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• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

I would like to return to your reasons for leaving TfL early. Obviously there has been a lot of press speculation about the fact that maybe you had disagreed and fallen out with the Mayor. That would not be surprising because I would expect that you would have some disagreements over working together for that amount of time. Could you just tell us what your most significant disagreement has been with the Mayor?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

You say you consider the Mayor a friend. You will have heard of the phrase we use of being a critical friend. We use it about the Assembly quite often with relation to the Mayor. What about industrial relations on the Underground over Christmas? Do you feel you could have handled that better?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

I think that is a concern about the system and the constraints within which you are operating, and which I guess you must have been aware of before you took the job on. Could you just say, because I do not think we have got to it yet, what was the point at which you decided you had had enough and wanted to go and do something else? What was the thing that did it for you?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

There are a couple of people here who are very pleased to hear that, at least. Finally, you said during your opening comments to us that you felt a challenge for the future of TfL would be to develop what you called a more reliable system of finance. What do you mean by that? Is it really the case that this is at the root of your falling out with the Mayor, the performance of the finance unit within TfL?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

Another issue which there seems to have been a disagreement over has been Battersea Bridge. Can I congratulate TfL on the reopening of the bridge earlier this week? However, you told the board of TfL shortly after the incident had happened that you felt it might not be worthwhile spending the money on actually doing that piece of work and it would be best to close the bridge because of the amount it would cost and to discourage road traffic using it. Was the Mayor right to overrule you on that occasion?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

What about free travel on the buses for under-16s? We know, because you told us before, that you had some concerns about that. When you were last here you told us that you did not agree with freebies. In retrospect, were you right to disagree with the Mayor about that?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 January 2006

Of course. That comment you made about encouraging people to travel for free, are you saying that you think it might encourage fare evasion once people get older than 16?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

Are you saying that you will not be ready to put in a serious bid for funding for phase two in Spending Review 2006?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

Moving back to capital for transport infrastructure development, we are probably only about a year away now from the next Spending Review, 2006, can you talk us through what processes of development are going on within TfL to make sure we get a good second bite of the cherry and what preparation and business case development is going on?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

If I can be a little more parochial and talk about London again. One of the projects halted until the 2006 Spending Review that is extremely important to London, is the phase two extension on the ELL Project. Given that there is only say a year to go to Spending Review 2006 and you have talked about the fact that you are developing capacity and putting together London Rail at the moment as a business unit, what development is going on of the business cases for phase two of the ELL extension? Especially bearing in mind that there are two...