• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

The Hutton report: again selective in use of the facts. There is no commitment to being honest with Londoners about this, The National Audit Office: you came close to being honest on that one, I give you that. But with the Kiley and Prescott agreement, which is in your Mayor's report today, you say that you had a commitment from the Deputy Prime Minister to unified management. There was no such commitment. It is a Livingstonite soundbite, and it has limited meaning to anything but a select group of Londoners.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

What I find interesting in your reply is that it is light on the facts. As I understand it - this can be substantiated - the facts are that the maintenance costs on the London Underground are lower, although the service has similar levels of availability to that in New York; that the failure rates of the stock in New York are slightly higher than in London; that the percentage of trains running on time in London is on average about 94% - which I agree is unacceptable, but in New York it is about 92%; that the productivity of...

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

The other thing that came to my attention was on the Appointments Committee. Your Equality Unit is being set up, and a member made a comment that there should certainly be disabled representation. I felt that that was marginalising the issue. The briefing that I have says that Churchill and Friend have set up a list of recommendations, one of which is to ensure that all staff know of sources and availability of alternative forms of communication. I have not been advised how, if a blind person writes to me and I need to respond quickly, I am supposed to...

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

Do you think that another lesson from this might be that part of the budget for what was obviously an expensive campaign in consulting on the transport strategy - and some might say was a showy one - could better be spent on working out how to reach the hard-to-reach groups; and that we need to put effort into ensuring that consultation does involve those that we all want to involve?

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

: I was disturbed to learn that, since the transport strategy was released, there have been other problems about People's question Time or advertising of posts on the GLA. For People's Question Time, people asked for information to be sent to them by email rather than by post, because they can collect it more easily if they are partially sighted. Why can we not send out information by email, and what other methods are we using to contact people, in addition to the traditional post?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

Darren mentioned the priorities given to tram services. The transport strategy is rather lukewarm, isn't it, on extra money being invested in working out new schemes - particularly the Croydon Tramlink? Don't you think that higher priority should be given to investment in extending the tram system?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

Far be it from me to attack cyclists. They are a great group, per se. Bernard Jenkin is a great cyclist, as I am sure you know, as is his wife. But I have a serious problem with the behaviour of many cyclists in London. Talk about road rage: they cycle around as if they are God's gift, and nobody is angrier than cyclists about any movement by any other vehicle in any direction. Most particularly, they cycle on pavements, knocking down old ladies. It is a lethal habit, and there is absolutely no excuse, given that a section of...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

There are problems with this strategy consultation form. Certainly the cyclists are not happy. When the cyclists are happy with what you are proposing, we get to hear about it, because they ring our office straight away. When they are unhappy, we get to hear about it as well. There are two issues. Cycling is not given a box of its own in this section, and it was supposed to be a clear, distinct part of your overall transport approach. Also, there is a problem with things that have been lumped together which are often completely contradictory. You have one...

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

Not this woman.

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 28 February 2001

Ken, do you not understand that it is not a question of whether any of us as individuals want to contribute to the work that this authority is doing, but of the job offers that come out of the blue?