• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Well, I appear to have stumbled on a bigger issue than I had intended to raise! [Laughter.] This document came to me because I made what I thought was a legitimate inquiry of the Legal Department about what my rights of access to information were. The particular issue I wanted to raise, of course, was Jubilee Gardens. It is very important that there is clear understanding of what the proper procedures are in all planning cases. Fuzzy and sloppy procedures around planning are very damaging to public confidence: the community will want to know that they have as much right...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

On planning matters, you had already shown your disdains of Assembly Members by ignoring their views, for example, on the Heron Tower. You have ignored the request of the GLA Planning Committee to have a greater say and involvement before you make decisions. Since most of us have been directly elected - true, we did not get as many votes as you individually, but together we did - do you not think we should be allowed some substantial input into these proposals, and that we should have the proper function of scrutinising your planning decisions, as we are supposed to...

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

I am sure that Standards Committee will take those comments and discuss them further; but why is your Chief of Staff a member of the Standards Committee if he is not to report back to you on items which are on the agenda, and bring your views to the Committee?

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

What arrangements are going to be made for the plain clothes revenue enforcement staff to take note of the behaviour of bus drivers on buses?

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Will you be requiring that all bus drivers clearly wear a badge identifying themselves, so that such action can be pursued?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

I have one and a half other tiny questions. First, you published this year a Budget which suggests you are going to spend £64 million on precautionary, preventative and ameliorative measures in the areas just outside the zone and on the edge. Are you committed to that money being spent in the boroughs on those measures, and not taken back in some imaginative accounting process by TfL?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Don't you recognise, though, that there is a risk that, to protect their position, boroughs outside the zone will oppose your charging proposal because they are not sufficiently reassured about the steps that will be taken to reduce its effects just outside its boundaries? The people within the boundaries have a pretty clear picture from the proposal, but the people just outside - like my constituents in Tower Hamlets - have a great fear of rat running, commuter parking and all sorts of deviant driver behaviour as a result of the charge, which will cause grief for local residents. As...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Another of these dry technical matters is that something called a traffic order is about to be published, which describes the congestion charge scheme and how it works. Transport planners get excited about these things, rather as trainspotters get excited about trains, but they probably do not mean much to Londoners. A concern that has been expressed to me is that boroughs are being consulted on this and will be consulted on it, but they are not being given the details of what work will take place in their areas just outside the zone. So they are being asked to...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Thank you. My supplementary is very simple - this is obviously a far gentler issue than the previous one. But it is one in which the evidence is that things might come to grief. I have received an allegation from one of the London boroughs that the modelling is at best wishful or, more cynically, has fiddled the books, inventing figures which suggest a massive increase in bus use where it will not happen. Obviously you are not going to answer that here and now, but do you have a commitment to a transparent and independent audit of the work...