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

At the point he comes in, congestion charging is fairly well advanced. Does he have carte blanche to change things if he sees fit?

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

Is it something that should be paid at the rate of £46,000-odd a year of public money, when one suspects that a great deal of it will involve selling the Mayor's transport policies in the Mayor's run-up to re-election?

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

I seem to recall that last time you told me that Dave's chief qualification for office was that he worked on the buses and did a mean honey-roast pork. I was wondering whether we might hear of any other qualifications. More seriously, would you not agree that the only sense in making an appointment of an individual of the calibre of Robert Kiley is if he can then get on with the job, reporting direct to you as the Mayor, without any political interference from any of your allies who may have agendas of their own? Can you assure us...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

Thank you, Mr Mayor, for that positive response. I know that my council constituents, as opposed to my London constituents in Chingford, will be pleased to hear of the rail proposals you have. Waltham Forest Council responded to your recent congestion charging document by saying that they wanted such transport improvements in place before congestion charging was introduced, so that it would not overload our existing crowded public transport. What measures are you going to take to ensure that we have improvements like this, and improvements to the bus service, which are also required in that area, in place before...

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

You are quite right. It would also require links between the LDA and the EDA.

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

That is a very helpful answer, because there is a lot of progress there. I just want to add a rider. Does the Mayor agree that there is a need for sub-regional planning policies on the Lee valley area to be linked to the planning policies of authorities in the south-east, and that we need to be working across our borders in some parts of London, particularly here, so that the benefits of Stansted, which reaches critical mass as an airport in about two years, for ancillary industries - 15 million passengers a year - can come down the line...

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

It is our version of the Coulsdon relief road. [Laughter.]

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

I welcome your commitment to improving rail services and infrastructure in the east of London, and your willingness to meet those of our colleagues outside London on the issue. Would you be prepared, for example, specifically to meet the leaders of both Essex and Kent County Councils and the other associated authorities in the Thames gateway and beyond to consider how best we can promote these proposals? Secondly, will you bear in mind in initiating the proposals you have outlined to Nicky Gavron the fact that the improvement of rail in the Lee valley down to Stratford reinforces the logic...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

Yes, but Mr Kiley may be dissembling. My understanding was that the New York bond issue has raised about £14 billion since 1986, but that is only half the money that has been needed for the New York underground, and New Yorkers had to fund the rest through local taxation hikes. I am glad that you seem to have had some assurance from the Government that there will be stable Government grant - nobody else has had such an assurance. I believe that you and Mr Kiley must have something else up your sleeve, because I would have thought that...

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 18 October 2000

I wondered how far you think that the Labour party has an exclusionary agenda, given its inability to take you back into its ranks.