• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

Anyway, going on from that, it is not simply a question of resources: it is also programming and planning. Way back last year, we were told that it would be published on 11 July. Then we were told, on 11 April; then we were told, on 8 May; then we were told, on 21 November. You did not have the courtesy to tell us it had been postponed into February, and now it is to be May. It is not just a question of resourcing: it is knowing which end is up. Do you not think that you could programme...

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

Samantha Heath: I was not going to ask, but I would like to invite you to travel on the bus with me in the morning, which is the most awful experience. Andrew Pelling: Don't put yourself down, Sam. [Laughter.] Samantha Heath: Earlier you referred to other commitments and other obligations and powers you would like to have. I would like to concentrate on what statutory obligations you currently have. For the first time, in the Evening Standard on 9 October, I read that the Noise Strategy is going to be postponed into the next year. The last time we heard...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

On the question of congestion charging and carrot or stick, the Tories requested that we have a look at alternatives to congestion charging, or reasons for not having it. In early January, we will be having a half-day seminar which looks around the world and invites people in to discuss alternatives. There is a view more or less across the parties that the congestion charge might be enhanced by alternatives and added to by what you have termed "Jenny's document" - actually, it was published in the New Statesman, and we probably all picked up on it. Arising from that...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

It would be wrong to blame any of the individuals who were there. The problem seems to be that the message is coming around that their key concern, which is about the siting of the boundary - an issue of incredible detail locally - is not going to change, and that the core elements of the scheme as currently published are not up for change. If the boundary siting is a problem, what will be done about it, when the council and the community almost with one voice say, "Do not put the boundary along Kennington Lane."?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

It was a question, and I will ask another question. To be honest about this, the numbers that travel on buses are tiny compared to the number on the Tube, so "tinkering" is an accurate description. Anyway, let me provide you with an example in which the carrot approach has been slightly more successful. Jenny Jones mentioned this interesting scheme that has been set up in Perth in Australia, and you said you would like to go and look at it, which might be a good thing. What Jenny did not tell you is that it is entirely to do...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

It would be wrong to blame any of the individuals who were there. The problem seems to be that the message is coming around that their key concern, which is about the siting of the boundary - an issue of incredible detail locally - is not going to change, and that the core elements of the scheme as currently published are not up for change. If the boundary siting is a problem, what will be done about it, when the council and the community almost with one voice say, "Do not put the boundary along Kennington Lane."?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

Rather than sticks and carrots, Ken, can I talk about bulldozers for a minute? I was present at a very broadly based community meeting in Kennington and Vauxhall on Monday night. Two thirds of the community there - most of them chairs of residents' associations and so forth - expressed support for congestion charging at the beginning of the meeting. By the end of the meeting, I think as a result of their deep sense that TfL does not listen to local communities and is not interested and probably will not change very much, people were walking out. Are you...

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

Will the Mayor support moves by me and by Valerie Shawcross and other members of the Fire Authority to reverse this policy, so that London, which of course is the United Kingdom's premier fire brigade, can once again take the lead? Many county brigades send firefighters abroad, and seem to have got around the various bureaucratic problems. Will he support the moves that Valerie and I and other are making in that respect?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

: It is unprecedented, but I more or less agree with Richard Barnes - although not necessarily with his approach. If you want to be re-elected, Mr Livingstone, you have to show that you can cut through the bureaucracy and get these things delivered more quickly than they have been delivered before. People expect that of the executive Mayor of London. The idea is that the Mayor should be someone who gets in with a knife and, whoosh, it happens. Bus cameras are one example; speed cameras are another. Many residential communities in London would welcome rapid intervention by you...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

I thank the Mayor, and the Chairman for reading the question out. We started with commitments, Mr Mayor. They became aspirations, and my fear is that we are now into procrastination. CCTV coverage and protection on buses is an argument well led, well made, fully understood and fully supported. If you look at what London General Buses have done at Sutton, you will see that, since February this year, when they introduced some 12 CCTV cameras, they have virtually eliminated attacks on members of staff, have achieved over 100 successful prosecutions of vandals maltreating buses and have shown that, by...