• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

Given what you've told us this morning about the fact that these negotiations are in fact continuing, would it be fair to say that the Ernst and Young report is now completely meaningless?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

Stephen Byers has said himself that it's really the lack of any alternative proposal that has led him to press on with PPP, and I think the Treasury has also said that there is no alternative funding that they can think of. So why do you think that they have completely refused to even consider the alternative proposals put forward by TfL?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

We have just been devising a new slogan for our borough election campaign and we thought `New Labour, Old Trains' might go down quite well. The great thing is, we could still be running that in 20 years time and it might still be working. Thank you for your initial remarks on the letter I sent to you, for those details you have supplied already, and I look forward to the full answer when you eventually have time to provide me with it. I have some more news which I thought to share with you, from the Piccadilly Line, the...

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

Given what the Mayor has said, I would really like us to make time in our diary, in the Assembly's work, where we can actually look at this report that the Mayor has been referring to, and ask the Mayor and Bob Kiley suitable questions. I think we need to make sure that we have it timetabled. The Mayor needs to give us an indication of when it's going to be published and we need to make time in our schedule. The Chair: I asked the Head of Scrutiny last week to talk to the Mayor's Office about timing and...

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

If there are delays then you have also contributed to them with some of the fairly pointless court actions and threats of court actions that have taken place. Can I just question one of the points that you made there? You said that Bob Kiley was a cautious person, and therefore would not be prepared to go into print with some of the assertions that you, yourself have been making. Does that mean that actually you're running ahead of Bob Kiley, your Transport Commissioner, in your assertions about the problems with these contracts?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

So you've made an offer but you haven't heard yet whether or not they're going to accept it?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

On your point about kicking out councils because of what the Government does, I take your point, but the fact is councillors and these people round the table have a responsibility to tell their respective national parties about the situation and what they understand it to be and what they understand their constituents to be saying. I haven't met anybody who supports PPP - I haven't met any Government ministers - and I bet you guys haven't either. Ken, you actually had a very practical point earlier about a meeting between ministers and trusted advisers who can actually tell them...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

You know the rate of return as well. I put it to you that your officers at Transport for London, of which you have assumed the Chair, have been in detailed correspondence with London Underground, who have explained to you on three separate occasions how to get the rate of return. You had a conversation with Nick Raynsford, who described the process to you. You know exactly what the rate of return is and you know it's not an unreasonable one, given the risks that are being taken.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

You have failed to present the Assembly with a reasoned argument as to why you're taking your position and so we are unable, at this meeting, to hold you to account for it. It is self-evident to any reasonable person that if the contracts materially change then the Government would have to consult again. It doesn't take a genius to see that, it doesn't take you to explain that to us, that will have to happen. Are you the same Mayor who has repeatedly argued about the Government not disclosing information, who is now complaining that they have disclosed it...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

I think Londoners can reasonably conclude that you're stage-managing this whole event, you're cherry-picking soundbites and media opportunities, you're not being properly accountable to the Assembly. I think Londoners are totally fed up with this. They want to see investment in the Tube, they're not ideologically driven as you or maybe I am on this issue, they want to see the investment. They see you as being a curmudgeonly obstacle and maybe Mr Kiley's in the same bracket?