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• Question by: Susan Hall
• Meeting date: 03 March 2022

Susan Hall AM: I am addressing my questions to the Deputy Mayor. First of all, with your interactions with my colleague, Assembly Member Rogers, I know you have had a memory loss of the businesses that you have spoken to, their names, but what were their answers to you, when you spoke to these businesses that we do not know who they were? When you spoke to these anonymous businesses, what did they say about the impact of the strike on their businesses?

• Question by: Susan Hall
• Meeting date: 12 January 2021

Susan Hall AM: Thank you. Good morning, everybody. My question, please, is to Rajesh Agrawal, our Deputy Mayor for Business. Rajesh, last Tuesday we had a very amicable Budget and Performance [Committee] meeting and the Mayor said, I quote: “There is some good news today from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor this morning has announced an additional grant, which will really help those sectors that we really worry about: retail, hospitality, all those sectors. He has announced a one-off grant today. It is hot off the press. This is a really good piece of news that will be...

• Reference: 2002/0075-1
• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

Is the Chair of TfL still committed to Orbirail? .

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

That is an encouraging answer. During the first six months of the GLA, when you had your policy commissions, I went to an interesting meeting about what's become the draft London Plan, where Professor Peter Hall and Nicky Gavron spoke about Orbirail and the idea that this would be a key part of your Spatial Development Strategy, that you would have an orbital rail route joining up inner-city areas, and then you would have interchanges between that route and the radial routes coming out from Central London. The phrase that was used was `the city of interchange" because London was...

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

It's proceeding but it doesn't seem to have the prominence in the draft London Plan that other transport schemes have. Orbirail doesn't appear on the London diagram in the draft London Plan; there's a list of major transport schemes with their timing and it doesn't appear on that; in the Options Appraisal document for the Plan, it's not listed amongst the major projects. It's not up there with Crossrail and Thameslink 2000; it is excluded from those even though it looked like the most important of the schemes that the Plan was going to move on.

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

How do you think Orbirail compares for cost effectiveness with the other transport infrastructure schemes that you've got? Crossrail is estimated to cost between £6-£10 billion, whereas Orbirail, if you already have the East London Line extension, is only supposed to cost something like 3% of that amount. In cost effectiveness terms, Orbirail ought to be the top of your list.

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

Doesn't that make it more important that you put it at the top of your list because, surely, your criteria should be different to the Treasury's? Orbirail is going to benefit people in London, particularly in inner-city areas, whereas Crossrail is largely about people getting from Heathrow Airport to the City. There are far less stops for people in London on the Crossrail plans than there will be on the Orbirail plans. The idea of measuring the benefits of a transport scheme through productivity, is biased against poorer people who are going to earn lower incomes. The Treasury's figures are...