2016 Achievements (Supplementary) [1]

Boris Johnson (Chairman, TfL):  Yes.  You could put it another way.  It would have been impossible to deliver some of the upgrades that we are now doing.  The Northern line would have been at risk as would Piccadilly line upgrades.  It would have been absolutely tragic for London and completely the wrong approach for our city.

Richard Tracey AM:  Sir Peter Hendy, do you have any idea of what you would have lost if you had been keeping fares down all that time?

Sir Peter Hendy CBE (Commissioner, TfL):  There is a reasonably straight mathematical calculation because 1% on the fares is worth about £30 million or £40 million a year and you have to compound it over a number of years.  If you were to go back on the figures that the Mayor quoted, you would be talking about hundreds of millions, quite clearly.

Richard Tracey AM:  Yes, clearly.

Sir Peter Hendy CBE (Commissioner, TfL):  From my professional point of view having been here a long time, it is unfeasible not to increase the fares over a prolonged period of time because we saw that happen before and actually, as the Mayor says, we have a lot of investment happening and we have still more to do.

Richard Tracey AM:  I wonder, Mr Mayor.  Do you remember in the last election campaign in 2012 that your Labour opponent and his running mate, Val Shawcross across the way, talked about decreasing fares by 7%, I think?  It seems to be something they have forgotten about.

Boris Johnson (Chairman, TfL):  I do remember that.  I remember that vividly.  But then we were told that that policy was no longer operative.  I think John Biggs said, “Who remembers Ken Livingstone [former Mayor of London]?”

John Biggs AM:  Ken who?

Boris Johnson (Chairman, TfL):  He said that as an explanation of the U-turn.  That was indeed their policy.  They seem to have junked it and I think it was very sensible of them to junk it because it was not sensible and I do not think people fell for it at the time.

Richard Tracey AM:  This question also seems to call for perhaps an increase in bus mileage because we are told about the buses being crowded.  Would increasing bus mileage be cost-free for TfL?

Boris Johnson (Chairman, TfL):  No, of course not.

Richard Tracey AM:  Or would it be yet another uncosted pledge from the Labour Party?

Boris Johnson (Chairman, TfL):  Buses are the most heavily subsidised part of our network, to the best of my knowledge.  Clearly, we need to get revenue in to help support that.

Richard Tracey AM:  Have you, Mr Mayor, ever heard a suggestion from the Labour Party about any cost-cutting in TfL?

Boris Johnson (Chairman, TfL):  None that strike me as being practical or interesting, no.  I think at one stage they toyed with hostility to the Emirates Air Line cable car, until it was pointed out to them that that was the only piece of transport infrastructure in London that was actually going to cover both its capital and its revenue costs.  I think they dropped that one.

Tom Copley AM:  Except that it did not.

Len Duvall AM:  You failed and you lied on that one.

Boris Johnson (Chairman, TfL):  It will.

Tom Copley AM:  In your mind, perhaps.

Boris Johnson (Chairman, TfL):  It will.

Tom Copley AM:  How long?

Roger Evans AM (Chairman):  Assembly Member Tracey, have you finished?

Richard Tracey AM:  I rest my case, Chair.