• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

What about spending some of the congestion charging money raised on more services. It's not a matter of more services in outer London. Not just the same service being better, but new services. There are not enough buses going along the roads. There are not enough routes.

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

I have two related points leading to questions. One, picking up on John Biggs' point about the North Circular Road, particularly that section of the North Circular which is in Enfield and in my constituency. The congestion there in outer London is growing at a much faster rate than in central London. I'm not advocating a congestion charge for that area, but what I am advocating is that some thought should be given by yourself about how you are going to use the money raised from congestion charging in Central London because 37% of London households have no access to...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

I think that demonstrates a real detachment from the reality of administering it. I think that sets a huge task for the officers in your Congestion Charging Unit about how on earth you go about determining whether someone is a relative or even maybe not a relative, what about an elderly person that you've befriended? People will start befriending elderly people all over the place. Maybe that is Ken Livingstone's adopt a granny and get off the charge, scheme. I just think that it would be much simpler and easy to introduce very quickly. You could very simply take into...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

I'm going to add something to what I was going to say because I think your comments on parental choice in schools demonstrates an incredible lack of understanding of the issue and this relates to the point I want to raise about what happens to local residents who live just outside the zone and, for very good reasons, will often have to use their car to cross the boundary between the hours of seven and seven and that does include some people who do choose to use their car for the school run " not because they actually want to...

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

My main question is, you have said, right, left and centre 200 extra buses. We've asked for the evidence of 200 extra buses. Reading the document you still haven't provided us with that evidence. So perhaps you could now downgrade your press statements and say exactly the number of buses you are going to be providing.

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

Well maybe we do need more detail, because in the document it very clearly says that there isn't a production capacity problem. It actually identifies that very specifically. And given that congestion charging is supposed to give us the big hike in bus usership, I would actually say that if you're talking about 200 buses a year, this would be the time to provide the 200 buses a year and not next year. So in a sense, perhaps you could come back to us and let us know when we're going to get the rest of the 50 buses that...

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

Going back to what you just said about detail of the bus improvements, I'm very glad to have the document which was actually submitted on 3 September to your committee. And try as I might, I think I am relatively numerate, but I've got here 133 new buses, not the 200 that you've quoted blandly in the papers right, left and centre. And even if that took on the double deckers, which you're talking about here, that only adds up to about 150 new buses, taking that extra capacity into account. So my first question is where does the 200...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

How much have you spent and how much do you expect to spend this year?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

How are you getting on with spending the £64 million that was put in the budget for preparation for congestion charging? Last time we talked about whether or not you could do an impact study on how the hospitals and public services will be affected by congestion charging. Do you not think there's a case for doing a bit of research on the faster areas of roads because it's the urban roads that are the dangerous ones?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

Looking at the publicity there's been recently about the experiments on speed cameras and how there is clearly a link between traffic speed, accidents, injuries and particularly pedestrian deaths and cyclist deaths. What consideration has been given to the view that if congestion charging is successful traffic speeds will increase in central London? Is there going to be, or has there been, any study done on whether or not there will be a knock on increase in accident black spots within the congestion charging zone?