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

John Biggs: Can I just ask - The Chair: John, I am sorry; I really want to give people one question. Otherwise, we will not get anywhere close to - John Biggs: It is rather a Tory debate, with respect. The Chair: It was a Tory question, but I am going to put one point to the Mayor from the Budget Committee. Can you confirm, Ken, that, as well as telling us that you would set out as transparently as possible the options that are available, you will also be taking a lead in making recommendations? .

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

The problem that many Labour Members and supporters have with your Budget strategy is that it does not seem to include enough analysis of the alternatives. We all want to have rail links and bridges and more police; but every Londoner has to make hard budget decisions every day, and if we are going to sell it to Londoners, we need to see that you have done the same. Clearly you have a problem, in that you are a two-club golfer. You have congestion charging and the precept, and you may have aspirations to go elsewhere. There is a case...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

Mr Mayor, do you think Londoners should bear the cost of the security cordon which was, rightly, thrown around London by the Metropolitan Police to try to keep the capital city safe from the potential of world terrorism? Don't you think you should be telling the Home Secretary, "This cannot be passed on to Londoners - it has to be found out of general taxation," and he has to come up with the full costs?

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

I will do my best to perk things up. Let us get back to some really simple observations about the way in which you spend Londoners' money. You can bleat all you like about the big issue of whether London should keep more or less of its money, but I think you would make a more convincing case if we were not bombarded with the kind of ludicrous expenditure that you go in for - such as £100 while Helen Mirren has a taxi ticking over, or £140,000 on a launch party. I think you have about 20 staff working...

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

: In addition to the £10 a year for the policing, you have now quoted to us, let us say, £34 a year for TfL. That, of course, is in addition to the likely increase in precept of 40%, which you put in percentage rather than money terms, for loss of grant. Following your own policy consistently, can you help us as to what that 40% is in money terms for Londoners, in terms of loss of grant from central Government?

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

May I pursue one point, Ken? You have made the point that the increase in the precept for the police - the two areas of expenditure which you hopefully outlined to the Budget Committee last week - amounts, by my calculation, to £10.61, rounding it up, which is not far off a 7% increase in the precept in its own terms. You may know that that was the level of increase in the precept that our group proposed last year, as it happens, for the policing.

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

Does going up to people and calling them "dishonest" and "misrepresenters" and "liars" count as an overture towards them?

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

The Chair: The question was about working with them on developing "The case for London", but I will leave it - The Mayor: On that we all agree. There is no problem on that. The Chair: Will you be making overtures to them about how you -

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

Ken, could you answer the point about working with the London boroughs on the case for London? You have made quite clear your irritation with the response to what happened last year, and have been urged in the Budget Committee to work with the London boroughs as closely as possible. We have already heard today about the need to work in partnership with the boroughs to implement strategies. So could you tell the Assembly how you are working with the boroughs on this issue?

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

Mr Mayor, I seem to have missed some point in this. I agree: I deplore any loss of Government grant, whichever Government takes it from London, and I will make the case and fight my corner on that. But why do we have to assume that every loss of Government grant has to be picked up by the precept? By your own admission, there are savings to be found in other organisations. Surely a debate needs to be had before we automatically assume that that is what we should do. Are you prepared to have that debate?