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

Can I just emphasise how important that is. This debate has been characterised by many people, including yourself, as being about soundbites from different people. You criticised the Government, colleagues around this table from different parties, for making assertions. You claimed that Government ministers don't know what's in the contracts. If that is your claim the onus must be on you to provide that information, and frankly we've been waiting a very long time for it. I'm quite happy to wait until just after Easter to have those precise statements, but it is very, very important that that is when...

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

Ken, we're not asking what your alternative is, we're asking for what your concerns are about these contracts. Why is it that you think it is appropriate to be renewing Underground trains, which are very expensive and which are still perfectly fine? You express horror that Jubilee Line trains weren't going to be replaced until I forget which date it was, but Jubilee Line trains are perfectly comfortable, don't seem to be a particular problem. What exactly is the difficulty here?

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

I do think it is important that you are explicit about what precisely you feel is wrong with the contracts. You have expressed at various times concerns about safety. You've expressed concerns about the value for money of these contracts. As Labour politicians - and I believe Labour colleagues in Government wouldn't wish to pursue anything that was unsafe or which was not value for money - I think the onus is upon you to spell out what precisely are your concerns on these questions, in the light of the information that you now have in respect of the contracts...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

I think everyone accepts that you were conned in the General Election into campaigning for Labour with this non-existent deal that the Government was proposing on PPP, which collapsed straight after the general election. Will you be again conned into putting on a red rosette in the local elections? Because whether it's the fault of Labour councillors or not, the message is, if you go around with a red rosette then it doesn't matter how appalling the Government's behaviour on PPP is, as long as people vote Labour. That's the message that goes out.

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

So if PPP does go ahead, would you reckon that you would be advising people to buy shares in the companies that are going to be operating the contract?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

I think even if you had all the information in the world it wouldn't change the fact that the PPP is not workable. Nick Raynsford says you haven't been to the bid-room, but you're categorically saying you have?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

So the charitable conclusion is that ministers are not in charge of their departments? The only other one is that they're deliberately misleading.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

You sent all members of the Assembly a copy of your letter of 8 March to Stephen Byers. In that letter you set out five very specific grounds, detailed grounds, which lead you to the conclusion that Stephen Byers' statements in Parliament on 7 February, to the House of Commons were, "highly misleading to Parliament and the country." Given the gravity of accusing a Minister of the Crown of deliberately misleading Parliament, as seems to be the only possible conclusion here, to what extent do you consider that Stephen Byers has any credibility in terms of concluding these negotiations? Can...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

What you've outlined to us is a pretty devastating indictment of the whole of the PPP contracts. What is the view of TfL as to whether these contracts are now even remotely salvageable, or are they discredited beyond any hope of being made workable?

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

But not before the meeting so we could cross-examine you on that.