• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

Do you agree with the new policy of the Liberal Democrats to declassify ecstasy from a class A to a class B drug? Estimates vary, but probably 500,000 young people take ecstasy on a Friday or Saturday night. It does not do any harm whatsoever to most of them. The overall number of deaths due to ecstasy is thought to be around 80, although that is obviously slightly imprecise, so many of these clubbers do not see it as something dangerous. It is rather strange that it is in the same class as heroin, which clearly would do them harm...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

Would you reflect on the point that Meg Hillier has made, and consider that there is perhaps a need for you to be more proactive in seeking the views of small business in London - bearing in mind in particular that the proprietors of small businesses and their employees are disproportionately more likely to be domestic council tax payers as well and therefore affected by your Budget, and also are likely to be running delivery and other firms which will be disproportionately affected by the congestion charge? There are therefore very specific reasons why you should be going out of...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

There is one particular meeting that you could have. Given the huge potential benefits for small businesses in the Brockley Cross area of a new high-level station, would you be happy to meet local community leaders from the Brockley Cross Action Group to discuss proposals about the station? That is a question I possibly should have asked earlier, but I am asking it now.

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

No, but you could meet key representatives of organisations that solely represent small business. Any organisation representing businesses of differing types will be pressing different agendas at different times, and small businesses are often lost in that debate. Don't you feel that, as Mayor, you have a responsibility to demonstrate to the people who are the engine of ingenuity and a major contributor to the London economy that they have access to your office? What you are effectively doing is shutting the door and saying, "Leave it to the LDA." I do not think that is good enough, and I...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

That is rather disappointing. Organisations of small businesses around London have been concerned since we questioned your senior adviser on this issue about a month ago. The idea that only the LDA has this role seems extraordinary. You do talk to businesses, but not specifically to organisations representing only small businesses. We know that those businesses contribute a great deal in London. Will you not reconsider and nail the myth that only the LDA should have this role, and that it is nothing to do with you or your office?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

Would you like to see the MPA abolished?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

We do not want to get into the habits here that they indulge in around the Cabinet table in Downing Street, Mr Mayor - Mr Livingstone. I was surprised that you chose to concentrate on buses in response to that question, particularly given the large budget you spend on policing in London and the fact that you use policing to justify the increase in council tax and precept. What contribution do you believe you can make to policing in London?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

Can I have one final little question? If you find that those budgets are unsustainable and you have to cut the services, will you blame anyone but yourself?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

Yes - a question about buses, then. The total subsidy for buses in London will be greater than the combined subsidies for all bus services in the rest of the United Kingdom by the end of your first term. Does that make logical sense in terms of sustainability? Of course we would all love a bus every three minutes at the end of our street, and if we have no responsibility for raising the budgets, we can demand and demand and demand. But is that a properly thought through programme?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

That is an outrageous statement, with respect. Many people tell me that you do not speak for them, Ken, but I say that you are the duly elected Mayor of London, and they will have to like you or lump you until they have a chance to consider an alternative. In the same way, the boroughs have a representative body, the ALG. The personalities will change from day to day: there may be one or two you like and some you do not like, there may be some you take to dinner and others you do not; but the fact...