• 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...

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

Perhaps it would be convenient if you were to publish a list of your alibis on the Web, since you seem so far to have blamed the leaders of the London boroughs, the Government and the PPP. Is there anybody else you would like to add to that list of seasonal goodwill as to why it is everybody's fault but the Mayor's that things do not work in London?

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

Are you proposing perhaps also to discuss with the Minister a list of people that you might conveniently blame when things go wrong and are not delivered in London?

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

What do you talk to Stephen Byers about if you never discuss the congestion charge?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

So you think it is less likely, given that it is becoming more bizarre by the moment - a contract that is going to deliver less and less, and make it an impossible environment in which to work?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

In your opinion, then, is the handover of the Tube and commuter rail in the near future more or less likely than it was?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 19 December 2001

So you are saying that you have discussed very recently with Ministers and with Stephen Byers or with civil servants the handover possibility of the Tube or commuter rail, and on the Tube he has said that it is subject to his two provisos, as ever - and on rail?

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

I am glad that you think that Londoners will vote for best delivery of services, because you will also agree, no doubt, that they will be voting for the Conservatives in Westminster, where delivery is very good. For once, I agree with Lynne. I think that you put your political allegiances before London at the last election. There is no doubt that you allowed yourself to be persuaded to put the problems of the Tube on the back burner while Bob Kiley was briefly popped into a job which, as soon as the election was over, he was popped straight...

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

And the congestion charge question?