• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

We have a sustainability appraisal that doesn't make any attempt to quantify the impact of the plan on any indicators, including the key indicators that the plan sets out of its own measures of success. What we have is a sustainability paper that just checks the language. It's not really a serious sustainability appraisal, is it; surely more work needs to be done on it?

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

Victor Anderson: When you were questioned when you attended the Planning & Social Development Committee about this on 18 July 2002, and Darren Johnson pointed out to you that different people who were involved in drawing up the plan have said very different things about it, you said in reply to him, "The richness of the plan is that people can look in it and find what they want to see". That quotation comes from you. The Mayor: Oh, right, I'd forgotten that. Sorry about that, folks. Victor Anderson: Doesn't that show, --? The Mayor: It was a joke actually...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

For London, the size and operation of parking zones and other aspects of them should be there to serve people and not the other way around.

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

Some very controversial proposals have been put forward in the place of those that have been changed. These proposals had nothing to do with you?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

One accepts the need - as you quite rightly say - for a degree of secrecy about this, but at some stage across the wider political field in London there needs to be some way of explaining what is going on or the assurances that are being given. We have obviously got to be careful in raising these questions and do not want to hype up worries. I actually think London's done quite well and do have a great respect for London's emergency services and their ability to cope, but there is a need at some point for the GLA...

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

Just on that last point; it is a great pity you do not take a lead on this one. With what is going on out there, it is a real great pity. Given the seriousness with which you have dealt with some of the questions - and then to fail on that one - really begs some questions. Can I just take it a step further? Now, so far as we understand - given what has happened in New York and so on - there have been a number of reports coming out in America about what happened and how...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

In terms of the wider implications, post-September 11, do you agree that the Prime Minister's apparent desire for a war with Iraq will increase rather than diminish the chances of a terrorist attack in London? Although you were fairly quiet during the Afghan bombing, you continue to be an outspoken opponent of starting a war with Iraq over the coming weeks.

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

I was going to just put some flesh on the Mayor's comments, to reassure Eric that the emergency services have looked in detail at what happened in America. There was a whole-day seminar, which Nick Raynsford hosted, looking at the experience in the States. Most recently, Toby, myself, and the two commissioners of the functional bodies and the Ambulance Service, looked at the McKinsey Report, which really focused on the communication difficulties that happened in New York. I think nationally those lessons have been learnt as well. The Government announced the Fire Link scheme recently, so that we will have...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

Trevor Philips: Thank you for that. I think that is probably something we should put on the Bureau of Leaders agenda to discuss. Tony Arbour: I think your last answer, simply by saying that we are better prepared than New York was last year, might indicate a level of complacency because that cannot of itself mean that we in London and the emergency services are totally ready. The Flooding Scrutiny Committee, for example, has recently heard evidence how under-funded the emergency services are in London as a whole; that is the services which are effectively provided by the boroughs. You...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

I want you to call a meeting here so that the Mayor and also the chairmen of these public bodies can brief us - the elected members of the GLA - on contingency plans for protecting London in the event of a terrorist act, or in fact of a strike of a public authority, which could render the capital inactive. This is very important and I think you should have this meeting instead of these odd little bits in answer to questions.