• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 13 September 2000

I totally endorse that, and welcome the answer. I stress that it does include an area dimension. It particularly affects certain parts of London. I represent Tottenham and Edmonton, where it is a very real issue. I should like to add one rider. Would you join us in pressing the Home Office so that refugees who flee here, who are often the most skilled and educated of their country, can take up jobs as doctors and other health service workers for which they are qualified? We have such skill gaps, and this is a population of people who could fill...

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 13 September 2000

One thing that interests me in making the Assembly more people-friendly is arranging occasions when other people sit in our seats. One of those would be a children's Assembly. What we are thinking about is having some children in. Would you be prepared to do a question time if we had a children's Assembly?

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 13 September 2000

It is interesting that you have raised the issue of transport and child-friendliness. Does that not conflict with your preference for maintaining the Routemaster - which I love, but which is not very easy with a pushchair?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 13 September 2000

I welcome that on both counts. We have a long way to go to make London a child-friendly city. We also have a culture which does not encourage children to be or to be seen as participating citizens. This fund and the way in which we monitor the use that children make of it could help that process. I suggest that you link up with the recently appointed London Commissioner for Children's Rights to administer it. I do not want any extra burdens on us. I would also ask for reassurances that a child-friendly dimension to policies will be central...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 13 September 2000

First of all, will you accept that the overwhelming majority of local councils in south-east London, both Labour and Conservative, of business organisations and trade unionists would utterly reject the opposition to river crossings argued by Darren Johnson, and would firmly endorse your support of them as absolutely crucial to the regeneration of that part of London, and likely to bring thousands of local and valuable jobs?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 13 September 2000

I will indeed restrain myself, Mr Chairman, and remind the Mayor that in fact the Conservatives won the GLA elections. You only have to look at the votes to see that. I appreciate your popularity, Mr Mayor, but I also notice that Louise Bloom and the rest of the Socialists round to the apples on my extreme right all now seem to be in favour of congestion charging. May I remind you that 10% of all traffic coming into central London comes through my constituency? You have also suggested today that two sites in Newham, which is not an outer...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 13 September 2000

To return to the question of your consultation programme, Mr Mayor. Obviously there are concerns about the level of response you are getting. The leaked paper from the Transport Strategy Steering Group last week tells us that, as of 6 September, the response was 3%; you are telling us today, a week later, that it is about 5%. Another survey, by Wandsworth Council, will have a much better response rate, not least because the first question they ask is, "In principle, are you for or against congestion charging?" That is not even asked in your consultation. The leaked paper that...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 13 September 2000

I wanted to ask about the impact on the immediate surrounding area. I represent Hackney and Islington, and the current proposed boundary cuts through the middle of those boroughs. I wonder what proposals you are thinking and talking to senior colleagues about for ameliorating the impact on that boundary, perhaps through traffic management schemes and so on; and where the money for those schemes is supposed to come from.

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 13 September 2000

Can I go back to the question of the boundary of the proposed zone? You said in connection with Tower Hamlets that it would be a matter for the people there to tell you that they would like the boundary extended out to the borough boundary on the edge of Newham. I do not dispute that, but does it not rather contradict what you are saying about listening to Londoners on the scheme in general? After all, why should the people of Tower Hamlets be in any different position from the people living on the west side of the zone...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 13 September 2000

I think fair do's for all sides. I think I can do it this way. So far as congestion charging is concerned, I was interested in your reply referring, with apparent approbation, to the response of the two focus groups, particularly the observation that it was worthwhile - that, although this charge would not do much to reduce congestion, it would raise a lot of revenue for investment in London's transport infrastructure. I am concerned about how that sits with the evidence given to the transport scrutiny panel looking into congestion charging by Keith Gardner, and by Derek Turner -...