• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

Are you prepared to accept the principle of their being a number of tests which need to be satisfied before a scheme is introduced? As you know, the Labour Party supports the principle of congestion charging, but the devil is, of course, in the detail. There are questions such as whether the method of issuing tickets causes further congestion, whether there is displacement as a result of that; whether the capacity of the public transport systems is sufficient to take the additional strain that congestion charging will, in theory, create. Would you be happy with the principle of there being...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

You can't say that they are not counterposed. We might hope that they won't be counterposed, but we run a risk on congestion charging by trying to be the first major city to implement such a scheme. And you are right, the eyes of the world will be upon us, and this one policy has the potential to really change London for the better. You and I are on the same side, no seriously, and we both want it to work, so my question is supposing a real problem gets thrown up, whether it's from the consultation exercise, from the...

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

I am sure we're all in favour of not being cruel, but I want to just clarify whether your concerns about animal rights extend to all sorts of animals including those which most Londoners would regard as vermin and causing substantial nuisance and possibly serious public health problems?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

Great. That's really good. I would just like to point out that in the latest Budget Report it says that the Mayor's office has an underspend against the agreed budget for staffing and that consideration is being given to additional recruitment against this underspend, so obviously there is some money in the kitty for this.

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

That's very good news. The Green Party produced a recent document called "Animals In London" which Animal Aid described as an excellent report, which of course I would agree with. Could you take that into account when determining the areas of work for the officer? We are very concerned that it's not just seen in a small focus but a much larger focus.

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

Just a quick one which interests me. What I am interested in is consultation and I just wondered what consultation you carry out with the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Gavron, when you make your monthly statement attacking the Blair Government. The statement you made yesterday about Nazis and Vichy regimes and aliens in the Treasury, I just wondered if there was a formal consultation process between yourself and the Deputy Mayor?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

I suppose the question was based on the premise that you might have gone on it and concerned as we were for your safety, the prospect of you with your balance problems, that you referred to the last time, being on an unstable bridge with a lot of Labour luvvies might naturally have given us concern for your welfare and longevity. So I am delighted that that wasn't the case but is there a more serious point to it. Given that the architect of the Millennium Bridge is the architect who is responsible for our new building that we have...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

I am sure Gordon Brown, a dear friend of yours, will be delighted to hear your support for public spending in Scotland, but on a more serious point, isn't right that London has been remarkably ill-served by the Government over the last 3 years, that we have seen cuts in public spending support for London across a range of services, not just the question of deprivation index which you have raised, the question of the shifting of the burden of some Police funding onto London taxpayers when a lot of those are national funding, and in fact the general way...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

Would you deal with perhaps the second part: will you take up the question of the Barnett formula with the appropriate ministers as a matter of urgency because many of us believe that all that we genuinely attempt to do regardless of party here is hampered by the fact that London is not provided by Central Government with sufficient resources and that more to the point, the current formula is deliberately skewed against London and there is a feeling that there is unwillingness on the part of the present Government to change that formula because of the effect it has...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

As long as we accept that as the strategic definition, that's fine. When you come down to local safe to school routes, local residential areas and so on, clearly the borough is much better placed to decide what local people want.