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

Are we to take it that, in all these meetings with Ministers, you never discussed exemptions to the charge?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

How much money has Deloitte got out of you?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

Elizabeth Howlett: Mr Mayor - or should I call you Ken, considering it is Christmas? But I will not call you Ken again. Darren Johnson: Festive cheer from Wandsworth. Elizabeth Howlett: Ken: are you ready to sign a contract with one of the organisations that have bid to run the congestion charge? Is it imminent in these next days, as I have heard - I may be wrong? Are you prepared to allow whichever bidder you decide on to have direct accountability to you; or are you going to put management consultants like Deloittes in between, who I understand have...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

You have been in politics long enough to know what it means when it is not one story or two stories but three or four stories. For instance, there was the story you had to deny about having a meeting with London Labour MPs at which you said that you yourself had concerns that the scheme was not going to work. A couple of days later there was the story, which TfL had to deny, that you were getting advice from Bob Kiley that you should drop the congestion charge. When there are clusters of stories like that, there is...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

One of the articles - I think it was in the Evening Standard; and it might have been in the Financial Times too - reported that you had said that you were aware of these rumours circulating in Whitehall.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

Thank you for that, Mr Livingstone. I asked you the question because I was wondering whether you would be able to cast any light on recent press speculation - partly about Mr Spellar suggesting that, if he did not like your congestion charge scheme, he might be minded to scrap the whole thing; and more recently the stories circulating about a deal to be done, which you were asked about earlier, and about whether you would be prepared to drop your congestion charge if you got the Tube early. Has the DTLR made any representations to you on these matters?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

I am interested in one particular Minister - the Minister for Best Value, Lord Falconer. What discussions did you have with him about the Dome? I see that you have welcomed the deal under which the Government have finally offloaded this expensive item, but I wondered whether you have had any discussions about whether they might have got a better deal by offering the ability to blow the thing down and finish it. Why do the Government have this obsession to maintain the building, which I think has held back the achievement of a decent contract? I wondered what your...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

So what you told Tony Arbour is correct - that, if there was such a deal on the table, it is not one you would accept: you would not drop your congestion charge in return for getting your hands on the Tube earlier?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

That obviously prompts a whole series of other questions, but in general terms, then, you agree with a deal under which the Government got nothing, I understand, but a future promise of a share in possible profits - though the percentage has not yet been agreed, apparently - as against the people out there who were willing to take over the site provided they had the right to demolish the building. The company that has taken it over - this is my understanding of those dreadful newspapers and stories that you do not read any more - will take four...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

Let me move on to the document "Public Services for a Growing City", which did not address the effect that your congestion charge will have on public sector workers. We have been talking this week to the National Union of Teachers, and they have told us that they estimate that it will cost each of their members travelling to schools within the zone about £975 a year. These are people with a special case: they have to carry a lot of books and papers. I do not think we would like to see some of our teachers marking papers on...