• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 11 December 2002

16,000 Londoners die every year from coronary heart disease. It would be difficult to kill that many with a machine gun if you walked around the streets of London; 16,000 people. It's a huge epidemic. Survival rates from cardiac arrests are around 2% in London, which is one of the lowest, I think, in the western world. What is the GLA going to do about improving cardiac emergency care, defribulation, oxygen support schemes?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 11 December 2002

What's the Mayor doing about it then to get that capital money into local authorities to improve their housing?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 11 December 2002

But rickets is a problem of education, about children and babies' nutrition and of course people coming into this country not aware of how to get this proper nutrition that perhaps they found elsewhere. What do you think about the health impact assessment that have been done on the Mayor's Strategy? It's hardly surely impacting at all, particularly in the case of housing, where local authorities are still not improving the quality of their social housing, and people are living in damp and unsavoury conditions, which in fact contribute to contagious diseases, particularly tuberculosis. So, what I'm saying to you...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 11 December 2002

You're right. What we have noticed when we looked at childhood immunisation was in fact the lack of tracking in new instances, in the case of trying to track people with tuberculosis and their treatment. Are you satisfied that immigrants arriving in the capital, as new residents who will stay here, are receiving adequate health screening on arrival? It's so important for their well-being that health problems are picked up early, any problems with children or adults are picked up early and addressed. And I have no confidence, in fact, that that is actually being addressed and that ongoing health...

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

The issue in my particular case, as an Assembly Member, I was told by TfL in a very haughty fashion, "There's no problem down there, we don't need to have a meeting with you" and that was four months ago and still there are problems down there. There is an issue in the quality of relationship between TfL and the constituency members. We asked, three months ago, for a protocol in terms of the quality of communication between TfL and Assembly Members. We are elected as well and we have a role to be able to represent our constituents and...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Regardless of whether it's Shirley or somewhere else, the reason these issues are coming up at this Question Time, again and again and again, is TfL's unaccountable bureaucracy. It is out of control with no one really guiding it. There are lots of little local issues which, maybe the whole of London doesn't care about, but which are causing real pain and grief on the ground, whether it's a hole in Blackheath or whether it's a problem in Shirley. You've got to sort it out. I'm talking about the process and what you're going to do to sort out TfL...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

It appears to a casual observer such as myself that you are defending the TfL bureaucracy in this. The businesses in Shirley want to present themselves in a favourable way. They see Transport for London as being an obstacle, not a facilitator. You're sitting here today saying, "Well, they're doing their best" and it isn't good enough. You are at risk of being infatuated with the big things and forgetting that to make London work effectively a lot of little things have to happen on the ground locally and people need to be communicated with, they need to be taken...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Having been down there to look at it, I think at the moment the major problem is that other work is being done on that road as well. There are two building projects spilling out onto the road, closing lanes and there is the London Underground project at Knightsbridge Station which is taking the central reservation out of service for some distance along the road. Did the TfL engineers even consider those projects and those problems which appear to be going on at the same time as they want to introduce this bus lane and further restrict the traffic flow...

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

It's obviously an issue which has caused a great deal of irritation. But I think it reflects back on the issue of what we are trying to achieve with a strategic authority. Can I just ask one further question which relates to our role here as Members? You very kindly gave an assurance. I think Trevor was in the Chair at the time, on a temporary basis, about the protocol that exists with Members in terms of them being advised of major significant strategic changes to the road network within our constituencies. Has that protocol been worked out?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

It's probably fair to say that there are a lot of Red Route signs that are along this particular area, so perhaps they will be the first signs maybe to be reduced in number. I thought the purpose of us setting out on this adventure of the Greater London Authority was that we were going to set up a strategic authority and I do wonder, bearing in mind the way with which TfL seems to struggle with many of its abilities to be able to liase externally, perhaps because of issues to do with resources, perhaps because there are many...