• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

Would you not agree that at the moment, since the power to direct and control the Tube remains with Government, the views of London Members of Parliament on the PPP are of great significance to the people of London and ought to be in the public domain? Can't you, as Mayor, assist in that process?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

Do you accept you were wrong not to have done that two years ago and establish this structure in the first place?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

But not with any Assembly Members. Why did you think that to announce it by letter to all Assembly Members two days before Easter was the best way to proceed with this?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

We will deal with the population growth later but that doesn't affect the structure you need to deliver for London whatever the population is. Can I move on then? With whom did you discuss these proposals before this report was produced?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

If you are making such substantial changes at this mid-way stage, maybe you don't want to accept that you personally are failing, but it must surely reflect a view that the present system and structure is failing to deliver for you?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

Do you think that these proposals reflect the widely held perception that you have failed to deliver so far?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

Is this the way forward though? You talk about the Act but you've not followed what the Government envisaged on every issue. Why go back to what the Government wanted, particularly as the Government's view of directly elected Mayors for local government has been rejected in referendum after referendum? It appears that people don't want to have one individual with vast powers acting as Chief Executive and politician. That seems to be the majority view where referendums have been held. Why do you think that this is what Londoners want?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

Why didn't you use your powers when we began this organisation, why now? Something must be going wrong for you to do this at this time because - and I bow to your abilities in terms of the news and the media out there - people out there are going to see this as a rip off and jobs for the boys. That's how you know it's going to be seen. You can't escape that, you must have known that, so why have you gone for it now? Is it because it's just before Easter, as some members have said...

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

Mr Mayor, can I thank you for your eight pages of close type on the business development of these proposals, although I think they seem to have been taken a great deal from Joseph Stalin's canon about how to organise a Politbureau, but nevertheless, can I ask you specifics? The Executive Director of Housing and Social Inclusion should therefore have a dotted line relationship to officers. I also note that the Executive Director of Equalities should have a dotted line relationship to the Equalities Unit. Yet the Executive Director of Environmental Services should have a dotted line role to the...

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 27 March 2002

You know there is going to be an emergency meeting of the Appointments Committee to consider this. We don't have a date yet but I assume in the very near future. Can you give us an undertaking that you will not proceed further with this until that Committee has met and concluded whatever it is going to conclude, and then you can respond to that?