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• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 11 June 2003

Can I ask about some of the deep stations and safety on them? How are you going to ensure passenger safety on the deep stations when Metropolitan Police officers are out of radio contact when they go down there? You do not have to go very deep to be out of contact, such as at St James's which is only two flights of stairs. Also, London Fire Brigade is not contactable below ground in these stations and negotiations have gotten nowhere over the last two and a half years.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 11 June 2003

Lying behind this question is the under?known fact if there is such a word as `under known" that TfL inherits something like 13,000 staff from the Underground. Only a minority will transfer under the PPP, so there is an awful lot of discretion there. Whatever the Underground"s other failings, surveys repeatedly indicated that the public strongly welcome the number of staff at stations, and indeed would like more. Are you able to give a commitment to Londoners from today's meeting that before there was any cutting of staff from stations you would very publicly and very openly discuss the reasons...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 11 June 2003

I will take that as a `no" then. I would like to give you another chance to answer the question more positively, which is to look at outer London stations. I appreciate this point has been touched on earlier, but one of the great public concerns about the national rail network in London is quite how many stations are not staffed at night or, in some cases, are not staffed ever. That leads to enormous insecurity and as a result people just do not use those lines. Can you give a guarantee to Londoners that at all times under your...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 11 June 2003

You have obviously had limited time, but nevertheless you have spent intense effort getting yourself up to speed on this. The final question is about lessons from Chancery Lane, where the report we wrote in the Assembly which I think was generally well received and evidence from elsewhere suggests that although the total number of staff may be one issue, the skills and deployment of staff at particular times is another. Have you been looking at that; for example, whether there are enough competent engineering trained staff on the line at weekends in the event there is a problem?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 11 June 2003

Just as Bob said the absence of graffiti on the network would give vital reassurance to people in terms of safety, do you not agree that the presence of staff on the stations provides the same sort of vital reassurance to people on safety issues? It is not only going to be psychological; it is also going to be practical. There will be practical benefits of tackling graffiti, safety, crime issues, or whatever and you do need a visible presence there. CCTV cameras in themselves will not be sufficient. You do need to maintain that staff presence.

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 11 June 2003

First of all, can I welcome your attention to the problems at the east end of the District Line which you have referred to twice this morning? What percentage of the staff that you are about to take on are on temporary contracts? How does that compare to the rest of TfL?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 11 June 2003

Will the agreement specifically prevent industrial action on the Underground, or do you feel that like in the USA legislation is required to do that job properly?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 11 June 2003

When you talk about breaking through the culture of distrust bearing in mind the last Tube strike was only actively supported by 17% of the staff are you actually saying you are planning to go past the unions and communicate with the staff directly, rather than just talking to a few militants who might not represent everyone who wants to do a good job on the Tube?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 11 June 2003

I think you are optimistic, but I wish you well with this. If there is industrial action, will you be putting in place a contingency plan so that people still have options if they want to travel into London on strike days? This is something we have not had for the last couple of years, when the Mayor has been responsible for other parts of TfL. How are you going to make sure that the Mayor, because of his backing from the unions, does not end up effectively acting as your human resources (HR) director?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 11 June 2003

And on contingency plans?