• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

Thank you. Would you agree that a number of Londoners have particular problems in getting around at the best of times - those who are disabled? Are you taking any particular steps to assist the Dial-a-Ride and Taxicard schemes?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

At the last Mayor's Question Time, we discussed the possibility of you taking a legal position on this should you not be convinced that PPP was the way forward. Legal proceedings are long and costly, and one thing that the Tube cannot afford is to have nothing done for a period that is any longer than strictly necessary. Do you have any other ideas or plans to force the Government to hand over the London the Tube, which should by rights be run by us?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

So is the Mayor suggesting that he is not going to be re-elected?

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

Could the Mayor clarify the position on the Galleon's Reach crossing? When he says that it is for the next Mayor to take forward, is he implying that he will do no work at all if the consensus across London is for that river crossing to be built?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

I was curious about whether the Mayor was in favour of a phased implementation, and delaying the more controversial aspects of the scheme - the road crossings.

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

Would you not agree, though, that the consultants' report is entirely lacking in credibility? It makes no attempt to present a balanced evaluation of the issues. When they list the aims of the report, on the second page of the executive summary, they say that it "aims to present the case for" additional river crossings. On the first page, they say that the report was prepared "in order to take forward the case for a package of new river crossings". So the for and against arguments are not presented here: it is a straightforward "for" for all the schemes, including...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

I am grateful for that. And will you perhaps bear in mind, in working that proposal forward, that the heavy rail crossing presents an opportunity to gain extremely important objectives in your own terms: a proper orbital rail network to the east of London, and the opportunity to move freight?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

While I am grateful for that, Mr Mayor, are you aware that the draft of the report, which is already to some degree in the public domain and has been seen by a number of the relevant authorities, points out that, although there are benefits in the DLR crossing - which I would not dispute - the overwhelming long-term balance of regeneration benefit comes from a heavy rail crossing; and that that option is supported by all the relevant boroughs in London on both sides of the river, and by the neighbouring downriver authorities in north Kent and south Essex...