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• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

Sally Hamwee (Chair): I explained when I wrote to you ' I think it was before Christmas ' that we would ask about the financial details because it is a very particular, very unusual position that you are in, very much one of public interest. John Biggs (AM): The question was to ask you for a list of the contractual benefits to which you are entitled up to 31 January. Could you tell us how many crates of claret, how many rooms at the Savoy, how many transatlantic flights, how many gold-plated telephones you get as part of your contract?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

I was a little uneasy about this question, but I was allocated a lead role on it. Perhaps some of my less pleasant colleagues would like to follow it through. It seems to me that we have a perfect right under the Access to Information legislation to ask formal questions of TfL and the Mayor to which we get formal answers. I suppose underlying this is a concern that down the years that TfL has not been the most transparent organisation in the world. I guess that the contract of its Chief Executive could be seen as the apex of...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

I do not want to rake over answers you have given already, but at the last Mayor's Question Time, the Mayor described that it was asserted ' I think it was an Evening Standard story ' that there had been a bust-up between you and him about the fate or future or proposals of Jay Walder (Managing Director, Finance and Planning, TfL). He described that as being rubbish and piffle. Would you use similar words to describe that or was the Mayor being less than open with us on that matter?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

Is there a fundamental disagreement between yourself and Mr Walder on an aspect of strategy which was instrumental in your decision to hang up your boots?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

I have one other question about your management style. Perhaps you can put the record straight on this, because the press can be very wounding. There have been allegations on the one hand that you are a dreadful control freak and that nothing has happened in TfL without you blocking it or running it over your desk; on the other hand, there have been various scurrilous allegations that in fact you have been almost negligent in your role and are barely in the office, that you have a cardboard cut-out there, for example, and nothing really happens. Can you clarify...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

With these debates about the Congestion Charge, PPP and so on, there is a danger of having a lot of heat and not much light. The existing transport strategy, the one that was consulted on several years ago, puts forward a strategy as an alternative for the PPP. Time has now passed and the PPP is now in operation, but I think we recognise that it has flaws and that it may not actually reach the end of its 30-year life. Is it not time for TfL in a cool and considered way to start to develop an alternative strategy...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I am interested in pursuing this a little more constructively, Chair, because clearly there is an election happening and people might be keen to cast aspersions, where in reality they are just misrepresenting the position. Is it not the reality that there has to be a creative relationship between you, as chief executive, the Mayor as chairman, and the board of TfL, which undoubtedly will require people to work confidentially to develop trust between themselves? I assume that is the relationship that exists.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I think where the argument in this question heads towards is a position that says that your board are a bunch of parrots, if you like, or `yes- people who take their allowances and play no active role. Can you tell us more about the grit that exists within the machine of TfL that means the board adds value to the way in which the organisation works?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

For the record, there has been at least one decision where the board made its decision on a casting vote of the Mayor. That does not indicate a cosy relationship in which the board is appointed, but not to exercise its powers.

• Reference: 2005/0033-1
• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

How will London be affected in your view if the Thames Gateway Bridge is not built? ... ): I would like to explore what I would call the Transport Commissioner's dilemma, which is that I think it is very interesting for the whole Assembly to support a commuter rail authority, and it is very easy for us to support the principle of Crossrail, but when we come down to individual schemes, such as the Thames Gateway Bridge, the West London Tram and the Congestion Charge extension, you get all sorts of local, understandable and in many cases legitimate concerns, and...