• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

Jennette Arnold: And we will have access to it, will we? The Chair: Ken, can I come back to those who currently need to commute into central London, and who will at the lowest feel that the charge for those coming from outer London is controversial. In your work on the spatial development strategy, will you take into account views about the need for employment in outer London, and integrate the two strategies, so that you are looking at increasing employment in the suburbs and in outer London town centres?

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

Yes, but I have correspondence which shows that that is clearly not the case. The problem is that Bob Kiley and his team are obsessed with collecting information which is purely around the PPP issue, and they are not looking at the operational issues of how you manage 12,000 staff; how you make sure the stations are open; how you make sure the trains turn up on time. They just ain't doing it.

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

Any self-respecting organisation that was taking on a new responsibility would have a transition team; it would have budgets; it would respond in detail to the project plans of the Underground; it would be telling Londoners what it aspired to do. I appreciate that there is a twin track here: you have a perfectly respectable political strategy of trying to defeat it - The Mayor: No, it is not twin-track - John Biggs: It looks as though you have failed in that so far. You may have a last gasp, but what will happen when the PPP -

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

You have not yet said what you will do to it when it is transferred to you.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

It is not the opera we should using as a example. You will know if you have a study done that it is ordinary people coming to see ordinary plays. This is not about the opera: it is about entry, about ordinary bums on seats and the range of activities from which they will be excluded, because £5 extra does matter.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

John talked about "wicked issues", and I have two to raise. One relates to our shared commitment to universal access to culture in London. The other is something that we have identified relating to the congestion charge - the fact that it will act in effect as a cultural levy on Londoners. The £5 congestion charge will be a significant addition to the cost of an evening out, particularly at venues such as Sadler's Wells, who have tried to keep their prices low. We know that public transport is not a viable solution for many people - as Louise said...

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

So we can see the documents, nevertheless?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

It is naive to suggest that the precept is not a matter of interest to the boroughs. While it is not my role to protect a Labour council, Croydon council nevertheless spent all its reserves to pay for your precept last year. You said that we should not use percentages, so perhaps I can make it very simple. Do you think it would be reasonable to double the precept in your term of office to 2004?

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

Would you agree with me that it is an interesting idea to give responsibility for the technicalities in London to somebody who represents a constituency in Plymouth - about as far away as one could get? When you meet him, will you repeat to him your view that one of the problems is that the money has been moved from London to areas like the south-west, which I think is what you told us at the Budget Committee meeting?

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

Bob Neill: Have you fixed up any meeting with the new Minister responsible for London? I note from your report that you saw Nick Raynsford: have you seen Mr Jamieson yet? The Mayor: Mr Jamieson? Bob Neill: He is the Member for Plymouth, Devonport, I think, and also has responsibility - The Mayor: He has responsibility for transport in London. Bob Neill: Which is clearly very important from that point of view.