• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 21 November 2001

My question is put on behalf of Meg Hillier, who could not be here. As you know, Mr. Mayor, she has been on top of this issue from day one. We are talking about the buffer zones and the anomalies within it. You will have to deal with that. I would like to ask you a little more about the "how", in reference to a particular community. The boundary currently cuts through a parking zone in south Islington. You say that you do not know how it can be done. I do not know what your officers are doing, but...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 November 2001

Or choosing not to work in London, and therefore having an effect entirely the reverse of what you are trying to do.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 November 2001

By your very action, you will be imposing an extra cost on Londoners, so when taxpayers as a whole have to fund increases in London allowance for civil servants, businesses and so on, which will then be passed on to consumers, it will be you who has added to that cost, which you will then want to recover from the taxpayer at large.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 November 2001

Would you address yourself to the question about passing on this tax?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 21 November 2001

You don't make the usherettes pay to go to work in a cinema, do you?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 21 November 2001

The other group of people who have a really serious case for an exemption, which has probably not been well made because by definition they are not an organised group, are the people who live immediately adjacent to the congestion charging boundary. At the moment, they do not have the benefit of a discount, yet all established research shows that they will suffer from the displacement effect of additional traffic. Will you consider a scheme to offer some discount and relief to the people who live on and immediately against the congestion charge boundary - particularly where communities are split?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 November 2001

Despite your warm words on this being a charge, we on this side regard congestion charging as a tax, and I want to know whether, after the tax has been imposed and the cost of living for all Londoners increased, you will then come to the Assembly and make a case for an increase in London allowances to help to cover the increased tax you have imposed on Londoners.

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 21 November 2001

I love it when the Tories get excited about buses - I do not think most of them have ever been on one. I get on buses every day, - and I would be prepared to wait 15 or 20 minutes for a night bus, incidentally; I think that is about right. We know that some people are not as keen on the congestion charge as others are, Ken, so, buses aside, my question is, how are you going to sell this to the people of London when it comes in? How are you going to provide information so that...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 21 November 2001

A 24-hour service, with 15 to 20-minute reliability, on all the night buses, across London, before you introduce the congestion charge?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 21 November 2001

When are we going to have that, then?