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• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

But not before the meeting so we could cross-examine you on that.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

I think Londoners can reasonably conclude that you're stage-managing this whole event, you're cherry-picking soundbites and media opportunities, you're not being properly accountable to the Assembly. I think Londoners are totally fed up with this. They want to see investment in the Tube, they're not ideologically driven as you or maybe I am on this issue, they want to see the investment. They see you as being a curmudgeonly obstacle and maybe Mr Kiley's in the same bracket?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

You have failed to present the Assembly with a reasoned argument as to why you're taking your position and so we are unable, at this meeting, to hold you to account for it. It is self-evident to any reasonable person that if the contracts materially change then the Government would have to consult again. It doesn't take a genius to see that, it doesn't take you to explain that to us, that will have to happen. Are you the same Mayor who has repeatedly argued about the Government not disclosing information, who is now complaining that they have disclosed it...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

You know the rate of return as well. I put it to you that your officers at Transport for London, of which you have assumed the Chair, have been in detailed correspondence with London Underground, who have explained to you on three separate occasions how to get the rate of return. You had a conversation with Nick Raynsford, who described the process to you. You know exactly what the rate of return is and you know it's not an unreasonable one, given the risks that are being taken.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

Don't you think it's scandalous that you have not brought with you Bob Kiley, the Commissioner for TfL, to this meeting on this vital matter for London's transport?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

So there is nothing more you can tell us about this at this stage? Do you think that is in any way in contradiction with the fact that you leapt to the TV cameras the day the Select Committee - which had reached a conclusion you were happy with - made its third report on the PPP? Do think that in any way contradicts the fact that myself and Toby, for example, wrote to you on the same day as that Select Committee report, inviting you to give us a detailed explanation of your remaining problems with the PPP and...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

You'll appreciate that there's a problem and the problem is that there is a contradiction between the route options that you're proposing and the rhetoric that you've been putting out about the Barking and Dagenham riverside area and its potential for regeneration. First of all, I'd very much welcome an announcement or a commitment to the DLR being extended into Barking and Dagenham, I know that's very much on the agenda now. The consensus in Barking and Dagenham is that without a fast rail link we're not going to get the sort of housing numbers, the sort of regeneration in...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

I very much welcome what you are saying about the Docklands railway. Can I add to that that the Royal Docks option would probably help Barking and Dagenham to a far greater extent than going straight south of the river, but in no way am I suggesting that the south of the river option should be traded for one north of the river. I accept the arguments for that, but are you prepared to keep the door open for something else which may not be full-blown Crossrail, but which is a heavy rail improvement into the Barking and Dagenham area...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

The answer to that is that you will have to guess because certainly that may or may not be an issue on which I have a concern, but I have other channels for raising individual casework. The reason I am asking this question is twofold. First of all there is a very real safety issue about traffic light control junctions, particularly where there are pedestrian issues there. Secondly there is a question about delivery and the capacity of Transport for London to actually manage the very simple, basic, bog standard day to day things rather than getting carried away with...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 13 March 2002

Well, that is a very noble aspiration and I am happy to support that and you have quite a lot of resources already, but the question at the heart of this is a very simple one. You have a junction where kids have to cross to go to school, it doesn't work effectively, it needs to be re-programmed, a very mundane thing, you could design it on the back on a fag packet and yet it takes the people that you chair and command, six months on average to re-design that. And that is not acceptable in terms of Londoner's...