Do you think it's reasonable, for example, that technology should be used, rather than police officers, to detect certain crimes?

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

: I think every Londoner would love to have a policeman or a policewoman walking up and down their street three times a day. The concept of a village bobby on every street in London is a very attractive one, but we all know that modern policing doesn't really extend to that, and you need to have responsive policing, you need to have officers who are there at the end of a phone, who can get there quickly, are not stuck on a little route, which doesn't really mean they're ever likely to catch any criminals.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

I can only tell you that in my three boroughs, there is just a single route, and it is the end of a route, which has the benefit of this. And as you know, the principle problem that people have with policing, is the perception that they live in an area which is crime-ridden. You and I know that that isn't actually so, and the function of the police, very substantially, is reassurance. And they want reassurance on their buses, as well as the buses in inner London, and I would very much hope that the resources which are allocated...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

Given that the TOCU is paid for by all of the people of London, and you and the MPA, quite rightly, have been proud of their achievements in the relatively short time since they have been set up, isn't it rather sad that it is being implemented on the basis of routes, which are substantially in inner London, whereas the residents of outer London would like the benefits of the TOCU on the routes which go through their boroughs. In my three boroughs, I think I have one mile of route only, and wouldn't it be an appropriate thing for...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

As you have already heard from Tony, on this side certainly, we very much support the initiative, but I think we'd all have to agree that obviously they can't be everywhere, and it still is a little bit thin on the ground. And in view of that, I am wondering what you made of the recently published interview with the actress, Samantha Bond, who I think we're all shortly going to be seeing on our screens in the new James Bond film, as Miss Moneypenny, when she made the point, rather forcefully I felt, that many actresses like herself, and...

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

My understanding is that each officer employed on the Transport Initiative is arresting considerably less than two people per month. Is that a reasonable figure?

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

You say that you're going to have this independently appraised, which I think is a welcome concession by you, because you haven't offered that before, but at the same time you're bidding for money to expand the initiative next year. Can you justify that?

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

Let's go back then. You have conceded you are going to have it independently assessed, which you haven't offered before, which is very welcome. I think you are implicitly recognising that the number of arrests per officer on this is almost certainly below the average you'd expect for active officers in the central London area and on busy routes. So, the question is, is it the right time to be expanding the initiative?