• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

In your role as London champion, will you be staying on this matter, and will you be reporting that back to the Assembly? I take the humour that you bring to this, but it is clearly an important development for London, and it has required many hours of work. You have named Nicky and others involved in Picketts Lock. We heard this morning on the radio about the chances of Wembley being redesigned, perhaps with an athletics capability. Will that be ready for 2005? Will not the announcements this morning send the hares running? Is not locating the 2005 Championship...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

To recap, the problem is that all Assembly Members are receiving lots of complaints about buses, and there have been no specific improvements yet. I am very grateful that Dave Wetzel is coming down to Lambeth and Southwark to do two public meetings, but I would like you to pass a suggestion on to your colleagues on the Transport for London board: basically, we need a more systematic and transparent approach locally to a bus improvement programme. When tendering of routes is taking place, it is very important that we have an opportunity to influence the specifications included in those...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

Ken, I wanted to raise a concern I have. Darren Johnson was quoted on the front page of one of the Islington papers last week as being implacably opposed to the proposals for redevelopment of the Arsenal and the other two sites that are part of this planning application. Given that he is your adviser on environmental issues, I hope that you will therefore take his advice with a pinch of salt. I cannot believe that he has gone through eight pages of documents in detail. I am also aware that the former London Ecology Unit is going to be...

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

As well as a supporter of Arsenal as the best club in London, I have spent hours and hours involved in the work that has been done around this proposal. I totally agree with Meg that Darren is being a little opportunistic, and has not thought this through. Does he imagine that he could just have one lobby from such a huge event? Is he not just pushing himself to the front on a very serious issue, which he knows nothing about?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

I agree that you could possibly be spending your time meeting third party representatives on every planning application; but this is the largest single planning application in Islington for over 100 years, and it will have a massive impact on the local community. I therefore think that you could make an exception in this case. I am anxious that you give the community concerns proper consideration. We hear that, when George W. Bush was Governor of Texas, he would spend no longer than 15 minutes deciding on whether someone should be executed. I hope that you will be giving this...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

I think I was defamed a few times. I have worked closely with the community groups and community activists involved in opposing the Arsenal proposal over a number of months. The idea that I just picked up on this last week and shoved down a question for the Mayor without thinking about it is utterly ridiculous. There are some real concerns here about the impact on traffic, about inadequate public transport proposals when there is a new development of this size, about the loss of jobs when local businesses close. It is a serious issue and requires serious consideration. The...

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

As you know, Ken, the deal that the Government and the Conservatives made in order to get the NATS arrangements through was a postponement for three months. This is not quite verbatim, but the Transport Minister said, in effect, that this was to get the detail right. I for one find it quite staggering that, on an issue like this, the Government are not yet confident that they have the detail right; perhaps that is a side issue. As well as campaigning publicly as part of the run-up to the election, will you make representations about the NATS plans because...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

As someone who is no longer subject to the Whips or to the Treasury, what steps are you going to be taking to continue to promote your viewpoint with the Government on the future of air traffic control in the run-up to privatisation?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

In 1996, Andrew Smith, who is now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, told the Labour party conference: "Our air is not for sale." Did you support his viewpoint then, and what do you think has made him change his mind since?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

We have recently seen in Croydon examples of senior traffic police officers being taken out of that role - indeed, we have seen significant reductions in the number of traffic police over recent years. Does that have implications, do you think, for the Government in their recently announced desire to be much more severe with drivers who misbehave - and also implications for us in terms of enforcement of our bus lanes? Also, bearing in mind that the decision was made last week to close the police traffic garage in Croydon, despite about £200,000 having been spent on refurbishing it...