• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

It is obviously important that there are public transport improvements before the congestion charge, not only for the success of the charge itself but also because these improvements are needed anyway. There is a case also for saying that public transport will improve as a direct result of the congestion charge, once you have wiped 10% to 15% of the traffic off the roads. The problem is that this message is simply not coming across. Do you agree that you need to push it more, not just talk about the public transport improvements beforehand - welcome though they are -...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Lynne Featherstone: You could get the idea that the Conservatives wanted to wreck the congestion charging scheme. Tony Arbour: Yes, you could. Lynne Featherstone: That is bizarre; it would be better if they acknowledged that it would happen. They sensibly signed up to the congestion charging scrutiny, which was a rigorous examination of congestion charging and of which the Mayor has now taken quite a lot of notice - although at first he was a bit reluctant to do so. The real stumbling block has always been the promise to improve public transport. You have now quantified it, in some...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Final question, then: we can expect another very large hike in the precept next year, can we?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

And if you do not get them, of course, Londoners will also have to pay a fiver to drive their cars around, because there still will not be any of the improvements in public transport that you are promising - rather dishonestly, I suspect. You cannot guarantee that the money will come from Government, can you?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

That is a nice history lesson. You are talking about these improvements you will be seeking - 40% more bus capacity by 2011; 17% more capacity on the Tube, I guess, once you have control of that - but your transport strategy also says of these proposals that you assume that funding is available. That turns it rather into a wish list, doesn't it? You also note, quite openly, in your transport strategy that, by about 2004, on the current funding available to you, you will go into a minus situation. In fact, by about 2011, you will be about...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

That is a new angle. I had not been aware that it was all about fighting crime in London, but I suppose you can create a new excuse every day.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

I note you say, "We would like to see these improvements." The fact, surely, is that we must see these improvements before its introduction - it is not a matter of "liking" anything. I suspect that we have slightly got you on the run on this one. I think you realise that most people are not impressed by the case you have made for the improvements you say will be there before the charge is introduced, which is why we heard you last week suddenly plucking 200 virtual buses out of the air. I noticed that your final transport strategy...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

Graham Tope: The Green party would do it for £5,000. [Laughter.] The Mayor: It would double their income. Darren Johnson: So it is a question of possibly finding some cheap research. Graham Tope: Yes - the Green party. [Laughter.] Darren Johnson: We cannot under-estimate the huge benefits it could bring. One estimate puts the benefit to landowners around the Jubilee line extension at £16 billion, yet none of that profit was harvested to pay off the £3 billion it cost Londoners to complete the project in the first place. It is important to get the debate going, to put some...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

That is certainly welcome in terms of specific projects. Do you not think that, in terms of an overall approach, sponsoring some research into land value taxation for London could be of great benefit, and that the huge increase in value of land can be clawed back through site or land value taxation? There is growing support for it now not just from the Communists, if they still exist, but from the Liberal Democrats, the Green party, Friends of the Earth and others. It is time to get a debate going on this. Would it not be useful to commission...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2001

It is interesting, isn't it, that the Liberals always claim policies but choose not to mention them at tricky times like elections? I was not aware that they had been campaigning on that in the recent election, certainly in the London area - Louise Bloom: You did not read our manifesto, did you? Angie Bray: - and I can see why. The problem is to separate businesses from other values that may go up - such as for housing and people who own their houses in areas where new public transport arrives. Surely it would be difficult, for a start...