• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

I was going to read to you a chapter from a Tory book on Transport Policy but I would not want to give her the free publicity that that would entail. I think the best possible solution for Londoners would be if we could take the more silly end of the politics out of this debate, and I was wondering what you could do to help that to happen in terms of maybe defining the rules by which we would work on bus lanes and accept that on some occasions they might make reasonable sense to be removed.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

It could be argued that, with the technology around it, that this particular example is not the world's best example of a bus lane removal that is unanswerably a bad thing, although my assumption is that bus lanes are a good thing and that they should be supported. What lies behind this question though is that the Conservative Party seem to be developing a libertarian approach to road use in London, which says that, essentially, bus lanes are a bad thing although they try to fudge it. I think this might be a battle line in the next couple of...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

So the statement was made but there was no plan of action of how to implement it?

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

And yet you have made this commitment to be an age-positive employer.

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

Could you make that commitment now?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

I welcome all of that and I am sure the older people of London will also. There is something much more immediate and important to them that you could help with now, working with the current administration and using your powers over the transport interchanges. Age Concern is doing some work about accessibility of public toilets in Tube stations. Something you can do now is to actually find out (a) why are the public toilets that are there not open? And (b) ensure that building does not take place without accessible, open public toilet facilities. That is something that you...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

The statistics are very clear about the problems for over-50s and the tendency of employers to make over-50s redundant and offer that as an option rather than more flexible working. Perhaps you could go back to what you are planning to do, if you are not doing it already, to make the GLA's commitment to be a positive employer of older Londoners a reality.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

Thank you for that answer, Mayor Livingstone. Can I, before I ask you a couple of questions just say that the Chair of The Greater London Forum for the Elderly is in the audience and I am sure that a representative of that group is on your stakeholder group. What they have raised with me and what the other organisations like Age Concern have raised with me are really questions relating to quality of life issues. If I put my question this way to you: in your consultation with your stakeholder groups, have you discussed, or has it been raised...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

Then could I ask why you are not monitoring the age profile?

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

I am very delighted that you have made a commitment that the Greater London Authority will be an age-positive employer. Perhaps you could tell us what you have done to make that a reality.