• 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

So you are happy to accept that the congestion charge has been a little single-focused in terms of its priority, against other measures that might complement it?

• 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: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 17 October 2001

But we made no decision on and no changes to that element of the Budget. Let us get it clear on the record that you are not describing it as it was: when it came to the Budget last year, we made no changes or recommendations on what you had said. This was your decision, and it was not an Assembly input that changed it.

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

So you are happy to accept that the congestion charge has been a little single-focused in terms of its priority, against other measures that might complement it?

• 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...