Appendix 3
London Assembly (Mayor’s Question Time)
18 June 2008
Transcript – Question and Answer Session
1208/2008 - S67 Appointments
John Biggs
Have you made all your S67 appointments yet and clarified their roles?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): The question is about the Section 67 appointments [appointments made under Section 67 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (as amended)]; whether I am going to make any more?
Jennette Arnold (Chair): Have you made all of them and clarified their roles?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): No, the answer is I have not finished making my appointments. The job descriptions of the appointments I have made are on the website and the remainder will be there shortly. We are going to be making some further appointments in due course.
John Biggs (AM): Can I first of all congratulate you on your appointment of Neale Coleman as a Section 67 officer. He will, I am sure, give you continuing excellent advice on the Olympics, as he did to your predecessor.
A few simple questions: The first question is about your announcement in your manifesto in your campaign that the environment was a prime priority for you and yet you have not yet appointed an environmental adviser. Is there a reason for this? Was it again a mismatch between the rhetoric and the reality of the Mayoralty.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Several points: there are a great many very talented people working on the environment in this building and it has been a joy to meet them and to talk to them and I think that -
John Biggs (AM): OK. Name some!
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): There are so many it would be invidious to name them! It seems to me that you want to get me either way; you criticise the new administration for making a flurry of appointments in haste and try to criticise us for not being exactly in conformity with the Widdicombe Rules or whatever it happens to be -
Len Duvall (AM): Within the law.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): When we take our time, when we decide that we are going to consult and when we decide that we are going to canvas the widest possible opinion about who should be fulfilling these important posts, you cry haste and you demand personnel and you demand people to be produced. We are going to recruit -
John Biggs (AM): This is eating into our time. 1
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Can you just let me finish, John. We are going to recruit some excellent people to fill the remaining posts. I would have thought that it should be a matter for congratulation that the new administration has been able to get along so far without spending the money I am entitled to spend on new personnel.
John Biggs (AM): Although of course in the meantime you have expended potentially £500,000 on consultants to fill the gaps that the absence of those people -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I like that the word ‘potentially’ that crept into your sentence there.
John Biggs (AM): It is a very useful word.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): ‘Potentially’ was a very useful word there in that sentence! Potentially was covering a multitude of sins in that sentence, John.
John Biggs (AM): You have appointed people as consultants whose annual costs would be £500,000 at least. Can I move on then.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I do not think you are in a position to analyse the cost.
John Biggs (AM): If we summarise your answer, which was essentially that you did not answer the question, you may get round to appointing an environmental adviser - which was your number one priority - some time between now and Christmas I guess.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Sorry, my number one priority --
John Biggs (AM): Munira Mirza is your adviser I believe on cultural issues.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes.
John Biggs (AM): Is it a coincidence that she is I think the only woman appointed to your team and she is on the lowest salary? Or is that an unfair question?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think that is to trivialise the process of appointments and I think Munira is going to do a fantastic job for us on culture and arts.
John Biggs (AM): Are you going to be appointing an adviser on equalities issues?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I do not propose to go into the detail of the further appointments I am going to make.
John Biggs (AM): OK. Could you advise us whether Mr Lewis has yet taken up his appointment and signed a contract with the Authority?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): As far as I know Ray [Lewis] is Deputy Mayor for Youth.
John Biggs (AM): Let us move on to some of the more interesting questions then. I am sure you would agree with me that a Mayoral adviser would probably have a desk, an office, a PA, an email account, would speak on your behalf at conferences, would write articles as your adviser and may even be designated Deputy Mayor. Where is this leading? There is such a person who is exercising all of those functions; they write articles in the newspapers - The Sunday Times last weekend: Sir Simon Milton. He was intended to be an adviser. Just for the record, for this meeting, I know you 2 have been talking to Len Duvall about this, there is concern that the legality of his position needs to be clarified in the interests of good public administration and that needs to be done pretty sharpish. I will leave that question at that but I shall move on to another.
You are welcome to respond if you like. Are you going to make sure that any legal doubts about his position are clarified both in his interest and those of the Authority?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): You are asking a question about Sir Simon Milton’s legal status and whether or not he is entitled to act as an informal adviser under the Widdicombe Rules? Is that it?
John Biggs (AM): I dispute the word ‘informal’, but yes.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): The answer is that we have watertight counsel opinion which Len [Duvall] has seen - and he is nodding there - which -
John Biggs (AM): I do not think he is nodding in the direction you would like him to nod!
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I will read it to you. This is advice from Michael Supperstone QC. For the benefit of the world who is watching this, this is an argument about whether or not I am entitled to have a distinguished public servant, Sir Simon Milton, acting as my unpaid, informal adviser on matters of planning without breaching the Widdicombe Rules which were designed to stop Labour Councillors hiring each other and doing all sorts of things back in the 1980s, but never mind that now!
The key distinction is that Sir Simon is not being paid and therefore he is not caught by the Widdicombe Rules. This is the important point and, indeed, this is borne out by advice from Michael Supperstone QC, who says at the conclusion of his advice to us on this matter:
“Another option that was considered was for there to be no contractual relations between Sir Simon and the GLA but for him to offer informal advice and not to receive payment for it. In my view Section 69 would not apply in these circumstances. He would be a paid member of staff of the Greater London Authority and he would not be employed under the direction of a joint committee whose membership included those referred to in Section 69 2(A)(A)”.
John Biggs (AM): I am not a QC but I have read my Ladybird Book of the Law! My concern is that the reality is that he is a guiding hand if you like behind your administration and that in all reality he is acting as an adviser. It is simply a device to try to get around the law and it is quite embarrassing and quite unbecoming of an administration committed to openness”.
Can I move on to the next question which is about -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I do not want to be unnecessarily pernickety about this; we made it absolutely clear that this is not in breach of the law or the Widdicombe Rules, a point that having contested you now appear to accept.
John Biggs (AM): We have made it absolutely clear that we think that it may well -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): You now appear to accept that it is in fact in conformity with the law.
John Biggs (AM): No. We are not accepting that at all. We are seeking further clarification.
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Shall I move on to maybe more fruitful ground? You have appointed a whole number of Deputy Mayors, as I think we discussed at the previous meeting; five of them so far and counting. There may be more. You did not totally rule out the possibility of there being additional Mayors as well! The question is, is there any power that you would not delegate? Perhaps to focus your thinking, there is an article in the Financial Times today which crystallizes my thinking on this, which is there is a risk that you have delegate so much that there is almost a sort of empty vessel here with everything going on around you.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think it very important for the efficient running of this place that we have high powered people who are able to get on with their jobs with maximum despatch and that is what I am going to encourage.
John Biggs (AM): Are you a high powered person?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): What do you think, Jennette? Is he allowed to ask this kind of thing? I feel it would be pompous for me to answer this kind of stuff.
Jennette Arnold (Chair): The time is with the Members but you do not have to answer it. So, if you are not going to answer it, can we have the next question?
John Biggs (AM): Let us put it slightly differently. The problem I have is that, as I understand it, you have appointed people and you have delegated things to them. Last time we were in this Chamber we found that you had delegated your planning powers to Mr Clement, which is fine and lawful. If one reads the job description for Mr Parker it appears that you are delegating virtually everything that is not nailed down to him, so you could go off on holiday for four years and he would be doing the job for you. Is that not somewhat inconsistent with the principle that Londoners are electing you as an executive Mayor who is expected to not only exercise the levers of power from time to time but actually know what they are and where they are and how to pull them?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think Londoners want value for money and they want a Mayoralty that delivers results over the next four years. I have put in place what is, by common consent, a first class team.
I seem to remember that it was the principal burden of the attack on my candidature for the Mayoralty that we would not have such a first class team. You now propose to attack us on the grounds that we have a team of very, very able individuals around me helping me to run London. I think you should be extremely pleased and I know that Londoners will be very pleased with the value we are getting from the very great talents that we have been able to recruit.
John Biggs (AM): With respect, we will only establish if they are a first class team when they have had an opportunity to demonstrate that. I appreciate you have appointed them and that is the way you want to do it. The question to you is whether you are sufficiently in control of what is happening at City Hall, whether there is clarity about these appointments, and whether in reality - apart from anything which you cannot actually legally delegate to someone, which I think is essentially the setting of fares - you have delegated everything so you are not actually aware [of what is going on]? Can you tell me, for example, what is the most important planning issue that is being dealt with under your delegated powers by your planning advisers?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): There are many planning issues currently being faced by London and I do not want to get into the detail of a particular planning decision being faced by my office.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): Name one!
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Jenny Jones (AM): The desalination plant.
John Biggs (AM): We have to assume that that is because you know them all and you do not want to waste our time.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): There is a serious point here which is I think Londoners want an administration that gets on with it. We will be judged by results. I am touched by your faith in Führer princip and your belief that London will be better for having a strong leader with a finger in every pie who marched around the ops room like Al Hague saying that he was in charge of absolutely everything. Of course that is one way of doing it. I prefer to get a good team of people around me and ask them to get on with it. I will have absolutely no hesitation in holding them to account on your behalf and making sure that they deliver results. What Londoners want is results and I think they are less interested in the method by which I deliver them.
John Biggs (AM): I think that is rather a reckless statement but it forms part of the record of the meeting.
Can I move on then to my final question - the Wizard of Oz question I call it - which is that you have designated all these things -
Jennette Arnold (Chair): Mr Biggs, will you restate your last question so that the record is clear what you are asking?
John Biggs (AM): Final question is that you have delegated these powers but you have also designated people with certain positions. You have the Chief Deputy Mayor or whatever the designation is for Mr Parker, but the reality is that he is no different from Simon Fletcher who was the previous Mayor’s Head of Office. He is basically a man who manages ten staff, including himself, plus -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): You are fascinated by the prosopography of my office and who is exactly doing what --
John Biggs (AM): No, the point is that you have puffed him up in his description so he runs the whole of London. He does everything. He is the boss of the entire outfit. He is the Chief Executive of the whole GLA group. In reality all he does is manage 12 staff. Do you think there is a sort of Wizard of Oz problem there that you have created a man who is supposedly big but does not actually have the powers that he exercises and it shows you do not really understand how it works here?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): John, it seems to me that you are convicted of complete confusion here. I do not want to be unnecessarily rude but your previous line of attack, about three minutes ago --
John Biggs (AM): Please be rude.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): -- you were saying that I was a Potemkin figure surrounded by a court of all powerful advisers. You are now saying that my all powerful adviser is himself a Potemkin figure. You have got to work out what your line of attack is it seems to me. We have a very good team and a very cost efficient team. As you know, Tim Parker is going to do this Pro Bono for a pound a year. He is a highly accomplished man and I think Londoners will benefit hugely from his talents and I am very pleased he is joining us and I think he will be a great adornment to our team.
John Biggs (AM): Let us wait and see.
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Jennette Arnold (Chair): Thank you. Mayor, can I make a correction? I said to you previously you did not have to answer questions; of course you do! What I meant to say was if you are not clear what the question is then please seek clarity from the Member.
1126/2008 - Appointment of Mayor’s Advisers
Mike Tuffrey
According to your campaign press releases you state that Mayoral Advisers should have a “Clearly defined role”. In which case could you clearly state why some of your advisers are called “Deputy Mayors” and others are called “Directors”? What is the objective difference between the roles and responsibilities of each job title?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): This is about the difference between Deputy Mayors and Mayoral advisers, Mike. Let me explain very briefly just for the benefit of everybody watching; there are five Deputy Mayors at the last count. They are of course Tim Parker the First Deputy Mayor and Chief Executive of the GLA Group; Ray Lewis, Deputy Mayor for Young People and Opportunities; Richard Barnes who is the Statutory Deputy Mayor and is in charge of communities and diversity; Ian Clement, [Government Relations]; and Kit Malthouse, [Policing]. We have three Directors; Guto Harri, Director of Communications, Munira Mirza, Director of Arts, Culture and Creative Industries Policy and Kulveer Ranger, Director of Transport Policy.
In addition there are unpaid special appointments. You know, we have made some pretty heavy weather there. There is Simon Milton. There is also of course Kate Hoey who is my Commissioner for Sport. Also doing it for free.
Now, Mike, your question about the fine gradation of honorifics between Deputy Mayors and Directors. Let me just say, perhaps for simplicity’s sake, that I do think the title of Deputy Mayor does show that this is a very, very important priority for us. That is not to say that the other things are not important but you will remember that we were elected to deliver value for money and that is why Tim is not only Deputy Mayor but he is going to be taking over from me as Chair of TfL. Ray’s mission is central to what we hope to achieve in this Mayoralty and that is why he is Deputy Mayor for youth.
Mike Tuffrey (AM): Can I explain where I am coming from on this issue? You were very critical before of what you called a Mayor and his coterie advisers, of sofa style government, of cronyism, of lack of accountability --
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I do not remember that but go on.
Mike Tuffrey (AM): It is all in here. It is all in here. You might care to reread it: Making London’s Mayor Accountable. You made a number of promises and what has happened is confusion. In the public’s mind a Mayor is elected, and they are clear what a director and an adviser do, and you have confused those.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): How so?
Mike Tuffrey (AM): Because most people think Mayors are elected and actually you have now got all sorts of people who are not elected, hardly paid etc etc. But the crucial question I have for you is in this you promised us a Cabinet. Where is the Cabinet?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): There is a team around me which I believe to be of extremely high calibre and, as I have said repeatedly to you, I do want you to feel able that you can summon my team to come and talk to you about what we are trying to do. 6
Mike Tuffrey (AM): But is it a Cabinet? What it says here is, “End the culture of cronyism at City Hall. First pledge; create a Cabinet for London to assist in running London.” Where is the Cabinet?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Wo ist der Kabinet! I think we are quibbling about language here. There is a team around me --
Mike Tuffrey (AM): Where is the Cabinet? I want there to be a Cabinet. I want there to be clarity. I want Londoners to know. I am all in favour of strong competent advisers --
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I know exactly what you want, Mike, you want to create a climate of resentment amongst those who feel they are excluded from the Cabinet; that is what it is! Indeed you want to create an atmosphere of sharp elbowed jostling on the part of people who are not in the Cabinet. Is that what it is all about?
Mike Tuffrey (AM): All I want is a Mayor who is accountable to Londoners who does what he says he is going to do and he said there would be a Cabinet and either there is going to be a Cabinet or there is not. So tell us.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think most people listening to this or watching this will be absolutely clear; I have read out a list of the key appointments, these are the people in whom I am placing complete confidence and to whom I would direct you if you want to find out what is going on in the various policy areas. I really do not think we can be clearer than that.
Mike Tuffrey (AM): Thank you.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): If you want to call that a Cabinet then go ahead.
Roger Evans (AM): Let us try and bring a bit of common sense back to this because if you listen to the sort of comments we have heard this morning you would think, Mr Mayor, that the people you gather around you still have to prove themselves. The truth is that Londoners will be pleased to know they have all proved themselves already in senior capacities elsewhere and Londoners will be particularly pleased to see that you have senior figures from local government helping you because, regrettably, your predecessor could not find any whom he had not fallen out with to assist him in his job. Does this herald a new approach to working with the boroughs and with Londoners more widely than your predecessor who relied on a group from Socialist Action to advise him?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Roger, a very good question. Are we moving on to question number three?
Jennette Arnold (Chair): No, we are not and we will not bring Andrew’s [Boff] question up yet. Have you got another question?
Roger Evans (AM): Yes, I have. I have almost as many as Mr Biggs; not quite!
Jennette Arnold (Chair): You are asking Mr Boff’s question which is going to take us off the subject.
Roger Evans (AM): Very well then. In that case we will take it as a statement on my part rather than as a question which obviously does not need clarification or support.
What lessons have you learned from your predecessor when it comes to making open, honest and transparent appointments?
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Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): The most important thing is to make sure that the people we recruit are of very high quality, have the interests of London at heart and are willing to submit themselves to your interrogation and, additionally, very importantly, will put all their interests for the public to see. That was one of the problems that I think London all saw during the period of the last Mayor’s office.
Roger Evans (AM): Were the job descriptions of the Mayor’s previous appointees any use to you?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Do you know I did not study them in detail, Roger. I have been actuated by our own priorities and what we need to get done in London.
Roger Evans (AM): Was it clear, for instance, what the relationship between those people and the London Development Agency was? Is that something you intend to clarify?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think that was a major source of concern and the relationship between some of the Mayor’s advisers and the LDA was obviously something that became increasingly vexed and now part of those relationships are the subject of several police investigations so obviously that is something we have to get right.
Roger Evans (AM): Thank you.
Jenny Jones (AM): I would like to bring up the question that my newly esteemed colleague, John Biggs, asked and that you ducked earlier. That is when are you going to appoint an environmental adviser because you are already making big decisions on the environment, like the desalination plant, which are frankly idiotic? When are you going to get somebody who knows what they are doing?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Jenny, as I have said, I think you are ignoring some of the considerable talent in this building and I do think -
Jenny Jones (AM): Yes, but you said your advisers demonstrate that the topics they cover are very important priorities. When is the environment going to be a very important priority for you?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): It is a hugely important priority and I want to make sure that we get the best person. Either --
Jenny Jones (AM): Is it because you do not know anybody?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): If I hire someone at the drop of a hat and I simply pluck someone from my list of contacts then I will be accused of cronyism, will I not?
Jenny Jones (AM): You do not know anybody who knows anything about the environment. That is true is it not?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Your friend, Mike Tuffrey, has been kind enough to nod and he is absolutely right. On the other hand, if we put it out to the widest possible --
Jenny Jones (AM): You are repeating yourself again. Please do not repeat yourself; it is offensive to us and it takes my time. When are you going to appoint an environmental adviser?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Jenny, I have absolutely no desire to offend you or anybody or to take more of your time than strictly necessary. The only reason I am repeating myself is because after all I already give this answer very extensively to John Biggs and I am sorry that he took the wind out of your sails. But that is the answer. 8
Jenny Jones (AM): So you are not? You are not going to appoint an environmental adviser?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Of course we are going to appoint an environmental adviser.
Jenny Jones (AM): But you are already making decisions. Oh, never mind!
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Sorry, I do not mean to be discourteous. We are going to appoint an environmental adviser after we have had a proper process of consultation and recruitment.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): Just on this issue of the remaining Mayoral advisers that you have yet to appoint. Is the delay because you have not found the right people and you are still looking or is it because you have found the right people but there are some sort of legal obstacles with their appointment?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): No, it is the first.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): When will we be seeing the remaining appointments?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Darren, I really think we have squeezed that lemon more or less dry with Jenny and John. You are going to see some excellent appointments in due course. You have already seen plenty of appointments. I do not think you can beat me up simultaneously for making lots of rapid appointments and for staying my hand and trying to get the best possible candidates for the remaining appointments. Come on; let us all get behind that.
Andrew Boff (AM): Mr Mayor, how do you, in a scale of one to ten, rate the questions you have been asked by the Labour, Liberal Democrats and Green parties?! Could I ask you to very, very quickly do something wrong because they need to ask a question which matters and, as far as I am concerned, the naval gazing from the other parties is an absolute irrelevance to people in London who want to talk about services, want to talk about the environment and not the appointment of an environment adviser.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Can I just say something else, Andrew. I began this morning’s proceedings with an appeal to the best of London’s brains to come up with ideas for the legacy and to transform the Olympic projects - the Stadium, the Media and Broadcast Centre, the Aquatics Centre - to make those the centre node of something fantastic in East London. We really could have had a discussion, it seems to me, about what we want that Olympic site to look like in ten years’ time. I think it is a great shame that we have missed that opportunity. Maybe it will come up later on, but that is the kind of thing for which this Assembly was designed. That is the kind of thing we should be talking about, in my view. That is the kind of thing Londoners want to hear us discussing.
James Cleverly (AM): My heart goes out to the people on the other side of this Chamber who, whilst passionate, clearly are so blinkered they cannot envisage a style of administration other than the one they have witnessed over the last eight years. As I say, that is quite heartfelt concern for them.
Would you agree with me that on the elections of May of this year the people of London voted for a change; a change not just of individual but a change of style of government? I applaud the fact that you have embraced that change.
Also, may I remind you, in support of that, that one of the major criticisms of the previous Mayor, and, indeed, an ongoing criticism of the current Prime Minister, is that their obsession with tinkering and micro management actually prevented them from seeing the big picture and led them to make some serious strategic decisions which they are probably now ruing at leisure. Will you give me an undertaking that you will continue to seek the advice of a broad church of experienced individuals, 9 that you will continue to maintain a strategic role and not allow yourself to get sucked into and bogged down in the long grass and that, for the sake of all Londoners, you will not accept the, I think fundamentally flawed, advice from the Members opposite to dabble in every single piece of paper that comes through this building?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Thanks, James. We have a massive programme. There are big things that we want to do. We are going to have questions later on about what we are going to do on the buses and what we have to do about upgrading the Tube. There are massive things ahead for London. There are changes that we want to make to help the police. It is vital that we get on with doing it and that we do not get needlessly bogged down in a sort of analysis of how power is transmitted throughout this place. Believe me, we will be judged on how efficiently we get things done.
1065/2008 - Relationship with the Boroughs
Andrew Boff
What is the Mayor of London doing to improve the relationships between his office and the boroughs?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): We have a Memorandum of Understanding with the councils which is working towards a new City Charter for London. The idea is that we are going to find a way of making sure that disputes and disagreements that occur between the Mayoralty and the boroughs are anticipated and ironed out and that we get more done.
Andrew Boff (AM): Mr Mayor, would you therefore support the main thrust of the arguments within the Trusting Devolution document forwarded by London Councils which spends some time talking about the best way to deliver services is at the most a local level and that really the only time that the Mayor for London or the GLA should be involved is where there are those London-wide issues? Also, do you think that this new approach would be able to heal the divide that has developed over the past eight years between inner and outer London boroughs and that outer London boroughs can expect to be paid more attention to than they have done in the past?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Absolutely, Andrew. One of the important developments I hope to see is that we will have a way of anticipating problems and that things that we want to do here can be communicated to the boroughs and we have a way of working out the best ways of solving the problem in advance.
Suppose we go ahead with the bicycle hire scheme as I want urgently to do; the only way we can deliver that is if we get borough consent and if we work with the boroughs to deliver it. That is why it is important that we have a forum in which differences and disputes can be worked out. Rather than us showboating and bullying let us see if we can coordinate and get things done. Suppose we want to harmonise the times of bus lanes across London, something that people would love to see; you can only do it if you work with the boroughs. At almost every turn there are things that we want to do here in the GLA that can only really be delivered with the boroughs. I believe that the establishment of the City Charter and the approach that we are going to develop from that will be a very good way of doing it.
Let me tell you a story. Am I going to be soaking up your time if I tell you a story?
Andrew Boff (AM): No, you go ahead.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Why not? It is not actually very exciting or funny but I will tell you it anyway. In 1901 the London Borough of Croydon - great place! - as ever was at the forefront 10 of technological change and pioneered the world’s first electric tram. There was huge excitement in the City. By, I think, Whitsun 1903 there were 800,000 people using electric trams in London; it was almost as many as use the Tube on a single day. It was a fantastic achievement. Of course what happened then was the central city authority, the London County Council (LCC) as it was, decided to go with it and they decided they were going to have trams too. The trouble was that they were addicted to trams with a funny little metal groove underneath the tram to provide the electricity whereas Croydon had an overhead gizmo. In other words, they failed to concert their strategy. The LCC and Croydon failed to concert their strategy and the consequence was that there were far fewer trams in London than there might have been if they had had, in advance, the kind of coordinating system that we are going to set up. So there you are; that is why we need to have plenty of coordination between London boroughs, the Mayoralty and the congress of borough leaders. I am very pleased that Merrick Cockell and the other borough leaders are going to be working with Ian Clement and others to deliver this.
Andrew Boff (AM): What would you say to some Members opposite who have questions down on this agenda who complain that certain services in some boroughs are different from other services in other boroughs? Do you think that is a terrible thing and we should have consistency through London for all services to be exactly the same or do you, in fact, value the diversity that comes from borough government?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Andrew, what are you driving at here? Give me a clue.
Andrew Boff (AM): Parking controls. We have a question down from one Labour Member saying that it is horrendous that they are different in one borough than another one. I personally see no problem with that. I am trying to get into the mind of a centralist; what it is that they think is important about having everything the same everywhere or everything appallingly bad everywhere is what actually it ends up as.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes. I am with you in principle; I want devolution, I want localism and I want the boroughs to be able to do things their own way as far as possible, but I think we should also recognise that there is a basic need for convenience and people who work very hard in this city and who are very, very busy are entitled to some measure of common sense amongst us in deciding how we make things like bus lanes and traffic management work. I think it is our job, as far as is possible, to make life simple and convenient for people who live in London. That is why I am very optimistic that the congress of the boroughs, working with us, will be able to simplify and to rationalise and to harmonise without, in any way, pasteurising away the differences between the boroughs in the way that we would want.
Caroline Pidgeon (AM): I wanted to focus on the important service issue with the boroughs. Do you support the Bromley Conservatives on London Council’s Transport Committee who last week blocked the all party agreement on Freedom Pass costs, thus delaying this by several months and at high cost to the Council Tax payer? Are your colleagues once again threatening the Freedom Pass in London?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): It is certainly not my intention to threaten the Freedom Pass; quite the reverse. As I have said before, I want to see the Freedom Pass extended to 24 hours and we will be taking steps -
Caroline Pidgeon (AM): What about your colleagues we are talking about here; do you support them?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): We will be taking steps to make sure that happens and I have no doubt that the residents of Bromley and other boroughs will welcome it when it comes.
11
Caroline Pidgeon (AM): OK, but Bromley Conservatives are actually blocking the agreement to settle the costs on this and this is going to cost Council Tax payers in London more. Is this the value for money that you so often recite to us in this Chamber?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Let us see what Bromley Conservatives are in fact doing, but I do not believe that they or anybody else in London will want to block the Freedom Pass or the great benefits that will bring to older people in this city.
Caroline Pidgeon (AM): Perhaps you might want to talk to them about that because I think Londoners are very concerned about this.
Richard Tracey (AM): I am sure, Mr Mayor, the boroughs will be extremely welcoming to this initiative of yours.
Do you remember back in the late 1990s when the legislation setting up the Greater London Authority was going through the House of Commons, the Labour Minister talked about this being a slimline authority that was promised, with a light touch in London? Instead of that of course it became a group of interfering busybodies led by the previous Mayor. I guess you will agree with me that is why the council tax precept from here has gone so high and I trust you will be aiming to bring it down in your congress with the boroughs?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Richard, of course you are completely right that the Mayoral precept did go up an unacceptable amount under the last Mayor - 153% - and it is our intention to make sure that we do not see comparable increases in my period and, insofar as it is possible to make economies, you can bet that we will. As I said, we are going to work with the boroughs to deliver the savings and the outcomes that Londoners want.
John Biggs (AM): I make no apology for my line of questioning. Indeed, I have sympathy for the Conservative Members who have to desperately wait for jobs and hang on your every word.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I have given you two jobs! Unbelievable rank ingratitude! Unbelievable!
John Biggs (AM): I think the important thing is that you are apparently a greatly loved TV personality and the fluffy hair and all that. You might be due for another haircut by the way.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Chair, is he allowed these continual ad hominem1 remarks?
Kit Malthouse (AM): I am becoming quite concerned at the tone of this meeting. There has been quite a lot of haranguing of the Mayor and not allowing him to answer questions. Now we are getting into comments about personal appearance and abuse. The meeting is degenerating, Chair. I am sorry; I think you need to get a bit more of a grip on the opposition members. They have come to this meeting with very, very thin -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): No, no, Kit, it is not that bad.
Kit Malthouse (AM): - varnish on which to attack and it is just not respectable to the people who are watching that this kind of informality is tolerated and casual approach to the meeting -
1 Typically used in argumentum ad hominem, a logical fallacy of criticising a person when the subject of debate is the person's ideas or argument, on the mistaken assumption that the validity of an argument is to some degree dependent on the qualities of the proponent. 12
Jennette Arnold (Chair): Excuse me, Mr Malthouse. I take your point about the respect to each other and to those who are watching and listening. I also think that Members need to remember when they are mumbling and talking amongst each other then none of this is being recorded. So can I just ask Members if they can put their questions briefly and succinctly and with respect. Mr Biggs, you have the floor.
John Biggs (AM): My advice was intended in a friendly and constructive fashion as always.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): And received in that spirit.
John Biggs (AM): The question is: we are not elected as politicians to skip around in circles and love each other; we are elected to solve difficult problems. You gave an anecdote about Croydon. A similar anecdote might be about Bazalgette2 and the 30 years or so it took before a municipal authority was able to impose a sewerage system on London which resolved the ‘great stink’ as it was called. It was a massive public health problem; people died of typhoid and cholera. Finally people got their act together and realised you needed to have a strategic intervention. There are going to be issues where you are going to need to beat up boroughs - including Conservative boroughs - and that is your rightful role. I would like you to confirm that and identify that your reserve powers on the concessionary fares scheme might be an example where you would need to beat people up if they get carried away with themselves and sabotage a hard fought privilege for all retired Londoners.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): John, you are completely right. You are right about the Bazalgette sewers. There are times when London does need a central authority that will actually impose its view about what is best for Londoners on the 32 boroughs. I do accept what you are saying.
All I am saying is we are going to be judged on outcomes and on achievements, a point I have been trying to make throughout this meeting. We can achieve more if we appreciate that there are people in the boroughs who have a great deal of talent and knowledge and they understand their area. If we work with them, indeed if we go around and have meetings in the boroughs, as I propose to do, about our agenda, we will actually get more done. If we want to deliver a bike hire scheme in London we are going to have to be very, very persuasive and work very hard. We will do it but I think we can achieve more by persuasion and hard work than by beating people up as you put it.
Len Duvall (AM): Two points, Mr Mayor: Are you aware that the majority of that increase in the precept that your party was so against supporting went on policing and community safety?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Of course I am aware of that, Len, and that is one of the reasons -
Len Duvall (AM): So that is bad is it?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): No, of course not. That is one of the reasons why -
Len Duvall (AM): Why do you sneer at it then?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): - when I was repeatedly asked about this during the election campaign I said how important it was that we did not cut funding for policing in London and I do accept that that is a natural limit on what we can do.
2 Joseph Bazalgette (1819-1891), a Victorian civil engineer responsible for the London sewers 13
Len Duvall (AM): Let us go back then to the precept issues that you are planning. You will be supportive of precepts which would go broadly in line with your manifesto commitments of which policing is a major plank, I presume?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): That is right although, of course, the policing commitment does not comprise all of the Mayoral precept. I do not think Londoners watching this will be unhappy to know that we do intend to find savings where we can in the remainder.
Len Duvall (AM): So you accept that of any precept raised from the Council Tax payers of London in any year of the last administration of the last eight years about 80%, probably 85%, went on policing and fire services; community safety issues? Do you accept that? I am not sure if you do.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think that is what I have just said. I do think that there is scope for making economies, as I have said, in the remainder.
Len Duvall (AM): OK.
Kit Malthouse (AM): Mr Mayor, would you agree with me, however, that what has been proven time and again across London in terms of Council Tax and taxpayers’ money is that more taxpayers’ money does not necessarily mean better services? We have seen time and again, particularly across my constituency in West Central, in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham, that very often the councils that tend to be at the top of the Labour Government’s own league tables are those that charge the lowest tax and that try to get the best value for money. Any kind of connection between better services and higher tax is a fallacious assumption to make and that actually it is not about how much money you spend, it is how you spend that money and what people are doing with it that is more important than the absolute amount.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Of course I agree with that, Kit. I remind everybody that often the most compassionate thing you can do with people’s money is spend it efficiently. There are people in London who are living on very low incomes, who are facing a massive increase in their cost of living, in food, and it is incumbent on us not to overtax them and we have got to get that right.
Len Duvall (AM): So increasing police officer numbers is not something that equates with a better service for London then. Is that the proposition that you support, Mr Mayor, because that is what your colleague is saying?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I do not think that is what he said and I do not think that is what anybody in this Chamber would support.
Len Duvall (AM): Do you support then using the precept to increase police officer numbers?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think I have already made it absolutely clear. For the people who did not understand my last answer, I made it absolutely clear that I do not want to reduce the share of the precept that goes on policing because I think Londoners want to be safe and they look to us to make sure that their streets are safe, but I do think there are economies to be made in the remaining 20%
Len Duvall (AM): Thank you. That is fine. That was the assurance I was looking for in my earlier answers. I finally got it.
14
985/2008 - New Routemasters
Darren Johnson
Will you make the inclusion of hybrid technology a condition of the successful design of a new Routemaster?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I am determined that the new generation Routemaster should be as green as possible and I am willing to look at all sorts of hybrid technology. I do not want to declare now in favour of any particular variant, but, yes, we will have a clean green machine.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): So it would be at least as clean or cleaner than the current hybrid vehicles that are being introduced?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Well we would certainly want to make use of the cleanest greenest possible technology. It is true that, if you look at the hybrid engine, it offers fantastic efficiencies. You can get a 2.4 litre engine driving a double decker bus instead of a six litre engine. Of course the great advantage of the old Routemaster design was that it was so light and that made for great fuel efficiencies. One of the things we want to replicate and to derive for the new generation Routemaster is this ability to deliver huge fuel efficiency.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): It would cost several million pounds to develop a new Routemaster and then estimates are that each individual bus would be around £50,000 more expensive than a conventional double decker. Are you going to be able to afford to pursue both the greenest technology in terms of vehicle design and pursue this new Routemaster? Are you going to be able to bring both on to the streets of London?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Your question is a very good one. We will be ensuring that the new generation Routemaster is making use of the cleanest greenest technology. As to the exact costings of the new bus, as you know, what we will be doing shortly is announcing a competition and determining exactly what design we want. It is difficult in advance of that to tell you what the costings will be.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): So if costs prove prohibitive and it was a choice between a conventional diesel Routemaster -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I see what you are driving at.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): - or a hybrid double decker of the design that we have at the moment, which side of the fence would you be on?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I would be firmly on the side of making sure we had a clean green vehicle.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): So you would abandon the Routemaster in favour of greener buses?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): No. You are forcing me to make a choice that I do not think we are going to need to make.
Roger Evans (AM): Will you also ensure in the design of the bus which is to replace the bendy bus that fare evasion is addressed as a priority because, of course, the existing bendy buses became known as free buses; nobody paid. If you address fare evasion not only will you improve the design
15 but you will actually recoup some money back as well and may be able to afford some of the extra bells and whistles that Darren wants.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Exactly, Roger. As everybody knows, or should know, the cost of fare evasion in this city, on the bendy bus alone, is £10 million a year. I think that is a very, very modest estimate and a grossly optimistic estimate in view of what everybody will have observed when they get on a bendy bus. I do think we can do much, much better and the money saved thereby is of course available for investment in new generation buses.
Roger Evans (AM): Will it also be a priority on the new buses to design out crime because crime and anti social behaviour and vandalism blighted the service under your predecessor and put off a lot of people from using it? Will that be a priority too?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Of course I want buses to be much, much safer and that was one of the priorities on which I think we were elected. One of the first things we have done is to double the Safer Transport Teams and by the end of that particular programme we are going to have more uniformed people on the buses communicating a sense of safety and security than at any time in the last 25 years. I do want to see buses and bus journeys that are far safer.
Roger Evans (AM): Can I also urge you to include modifications to improve safety in driving standards as well because this Assembly in its last term identified driving standards as being a major problem on the bus fleet.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I will certainly look at the issue of driving standards. One question that has been brought to my attention is the sudden jolt when the bus moves away. This is something I have been talking to TfL about. It is very difficult in these very high-powered machines and the acceleration is very fierce. It is something that we are talking to them about.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): Mayor, you have mentioned several times, I think, that you will be phasing out the bendy buses as the contracts expire, and of course at the moment the competition for the design and production of the new Routemaster has not actually started. There are six routes of the bendy bus contract which are due to lapse next summer. What would your plans be to replace those routes?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I am looking at those contracts, Val, and I want you to know that it is my intention to begin the process of phasing out the bendy bus. We are absolutely determined to do this, I think it is what Londoners want and we will be announcing the competition for the new Routemaster.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): OK, but in summer 2009 a number of important bendy bus route contracts will come up, including one in my area, the number 12. It is very important to us. The bendy bus carries about 120 people and they are often absolutely packed, central London routes. Would you be replacing them with double deckers in the interim, because of course their capacity is much less than the 120?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): We will be beginning the process of phasing out the bendy buses and of course we will be taking steps to make sure that people are not left behind at bus stops.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): OK. Does that mean therefore that you will be putting additional double decker services on those routes in order to make up the capacity that will be lost by the removal of the bendy buses?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I understand the direction of your question. I do not want to get into the details of exactly how we are going to be supplying the capacity because that is currently 16 the subject of discussion. What we are determined to do is to begin the process of phasing out the bendy buses whilst making sure that people are not left behind at bus stops.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): OK, but do you see that there is a problem that people will be left behind at the bus stop for several years waiting for the new Routemaster -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Let us see.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): - if the buses do not have the capacity. If you do decide that you will put on additional buses to make up the capacity loss of taking out the bendy buses, do you think that will have any impact on the speeds of traffic in central London because, of course, the old buses take a while to load and unload?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Let us cross that bridge when we come to it. I think you will find that we will come up with a solution that allows us to begin to phase out the bendy bus whilst not leaving people behind. That is what we want to do.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): That is what we want to achieve. I think you have already said Londoners want results and they want value for money and we agree with that. I think they also want to get on the buses and they want their children to get on the buses and they certainly want to get on the buses in central London. When will we expect some proposal from you for what you will replace these six lapsing routes with?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): As you can imagine, we will be looking at beginning the process of phasing out the bendy bus. I do not intend to elaborate now on what we are going to do on exactly which route because that is, of course, the subject of discussion.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): Well Route 73 ends next May, so are you going to replace it or are you going to get a new service in?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Would you forgive me, Val, if I do not go into the detail of what we are going to do on Route 73 except to say this - that we are going to begin the process. I would be extemporising an answer about Route 73 when we have not actually had a proper discussion about it yet.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): OK.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): We will be beginning the process of phasing out the bendy bus and preparing for a new solution to match our transport needs without leaving people behind.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): It is early days, Mayor, but I hope you understand that a light touch leadership on this one might not actually bring the bus along.
Kit Malthouse (AM): When you initiate the competition for the new Routemaster would you please consider asking the entrants to specifically consider alternatives to hybrid engines, namely hydrogen engines? There is a strong strain of thought that says hybrid technology is a temporary solution pending the development of new heavy-duty hydrogen engines and a promulgation of the supply of hydrogen throughout London. What I would hate to see is for you commission a new Routemaster with hybrid technology that then becomes redundant and ends up costing Londoners more within a short space of time.
The other aspect of course which many, many Londoners, particularly in my constituency, will be concerned about is noise. The new Volvo buses that are being used throughout London cause a massive amount of noise. I should declare an interest as I live on the route of the 88 bus. Of course 17 hydrogen engines produce no noise at all and operate completely silently as well as having no emissions. I would urge you to consider possibly allowing entrants to take more time around the introduction of a bus that may prove more cost effective and better for the environment and provide less noise in perhaps a slightly longer timeframe.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): As I said, I think, in answer to Darren, what I am determined to have is a green clean bus and hybrid technology is certainly one of the things we are looking at. The price at the moment of hydrogen buses is very high but it may be that it comes down.
Certainly one of the issues now and one of the reasons why I think actually a new bus design makes sense for London is that the cost of fuel makes it very, very expensive to propel around our streets these buses which are so heavy. The noise that you are hearing is the noise of a motor trying to drive a very, very heavy bus. We can, I think, do much, much better to lighten our buses and thereby propel them more cheaply. That is going to be one of the advantages I hope of the new generation Routemaster.
Val, I think your constituents and people on Route 73 will love it when it comes as I think I never tired of saying to you last week. They are not going to wait. It is going to be tremendous.
Caroline Pidgeon (AM): Can you tell us when you will announce the terms of your design competition for the new Routemaster and what -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): 4 July, I think.
Caroline Pidgeon (AM): Thank you very much. Gosh, that is a very prompt answer.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Am I out of order? Around 4 July!
Caroline Pidgeon (AM): What, if any, guidelines will you be setting for the design and will it have an open rear platform and need conductors?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Let me tell you this; I am determined to have a new generation Routemaster and, yes, it is certainly part of my vision that it should have an open platform. Obviously this is something that came up endlessly during the campaign. I think it was probably one of the most elucidated global issues; the exact cost of the people who would have to look after the platform. There is scarcely anybody in Outer Mongolia who is ignorant of this debate!
I think it probably will be necessary to have someone to invigilate the platform. I think that is no bad thing for bus safety generally and we will certainly make sure that it is done in an economical way.
Caroline Pidgeon (AM): Right, thank you.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): The exact specifications --
Caroline Pidgeon (AM): No, thank you very much. That is great. Thank you.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Is that enough? All right.
Joanne McCartney (AM): Could I just confirm that a design feature of your competition will be a hop on/hop off Routemaster?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): It is my desire to see a hop on/hop off Routemaster. It’s not only my desire; I think that millions of people in this city would love to see it again. That is something we hope to achieve. 18
Joanne McCartney (AM): At the last Mayor’s Question Time you said that you would put conductors but they would not be traditional conductors taking fares, they would be there to help people on and off the bus. Can I ask how you can reconcile those two things and cut down on the fare evasion point that Roger Evans mentioned if your new generation Routemaster will be a hop on hop off and you are not going to have anyone there checking fares?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Joanne, as you know, the vast majority of fares are now collected by means of the Oyster so the idea of people going round with a machine and going, “Ching ching, fares please” is over.
Joanne McCartney (AM): But that was one of your criticisms of the bendy bus; that it was high on fare evasion. I am just wondering how you are going to design your new Routemaster if you are having a hop on/hop off yet your new conductors are not going to have fares’ responsibility?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): OK, it is a good question. I suppose, in my imagination, I envisage that these people on the buses would play an important role in making sure that people swiped on correctly and did not diddle us all. How about that?
Joanne McCartney (AM): So they will have responsibility for fares?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, but I do not think it has been suggested that they should be collecting fares; they are invigilating.
Joanne McCartney (AM): At the last Mayor’s Question Time you indicated that these staff would purely be there to help passengers on and off with luggage. Now you are saying they are going to be enforcement conductors?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I would have to look at exactly what you claim I said in the last Mayor’s Question Time. The important role that they will fulfil is ensuring bus safety and I hope it is not unreasonable that they should also make sure that people swipe on with their Oyster card and do not diddle the system.
Richard Tracey (AM): A quick answer, Mr Mayor. Will you be seeking in the competition to find a British bus designer for the new bus rather than going abroad?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, within public procurement rules.
1072/2008 - Illegal Minicabs
Richard Tracey
What is the Mayor doing to crack down on illegal minicabs?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, I went out the other night in a taxi and went around Soho and that kind of area looking at the huge number of illegal mini cabs that were picking up passengers and I do think we have done the right thing in TfL doubling the strength of the Transport Occupational Command Units (TOCU) within the next six months to provide another 34 police officers dedicated to cracking down on touting and on illegal mini cabs. We are going to introduce a one strike rule so that you get your licence revoked immediately if you are caught touting.
Richard Tracey (AM): I take it this is with immediate effect? Presumably when you were out looking for the illegal mini cabs you may also have talked to some members of the public, including 19 particularly women, who are really scared by the presence of illegal mini cab touts and by the sort of activities that often go on?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, of course. There is still a problem of harassment and sexual assault and rape. Although the number has gone down; there were 19 in 2006 and that is 19 too many. I do think the measures we have introduced should make a difference and should make people feel safer when they get a cab late at night.
Steve O’Connell (AM): I am pleased very much that you have made this link between the illegal mini cabs and violence against women. I know last week you went out in a cab with the Chief Executive of Croydon’s Rape Crisis Centre, Yvonne Traynor , and I know you visited the Centre which is, shamefully, the only centre in London which deals with rape victims.
Also, connected to that - and I am pleased with your commitment to extend the number of rape crisis centres to four throughout London - I would like to draw your attention in Croydon to the Domestic Violence Centre. The Rape Crisis Centre does fantastic work and I am glad that you are extending that Centre but I am eager to shine a light on the work of the Family Justice Centre because we know that the obscenity of domestic violence can lead to all sorts of problems, not least to the young people exposed; some of whom will see violence against women as a natural course of matters and problems go from there.
So, Mayor, again I thank you for your lead on this but I would invite you to visit the Family Justice Centre - which is a holistic piece of work, not just rape crisis but dealing as a one stop shop for all the victims of domestic violence - and I would like you, Mayor, to give some sort of commitment to come to the Family Justice Centre and get underneath the bonnet of that work to take forward your vision.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Thanks, Steve. Of course I happily accept your invitation and we will do that. I am pleased that we will be rolling out the programme of setting up more rape crisis centres around. I do think it is a mistake that we only have one in South London and we will be making sure that we have others in the areas that are currently deprived of that kind of service.
I think it is a good investment because if you stop domestic violence, you provide people with a haven and you give people that kind of relief then I believe you avert more serious criminality and you can provide a cost effective way of reducing crime.
Richard Barnbrook (AM): First off, Mayor Boris, I would like to thank you for taking the race out of Rise. However, I would have liked to have seen the £300,000 go to St George’s Day rather than to Rise, but that is neither here nor there.
Jennette Arnold (Chair): How is this related to illegal mini cabs?
Richard Barnbrook (AM): On to the question, thank you. It is my time, as the Chair has said. With regard to mini cab drivers I have two points. It is fascinating that 60% of illegal mini cab drivers are actually immigrants. I wonder what impact that has on other peoples’ comments.
I would like to put more emphasis upon the actual fact that black cab drivers, with the Knowledge taking several years it costs the local people in London a lot of money to get through that. It seems the last outgoing Mayor had an idea of passing off free training courses, free bikes, free this on the black cabs, so I would like to ask if you would be looking into that.
Also, the other aspect of the black cab drivers is the fuel prices. We understand that fuel is going up; peak oil this, everything else going haywire. Is there a possibility then to give back to the black cab drivers the extra payment for additional passengers? If not that, the possibility of returning the
20 surcharge per job to take the pressure off their working? A lot of black cab drivers doing it for three or four years find themselves pushed out by the illegal mini cabs.
Jennette Arnold (Chair): Mayor, the question in front of you is about illegal mini cabs. Mr Barnbrook has gone into the black cab debate. Can you answer the question about illegal mini cabs?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Rather than the question about black cabs?
Jennette Arnold (Chair): That is right. The question is do you think there are too many illegal mini cabs pushing out black cabs.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I understand. By the way, let me say there is some confusion about the Rise Festival. I am very determined that -
Jennette Arnold (Chair): Mr Mayor, the question in front of you is do you think that too many illegal mini cabs are pushing out black cabs? Yes or no?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): That is not the question in front of me; that is the question posed by Mr Barnbrook. I certainly do not think that there should be as many illegal mini cabs as there are and that is why we are doubling the size of the TOCU and we are going to make sure that we reduce the scourge of illegal mini cabs in London and, indeed, the threat they pose to women. I think we should all work together to reduce the number of illegal mini cabs to the benefit of black cab drivers and, indeed, of legal mini cab drivers.
Murad Qureshi (AM): Mr Mayor, can you update us on the registration of private hire vehicles from the Public Carriage Office? I know the previous Mayor had spent a lot of time and effort on that front. I know all the vehicles have been registered but we had not quite got to the registration of all the drivers. I do think this actually deals with the issue that is in front of us right now.
This is something the Public Carriage Office has been undertaking for some time. They have registered all the vehicles which are private hire vehicles. They should be at the point of registering all the drivers. I think that is the critical thing that needs to be dealt with in the public arena.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I will make sure that you receive a full briefing on what the Public Carriage Office (PCO) is doing to register all the drivers and will make sure you get that within a reasonable delay.
11143/2008 - Bus Services
Valerie Shawcross
How will London’s bus service change over the next four years?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think we have had a certain amount of discussion already about what we are proposing to do to the nature of the bus fleet and we are absolutely determined to go ahead with that. As you know, we have made considerable progress already on making buses safer or putting in place the means to make buses safer and make bus journeys more pleasant which I think will be something that Londoners will appreciate. I do not need perhaps to rehearse the answers I have already given about the doubling of the Safer Transport Teams and other measures.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): Can I ask you then just to focus in on this proposal you have for the creation of orbital bus service networks? 21
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): I understand that you think there is latent demand for these services but I am just concerned to discover how you intend to fund additional orbital bus service routes?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Val, if you remember what we want to do is we want to see whether the demand is there and we want, as cheaply as possible, to trial it. We are looking at one or possibly two routes where we might trial it but I do not want to throw a lot of money at something that is not actually going to be rewarded with real demand and an appreciable take up by passengers. We are looking at it but there is no plan to roll it out in a big way.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): OK. So that key manifesto commitment to create orbital bus routes -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): No, no, no.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): - you are going to pilot it, yes?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Which is what the manifesto said.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): Right. What would be a successful pilot then?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): If it proved that there was substantial take up and that people did like very much the opportunity to move across, particularly across South London, in a lateral way from transport hub to transport hub, then that is obviously something we should develop. I think a lot of us agree that it is pointless for everybody to be shunted into the middle of town through Oxford Street.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): So if you do feel that it is a success and you want to move forward with your network of orbital buses, how would you be funding it? I understand that the revenue settlement to London Transport buses is going to be increasing at Retail Price Index (RPI) there is obviously going to be no capacity there for additional services without either putting up fares or taking out existing bus routes. So what commitments can you give on existing bus routes and on bus fares?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Val, I am confident that we can trial this service without either putting up fares or taking out existing bus routes.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): And then what? The next stage? What would happen then?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Well, as I say, we have got to have a trial and the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): OK. So you are hoping the trial will fail. Is that what you are saying there?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): No. It might be, for instance, that there is a good business to be done running lateral bus routes across South London.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): The previous Mayor made a commitment that there would not be an increase in bus fares. Can you give a similar commitment?
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Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): It is certainly true that he did make such a commitment. In defiance or overruling or ignoring the agreement that he seemed to have entered into with his officials, if I remember correctly, the way it all panned out.
I have not had the discussion yet with TfL about fares but I imagine it will be forthcoming.
Valerie Shawcross (AM): OK. Watch this space. Thank you.
Roger Evans (AM): When there are changes made to the bus services obviously the TfL website is updated so people know about it but sometimes there seems to be a lag so the bus services change and the information on the website is still about the previous services. I have a constituent who knows all this off by heart and brings it to my attention and gets very irritated by it. But it is more of a problem for the people who do not know about it and are misled by the website. Now it seems to me to be quite a cost effective and fairly easy thing to change to actually improve service and save money. Is that something you can take away and discuss with Transport for London?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Certainly. So you would like to see more information on the web and better information on the web about bus services?
Roger Evans (AM): I would just like to see what is there reflecting what is actually happening.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): The other thing we should be doing is allowing people to know what is happening to their bus services in real time on their mobile phones. That is why I think we should be developing this iBus technology. You have seen what they are doing over in the Thames Gateway. I think that is a fantastic advance and I think Londoners would benefit from that.
Roger Evans (AM): Very good.
Richard Tracey (AM): Can I ask you to focus particularly on south London in answering this question because unquestionably in south London we are seriously short of underground services and so in many cases the buses have to fill the gaps although obviously sometimes it is the surface rail. Your manifesto commitment to introduce new orbital services was very much welcomed in south London as you will, no doubt, have discovered during your many visits. I think it is important that the pilots go ahead. I think it is important that it is seen by the public, and indeed by the councils, that the rather unreceptive attitude which has prevailed, I believe, in past years within TfL buses should go and, indeed, new ideas should be accepted and new ideas for routes, mainly orbital but also other new routes, in south London. Will you be looking at that within your pilots?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Of course. I do think that we should be thinking again about ways of getting people to move laterally, not just making use of the buses but there are important things we can do with the overland railway, to alleviate transport congestion in south London to get people moving laterally and not endlessly being shunted into the middle of town.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): Following on from the theme of my questions on Routemasters before, will all new buses, regardless of whether they are Routemasters or ordinary double deckers or whatever, be hybrid or cleaner from 2012, which I believe is the timetable that TfL was working to under the previous Mayor?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): It is certainly my intention, Darren, to make sure that the new generation bus is as clean and green as possible. You know we have already had a discussion about exactly what green technology we are going to be using. Should we go for hybrid? Hybrid technology offers great potential at the moment. I would not want to rule anything out in the course of the competition and the procurement process. It is my intention to make sure that we get a new
23 bus on the roads within four years, certainly by the end of 2011, and we will make sure that that is the rough timetable and everybody understands that.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): I thought that was just replacing the bendy buses. Is that going to replace all the buses then? So the traditional double deckers are going to be replaced as well. Is that what you are saying?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I see what you are saying. I am thrilled by the enthusiasm that we seem to be engendering for this new generation. Having been rather tepid in your support earlier on for the new generation, people just cannot wait for it to happen now and I am delighted by that. I think that genuinely reflects the sentiments of Londoners on this issue. Whether or not we can replace every single double decker in London with a new generation Routemaster by 2012 I have to say I somewhat doubt.
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): That was not my question. My question was are you going to continue with Transport for London’s current timetable that they were working to under the previous Mayor of ensuring that all new buses were hybrids or cleaner by 2012?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): All new buses coming on?
Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): Yes.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Sounds like a very good idea to me.
James Cleverly (AM): Mr Mayor, I think Ms Shawcross’ line of questioning again demonstrates the obsession that that side of the Chamber has with the micro management of every single issue of London life. Will you give me an undertaking that, in this issue as with other issues, you will take a sensible practicable pragmatic approach and if the orbital bus service is popular and if it does relieve or reduce demand for certain radial routes, that we will not be obsessed with maintaining things for the sake of their holy cow status and that we will actually allow transport experts to get on with the planning of routing and frequency of bus services rather than managed by dictat, the colour of tie clip and cap worn by the people staffing these vehicles?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes. I must say I am very moved and thrilled by the excitement that Joanne and others are evincing about the exact details of the competition and exactly what the functions of the conductors are going to be. I do think that it is a good thing that people are showing such interest but we should not be prejudging now the outcome of the competition or the detail of the new generation bus except we all know roughly what the outline of the project will be. Certainly I think it is time for fresh thinking on some of these bus routes. I think I am right in saying there has not been a change to the bus routes for is it 30 years?
Tony Arbour (AM): I can briefly help you with that last point, Mr Mayor. Close to me are bus stops where the stage coaches used to stop and so there has been no change as far as that is concerned over a couple of hundred years! I have to say that the speed of the buses has hardly improved since then.
However, very struck by the point that you made about real time information about buses; it would be extremely helpful, would it not, if your new wonder bus was able to give accurate information to the bus stops for the people who are waiting there. There is nothing worse than waiting at a bus stop where we see the signs saying, “Bus due” and you sit there and you wait and you wait and you wait. That is a real pain. That will be a real boom to Londoners if your new bus and your new bus stops could do that.
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Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Tony, we can do it. As I understand it we can do it already in that TfL already has the information about the whereabouts of the bus with the iBus route mapping network and we can actually send people, on their mobile phones, details of where their bus is so that they do not actually have to go out of their house and wait in the rain for 20 minutes in the hope that a bus will come, they can tell where it is and when it is going to be there.
Tony Arbour (AM): I would like it to be at the bus stops as well for those unfortunates who do not have the all singing and all dancing mobile phones that I have no doubt the new Londoners will receive.
On the general point about improving bus services, it does occasionally happen that bus routes are proposed which residents do not want. Indeed, I have recently submitted a petition to you on that particular matter. I wonder if, in the spirit of localism that the new congress is setting up, if a borough is opposed to the introduction of a new bus route, will you accept the view that the boroughs know best and if they decide not to implement a new bus route with all its new bus stops and things of that kind which urbanise suburban streets, will you accept that the borough’s view is even better than yours?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think I am not alone in detecting a trap in this question! Let me say, Tony, this is exactly the kind of issue for which our congress process is designed and it is the kind of thing that we can reach agreement upon through negotiation and discussion. Just as I do not want to discuss the exact future of Route 73 I do not want to prejudge any discussion we might have about a new bus route in your patch.
Jennette Arnold (Chair): OK. Thank you. The next question we will go on to is about the Kikz Programme, Mr Mayor, and it is from Steve O’Connell. He is asking you to join him in congratulation of the hard work of those involved in the Kikz Programme - which is brilliant because I have it in my borough - that has been successful in helping disaffected young people in his constituency take up sports and help find paths to employment and training.
1049/2008 - Kikz Programme
Steve O’Connell
Will the Mayor join with me in congratulating the hard work of those involved in the Kikz programme that has been successful in helping disaffected young people in my constituency take up sport and help find paths to employment and training?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I am. I think you have just given it, Jennette! I think you are dead right; it is brilliant and it has my full support. It is exactly the kind of thing that we should be promoting and supporting across London. I congratulate you, Steve, on your involvement with it and I want to help young people get the advantages of sport across London and it is going to be a huge part of what we do.
Steve O’Connell (AM): If I may, thank you very much for your answer, Mr Mayor. I think this is a great example of how we can engage young people in worthwhile activities and also break down the barriers often between young people and the police. The police are very involved in this piece of work, both financially and in time, in partnership with the football clubs in our different boroughs; Crystal Palace - I declare an interest as a lifelong supporter - in Croydon and Sutton.
What are also important are the statistics. At the time when these activities are going on there is a downturn in anti social behaviour and reported crime in those targeted areas and that is very important. 25
So, Mr Mayor, the challenge with this product - and it is such a good product - is around funding, as ever. I would like to invite particularly you and Ray Lewis to come and look at this piece of work in Croydon. I would like you to join me in lobbying the football community - which is awash with money - to continue their support and lobby them not, as I believe they do at the moment, to limit their funding to two years and then ask for match funding. I would ask you in your and Ray Lewis’ review into funding for the voluntary sector to look at this project and to join me in growing the project throughout London. It is in all of our boroughs and it is a great piece of work. So, Mr Mayor, I would like you to come down and I would like you to bring Ray down with you and I would like you to consider weaving into Ray’s vision for our young people the Kikz project as a very important building block.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Look, Steve, I think that is an excellent suggestion and we certainly will look at that. Part of what we are proposing to do with the LDA of course is to ring fence LDA spending on sport and it is part of Kate Hoey’s mission across London to make sure that we have enough sporting facilities.
John Biggs and I had a discussion during the last Mayor’s Question Time about whether my enthusiasm for sport was maybe a little bit wearing for people who were not keen on sport. That was the gist of what I think you were saying last time. I passionately believe - useless though I was at sport myself, particularly football - in its amazing power to give people self confidence, emotional maturity and all the rest of it. Not just that but if you use sporting opportunities like Kikz you can also of course excite people about academic education as well and that is going to be a big part of what we do.
Richard Tracey (AM): Mr Mayor, when you have discussions with the Secretary of State in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and indeed discussions with the Sports Minister, would you and Kate Hoey stress the importance of Sport England money going into this kind of project which I absolutely agree with my colleague, Steve O’Connell, is an excellent use of money to bring young people into sport? It really is very important that Sport England do, if I may use the expression, keep their eye on the ball in this way rather than perhaps ploughing too much money in other directions.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, Dick, I absolutely agree with you on that. Of course we are very lucky in having you as another former Minister for Sport with us today. We have two ex- Ministers for Sport as our strength; Dick Tracey and Kate Hoey.
Richard Tracey (AM): Thank you.
Jennette Arnold (Chair): Let us move on to the question about the London Living Wage from Joanne McCartney, “Do you support the campaign that all workers in London should receive the Living Wage?”
1147/2008 - London Living Wage
Joanne McCartney
Do you support the campaign that all workers in London should receive the London Living Wage? Are you committed to ensuring that all employees within the GLA family receive the London Living Wage? Will you continue the campaign to persuade all employers to pay the London Living Wage?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, I do. I have long supported the idea that Londoners should be helped to cope with the very severe and rising costs of living.
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Jennette Arnold (Chair): This is a three parter. The other part was, “Are you committed to ensuring all employees within the GLA family receive the London Living Wage” -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes.
Jennette Arnold (Chair): And “will you continue the campaign to persuade all employers to pay the London Living Wage?”
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, certainly.
Joanne McCartney (AM): An annual report was done on the London Living Wage and whether it needed to be raised at all and that report was due to be published during the election but obviously could not be. Will you undertake to actually release this report now and that if that report recommends raising the London Living Wage that that will take place with immediate effect?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, it is my understanding that the London Living Wage is calculated by GLA economics.
Joanne McCartney (AM): I understand a report is there waiting to be released.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I will make sure, just as you say, that we do release it so that we can see what they are saying.
Joanne McCartney (AM): And that all GLA employees will be paid that raised amount?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): If that is the procedure then certainly that is the outcome that I will support. For the benefit of people who may say that my support of the minimum wage or living wage is of recent standing, let me point out that the poverty gap in this city and in this country has grown very considerably since 1997 when we first started having arguments about a minimum wage.
Joanne McCartney (AM): The GLA has a procurement policy and part of that procurement policy is that contractors should abide by paying their workers a London Living Wage. Will you make sure that in all your dealings in all the contracts that come out of this building that that is set in those contracts also?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I will certainly make sure that we are able to disseminate the benefits of the London Living Wage as widely as possible, particularly through our procurement policies.
Joanne McCartney (AM): And will you be encouraging in your congress of London leaders that all London boroughs should take the same stance as well?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): That sounds like a very good idea.
Joanne McCartney (AM): I think it would be.
One of the things that obviously goes to making up the London Living Wage is the cost of childcare which is more expensive in London than elsewhere. I notice you put out a press release a short while ago praising the work that the Childcare Affordability Programme had done in London. Are you going to commit yourself and the LDA to funding that programme again?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I certainly think that the cost of childcare is a huge issue obviously particularly for working women and there is a strong case for supporting it, yes.
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Joanne McCartney (AM): So you will support the Childcare Affordability Programme because I believe its funding runs out in this financial year?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I will have to look at the details when they are brought before me but, as I say, in principle, I do think it is a very, very worthwhile objective for society and it is something that really repays dividends for the economy, if you can get it right.
James Cleverly (AM): Would you agree with me that, whilst the London Living Wage is important because obviously London is an expensive city to live in, there will also be a huge advantage to Londoners as a whole and to low paid Londoners in particular if more of London’s wealth was kept within London and that would give us an opportunity to target more directly Londoners on the lower wage? Would you also agree that, in your position as Mayor, you need to highlight the unfair distribution of London’s money to Labour heartland areas around the rest of the country?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): We have got a huge issue in this city of poverty and underachievement. We have got four of the eight poorest boroughs in the UK. We have, in my view, severe problems of child poverty in particular. We do need to make the case to the Government that this city needs to be properly funded and that London’s contribution to the rest of the economy- which you rightly highlight - should be properly reflected in the grant that we get. It is simply not good enough that London councils are expected to cope with quite so many demands with inadequate support from central government. I have to say we have been pretty generous towards the previous regime on the whole in these discussions, do you not? I do not think we heard enough in the last eight years about the need for central government to fund London properly.
Murad Qureshi (AM): Mr Mayor, whilst we are talking about Londoners on low incomes what do you make of the disparaging comments made about the poor of London by Richard Barnes?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Murad, I am aware of the remark and I think all of us can sometimes kick off a speech with a sally or a gag - however you want to put it - that goes a bit wrong and falls a bit flat. I do not think Richard in any way intended to cast aspersions on any sector of society and certainly not the poorest and neediest in London, for whom he has done a lot of work and will continue to do a lot of work.
Murad Qureshi (AM): It probably explains why he is not here but does he make a worthy Deputy Mayor to represent all Londoners, rich and poor?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think he makes an excellent Deputy Mayor and anybody who has worked with him will know his commitment not just to working for the poor but for delivering tax payer value which is of such importance, particularly to the poorest and neediest in our society.
1062/2008 - Small Businesses
Tony Arbour
What is the Mayor doing to help small businesses in London?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Tony, as you know, there are several planks to what we want to do. We want to make sure that, by amending the London Plan, Section 106 agreements can be used to give affordable rents to small businesses; we are making a priority of targeting crime which disproportionately affects small businesses; we are scrapping the proposed £25 Congestion Charge, about which we had such a lively debate last month, because I do believe it would have been pernicious for small businesses. As you know, we have made an undertaking to have regular meetings, bi-annual meetings, between me and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and I think it 28 is very, very important that the point of view of small businesses is heard loud and clear in this building because they are the backbone of the London economy.
Tony Arbour (AM): Thank you for all of that and I know you will deliver on all of those promises.
Are you aware that one of the principal threats to small retail businesses in London is in fact Transport for London with its pernicious habit of putting in bus lanes and red routes along parades of retail shops? This is having the most deleterious effect on them and they are being closed very rapidly indeed. In the light of this terrible effect that TfL has I was sorry to hear that you thought that there should be a uniform time for the operation of bus lanes. Patently there are some areas where bus lanes ought to operate only in rush hours but, outside the rush hours, if the bus lane is imposed it means that nobody is going to have access to the nearby shops. I wonder if you would urgently reconsider the point that you made about uniformity on this and, secondly, do something about the insatiable desire of TfL to put in bus lanes to the detriment of local areas?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Tony, I hear your point loud and clear. In meditating on the benefits of uniformity in bus lanes I think I am merely reflecting the desire of many people in London who feel that they are unfairly caught out by changes as they move from area to area that they were not expecting. I think our job is to make life easy for the commuter in London and that is what I hope to do.
On your point about bus lanes and the damaging effect they have on shops, I think we need to look at the specifics and I will certainly take it up. If you have a specific or several specific examples of areas or commercial operations that have been blighted by bus lanes then I think that is a very interesting discussion that I would encourage us all to have with TfL and, if you have the details, I would be very happy to arrange a discussion between you and my officials.
Tony Arbour (AM): I have before me complaints from shopkeepers of the Kew Road between Richmond and Kew and I can tell you that we were able to put pressure on TfL - a very unusual thing that we were able to do - to stop them having a 12 hour bus lane in the Ewell Road in Surbiton, a place which is patently only crowded in rush hour.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Can I make a point; I think I am right in saying the vast majority of bus lanes are controlled by the boroughs?
Tony Arbour (AM): Many of them are controlled by the boroughs. I am extremely glad that you have raised that because it gives me the opportunity to repeat what I said in the earlier question that if a borough objects to something which TfL wants to do I very much hope that you will listen to the borough.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Maybe I am misunderstanding exactly what takes place in these transactions but my impression is that what happens is that TfL offers a very considerable financial inducement to the borough to take the bus lane and then it is up to the borough either to take the cash and introduce the bus lane, or not. Am I not right in this? That seems to me to be the right way to do it.
Tony Arbour (AM): There may be something in that but you will know that Conservative boroughs very often think that TfL money is tainted! I have no doubt of course that the money that you will be offering will be pure and virginal.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Of course. And it will be properly invigilated very, very cheaply by the systems we are setting in place.
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Tony Arbour (AM): I wonder if I can make another suggestion to you about how you can help small retail businesses. As every single constituency Member here knows, the principal anchor of small shopping parades is likely to be the sub post office. There is a question later on this agenda about the future of post offices. Would it not be helpful if you were able to ensure the survival of these small sub post offices by offering to deliver through the medium of the post office services which otherwise are tapped by people coming to City Hall but, more significantly, offering some kind of discount on the precept to businesses which you want to encourage? I would suggest that foremost amongst those are sub post offices. I wonder if you would put your excellent team of very experienced advisers whom we have been discussing earlier today on to that one.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Extremely interesting idea, Tony. Both ideas are interesting. I think particularly the idea of giving to post offices or sub post offices the opportunity to provide services of one kind or another which I think this Labour Government could have exploited far, far more effectively over the last few years. There are lots and lots of things that could have been given to the post offices to do that have been taken away from them for no reason at all. I think it is a great shame that they have not been properly supported, and intelligently supported, not just for the benefit of the post offices but for the benefit of people who use them for exactly the reason you describe; it keeps the heart of a village high street, in London or anywhere else, going.
Tony Arbour (AM): Thank you.
Kit Malthouse (AM): I wanted to reinforce Tony Arbour’s point but also ask you to consider the plight of those small businesses in London who do not operate necessarily from premises but who need to move around the capital to perform their duty. I have become not the target but the recipient of a campaign from the window cleaners of London, many of whom are being caught in a pincer manoeuvre between the European Union and Transport for London in that new ladder health and safety directives coming in from Europe mean that they are having to carry and use much more equipment than they did in the past. They have to use vehicles to get around London and of course TfL continues to persecute them, particularly on red routes, as do boroughs with parking tickets. Of course this is close to our hearts in one of the grimiest buildings in London, the windows of which are unable to be cleaned for technical reasons I gather, internally.
I just wanted to hope that you will focus not only on some of the effects on static businesses but also on those that have to move around the capital as well. Residents I think would welcome some flexibility in the parking and traffic arrangements around some of those businesses that service them domestically as well as their local retail parades.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, Kit. I am very open to your suggestions on this. As far as I can remember it is the working at height directive that gets the window cleaner because I think it requires that the ladder be fixed on the floor before you can ascend it. I think that is one of the difficulties they face. That obviously is not within our powers to change but any proposals you have to make life easier for itinerant businesses in the way you describe would be extremely welcome.
James Cleverly (AM): Mr Mayor, will you also join me in celebrating not just the economic benefit that small businesses have but the social and environmental benefits? Small businesses employ the vast bulk of all people in employment and, more importantly, they often employ people much closer to their home. If we were able in some way to help expand the number and size of small businesses within the capital we may well find that fewer people are forced on a twice daily basis to either use private or public transport into the centre of London.
With that in mind will you pay particular notice to new residential developments to ensure that they do not become employment free ghettos of the future and to ensure that residential developments not only have social housing elements, which has been discussed at length, but also employment opportunities to keep more of those people employed closer to their point of residence? 30
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Very, very interesting fundamental question, particularly as we think about how we are going to develop new housing in the Thames Gateway, the Olympic site or anywhere else. These are big issues. Do we want to build housing that is serviced by supermarkets or do we want to make sure that there are going to be sufficient small businesses of the kind, as you rightly say, that play such an important part in the economy and add so much to the life of the community? I do think it is important, as we think about the future and the communities that we are going to be creating, that we make sure we do have room for small businesses. That is why what we are doing with the London Plan and the Section 106s will be, I think, very important and very beneficial. Much as we love the supermarkets, we do not want to ‘Tesco-fy’ the entire city.
Andrew Boff (AM): Following on from that, Mr Mayor, could you turn your attention towards the attitude of some boroughs, based on the requirements of the London Plan I believe, which has turned into open hostility towards live work units? Live/work units are an important contribution to encouraging enterprise, following on from what James Cleverly has said, but in some boroughs there seems to be the belief that live work units are the invention of the devil and they will turn them down at every opportunity. If we are to be able to localise employment to reduce the need to travel and to provide active viable communities with a strong local economic base then live work units have got to be part of that solution.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I completely agree, Andrew, and let us have more conversations about live/work units.
1175/2008 - North Harrow Station Ticket Office
Navin Shah
Should the users of North Harrow station consider your ‘postponement’ of the ticket offer closure programme another broken manifesto promise, as your transport manifesto ‘Getting Londoners Moving’ promises, in bold, to “stop the planned ticket office closures”. When has the decision been postponed until?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, or rather, no, Navin. I am determined to keep the ticket offices open and you will possibly remember that that was one of the things that we campaigned on in the election.
Navin Shah (AM): Can I have a clear commitment because the written response I got on the question mentioned postponement. You have not answered my question as yet today. When you say postponement, how long are you postponing this until? What does postponement mean?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Sine die.3 Until the cows come home.
Navin Shah (AM): We want a definitive answer because there is a lot of anxiety.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I understand.
Navin Shah (AM): The petition that you signed in April very clearly supports the kind of ethos that you were talking about and, frankly, the residents, not only in Harrow but those of at least 40 ticket offices which are threatened with closures, they want a clear, definitive answer.
3 In modern legal context this means there is nothing left for the court to do, so no date for further proceedings is set.
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Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): No. I will not close the North Harrow ticket office.
Navin Shah (AM): Why do you not lift the postponement straight away and say that this is not going to happen full stop?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): That is exactly what I have just said. We will not close the North Harrow ticket office.
Navin Shah (AM): And the 40 other ticket offices as well? Because you did clearly say in your manifesto, and I can quote you if you like, that you are opposed to the closure of all ticket offices.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I am. I am opposed to the closure of the ticket offices because I think what Londoners want is they want to feel safe on public transport -
Navin Shah (AM): Absolutely.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): - on the Tubes and they want to feel that even if they are not using a ticket they bought on the day, that there is going to be someone there if something scary happens on the Tube on the way home and that they are not going to have to fend for themselves. That is why it is very important that we do this and I am absolutely committed to making sure that happens.
Navin Shah (AM): In that case, do I take it that it is not postponement any more; you are giving a clear commitment? Can I have an indication of time when not only the threat to the North Harrow ticket office but to the other 40 odd as well is being lifted and you will be announcing very clearly the date the threat is actually taken away?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): You can consider that the threat has been lifted, annihilated, vaporised, liquidated, exterminated, removed, obliterated.
Navin Shah (AM): As of now?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): As of now.
Navin Shah (AM): I am pleased for the service users and the residents who have campaigned very hard. Thank you.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Thank you for joining us in the campaign and for representing your guys so well.
Roger Evans (AM): Mr Mayor, it seems so long ago but can you just remind us what your predecessor’s policy was on the North Harrow ticket office closure?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Do you know this is political amnesia; I cannot remember what his policy was. I expect he wanted to close it, did he?
Roger Evans (AM): You appear to be not the only other person here who cannot remember what his policy was because Mr Shah of course campaigned for him during the election and it was under his leadership that the threat to North Harrow ticket office and the other ticket offices came to pass. I think you have been very generous with a colleague.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I think generosity pays off! That’s my general view of life.
Roger Evans (AM): That is because you have been here for six weeks! 32
Joanne McCartney (AM): I think you have said that the 40 that were in the list, including my own in Seven Sisters, are now saved so I am grateful for that. I do not want to say anything further.
John Biggs (AM): My local ticket office, the one about 200 yards from my front door, is Stepney Green and the ticket office there shuts at about 8pm on week days. Now, it is one thing to keep open ones which were threatened with closure. Are you going to extend until midnight the -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Piling it on a bit here, John.
John Biggs (AM): You see the underlying question is that reprieving the ones which face closure is one thing -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I understand.
John Biggs (AM): Providing operating conditions during, particularly, those late evening hours when people might feel insecure, is another and actually working out whether having people behind a plate glass window in a ticket office is the best way of providing that safety for people is another question.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): That is right. I wonder why you did not show more support during the election campaign for our proposals to reallocate some of TfL’s publicity budget to having more transport police on some of the railway stations, particularly to give people the very reassurance that you seek late at night. I take your point about not confining people behind plate glass but actually allowing them to roam the station and to be there visibly if people are apprehensive about whatever may be going down on the station.
I am not now, John, nor would you expect me to, make any particular pledge about the extension of hours of your ticket office in Stepney Green, but of course you are fully entitled to make representations.
John Biggs (AM): For the record, I have not been inundated with petitions. I am aware that some of the greatest likely victims of crime are ticket office staff themselves.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Correct.
John Biggs (AM): Let us rest it at that.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Correct.
1063/2008 - Healthcare for London
James Cleverly
How is the Mayor planning to respond to NHS London’s finalised proposals for changing healthcare in London?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): James, you will remember that during the campaign we entered our submissions in response to the Darzi proposals4 and of course, like many people in London, I share the anxiety about coercing people into polyclinics when the foundation of the British healthcare system, the primary healthcare system, has been the relationship between us and our general practitioners (GPs). I think there is legitimate anxiety about that.
4 Lord Ara Darzi’s report “A framework for action”, published July 2007 33
I have to say, in talking to people around London and listening to people in various boroughs about the issue, it seems to me that there is a great division about this. There are some people who think that polyclinics really would be quite sensible in their areas and I am inclined not to be doctrinaire about it.
What I will say about your area, James, is of course that you will remember we came several times to campaign against the closure of the Accident and Emergency (A&E) and the maternity wards in Queen Mary’s. I think it is vital that we keep up the fight there. One of the jobs of the Mayor is to make sure that we do not have health inequalities in London and if Bexley lost a vital A&E and maternity service on which local residents have come to depend, which they rely on and which is an important part of their sense of security then that would, of course, mean a commensurate increase, in my view, in a health inequality and therefore it is my duty to campaign against it and it will be my duty as your Mayor to do so.
James Cleverly (AM): Thank you, Mr Mayor. You have already gone some way to answering the point I was hoping to raise in my supplementary but I will raise it nonetheless. Obviously as a party and you throughout your campaign have championed localism and local autonomy and have opposed the one size fits all edict from above. I think the changes put forward by Darzi are another classic example of a single solution trying to be shoehorned into a range of circumstances and, as you say, there may well be examples where polyclinics and the coming together of GPs is entirely appropriate. However there are many parts of London where the geographical nature and the physical distances between communities would make that kind of clustering and centralisation entirely inappropriate and, rather than increasing the range of services to people, they will in fact simply move services further away from the necessary point of delivery. Will you add your voice to the campaigns of people who in their specific environs do not wish polyclinics forced upon them?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, absolutely, James. Insofar as I think that the initiative is likely to lead to health inequalities and to remove a benefit and a service on which local people have relied, then, yes, I do think it will be my duty as Mayor to campaign against them.
James Cleverly (AM): Thank you. You mentioned the situation at Queen Mary’s Hospital which is a high profile local example but obviously the impact of service closures in places like Queen Mary’s also have a knock on effect to hospitals in the nearby areas that may themselves not be under the threat of service reductions. I think particularly of the situation between Queen Mary’s Hospital and the Pru in Farnborough where the services being displaced from Queen Mary’s are almost certainly going to cause an increase in demand on the services in a neighbouring borough and an increase in demand in comparison to no increase in capacity is to all intents and purposes the same as a cut.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): A cut, yes. I absolutely agree with that argument. All I would say is I think we have all got a duty to evaluate the real impact of these proposals and whether they are materially going to disadvantage people in our areas or not. Obviously there are cuts that are threatened and cuts we should fight but, as I have discovered in the course of my conversations about this, not every polyclinic is necessarily going to be a bad idea and we should just be aware of that subtlety in the argument.
James Cleverly (AM): Thank you.
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1240/2008 - Gun and Knife Crime
Richard Barnbrook
Can the Mayor explain what measures he and the Metropolitan Police will utilise to identify and target those individuals, gangs and groups within London communities mainly responsible for, and primarily the victims of, the epidemic level of gun and knife crime in London? With respect to gun and knife crime does the Mayor understand that there are two phenomena related to the issue? The first involves drug related violence and homicide relating to territorial disputes between gangs, the second being the slaying of innocent people when these gangs move into relatively stable and peaceful areas.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes. I of course want to repeat what we have said so many times during the campaign and indeed since, that tackling gun and knife crime is a huge part of what we all want to do. I do pay tribute to the work of the Metropolitan Police Service both now and in the past on this issue. I want to make sure not just that we have the policing solutions in place; the means to detect the guns and the knives, the scanners and the knife arches. You will have seen what has happened in the last couple of weeks with Operation Blunt 2, which has been very successful in lifting a lot of knives off the streets and there have been a substantial number of arrests.
I am also pleased that sensitively done stop and search is being carried out with the consent, and indeed the approval, of local communities. Where we can do that with local consent and approval I do think we should do it.
Of course you will know that, in addition to all this - and we have been discussing this a lot today and previously - we want to go forward with the agenda of using things like Kikz and whatever it happens to be to transform the lives and aspirations of kids who might otherwise be dragged into gun and knife crime.
Richard Barnbrook (AM): Thank you very much, Mayor Boris. We have had the starter question so let us go on to the main course and meat and three veg as I think it affects the whole lives of London.
I would like to ask the Assembly to make a heartfelt condolence towards Robert Knox’s family for the gruesome murder of himself and five of his mates from an outsider from the community who walked in there with intent to create harm.
I have here in front of me the Metropolitan Police Service’s latest figures of persons accused of possessing offensive weapons April/May 2007/08. 42% of violence against persons by use of offensive weapons is done by the Afro-caribbean community of London which makes up only 9% of this capital city. This is a massive disproportionate figure that means that a small part of the community is five times more likely to commit violent crime. With the situation of one particular type of official terminology Operation Trident - black on black crime - this leaves the black community more vulnerable than most parts of our community of London.
So while I appreciate you have answered the question, Mr Mayor, the question is, what are you going to do to rectify these disproportional figures of one part of the community creating a major part of the crime?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I really think that many Londoners listening to this question will be deeply dismayed by any kind of racial breakdown or racist analysis that you -
Richard Barnbrook (AM): Not racist; racial. Not racist; racial.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): - racial breakdown that you hope to bring to the subject. Let me tell you it is my view that the knife is completely colour blind, people from all communities are 35 dying as a result of these crimes and we have a duty to sort this out for everybody in London. I will not rest, and I do not think anybody in this room is going to rest, until we have made a difference to this problem for the sake of everybody; black, white or whatever.
Richard Barnbrook (AM): I appreciate this but the question is it does not give the figure over, Mayor. Also I get complaints from my own constituents in Barking and Dagenham, from black communities that voted for me and put me in there, to simply say, “This is not acceptable. This small majority ...” .
Jennette Arnold (Chair): Let us go on to the next question.
1099 / 2008 - Metropolitan Police overt surveillance techniques
Dee Doocey
Do you think that the Metropolitan Police should be allowed to film young people who have committed no crime just in case a crime is later committed? If so, under what circumstances?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Dee, I have to say that I have been only lately made aware of this being done by the Metropolitan Police Service. I want you to know that I have myself very serious instinctive reservations to this practice. It sounds potentially oppressive. It is capable of abuse it seems to me. It is not the kind of thing that I want to see happen systematically in our city. I do not think it is the kind of thing that any of us want to see. Since I have only just been made aware that the Metropolitan Police Service is in fact doing this I hope you will allow me to make further enquiries and get back to you with a detailed account of what they are in fact doing and the extent to which I think it is tolerable.
Dee Doocey (AM): Thank you very much. That is very helpful. If I could just give you a tiny bit of background, the case that was drawn to my attention by a mother is three secondary school girls who were at a bus stop having just had a meal at 9 pm, waiting to go home when they were filmed by the police. There were all sorts of difficulties getting the information from the police. I have since had some information from the Metropolitan Police Service saying that it is perfectly legal for them to do this and that there is a process that they can destroy the tapes and they have got to be destroyed. I am not happy at all with that and I would very, very much welcome a thorough enquiry and if you could keep me in the loop that would be very, very much appreciated.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Absolutely. I think my concerns will be very widely shared by Londoners.
Dee Doocey (AM): Thank you.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): We do want to give the police the tools and the powers to protect us and to make sure that crime is not committed. What we do not want to have is an oppressive society in which we can be filmed at any moment going about our lawful business and then that such film could be abused by the authorities.
Dee Doocey (AM): Yes, very much so. Everybody is in favour of this but it must not be guilty until proven innocent; it must be the other way round.
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1142/2008 - Post Office Closures
John Biggs
Given that the closure dates for some of London’s post offices are before the end of this month, what are you doing to pursue any legal challenge before it is too late to save the branches?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): As you will be aware, John, there is an ongoing legal challenge which we inherited from the previous regime and which we completely support. We are waiting for the High Court to pronounce on this. Let me say to the Labour Member that what we should be doing is lobbying the Government, who after all is responsible for this problem. Every single post office that is being closed is at the behest of the Labour Government. I do think we should be united in protest at the Government that you nominally support and get them to lay off London post offices. For the reasons that we have been discussing earlier on they are vital to our communities, they do provide a heart to the high street and they provide valuable services for local people, particularly elderly people who have come to depend on them. I love Tony Arbour’s idea of getting them to provide more services from us.
John Biggs (AM): I agree with most of what you said. You can guess which bit maybe I do not totally support because that is easy name calling, but we are delighted that you have taken on Ken’s [Livingstone] initiative in this area. The problem we have is that this week some of the post offices are closing - certainly one in Poplar in my patch is shutting this week - and we may be waiting until the end of time for the court to come back, meanwhile the post offices will be closing and people will be losing their services. So two strands; what are you doing to expedite that and are you working with councils and other bodies to find alternative funding packages, which I think is something that is being pursued by the excellent Conservative Council in Essex of course?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I am sure the Conservative Council in Essex will be absolutely in raptures to hear your tribute, John!
John Biggs (AM): I was deploying a similar tool to you!
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I have been looking at these options and Ian Clement, the Deputy Mayor, is actively seeking the widest possible range of solutions. I have to say that it is difficult for us now to promise to take on open ended commitments to funding and financing post offices. You have got to understand, and I think Londoners will understand, that it is difficult to make such a commitment in view of the need we have to keep costs -- we have been talking earlier on about the need to protect Londoners from increases in the precept. There are real difficulties we face in mounting a wholesale rescue operation with GLA money. Rest assured that we are looking at every conceivable option to make sure that these post offices which are so important, where they can be protected, are protected.
John Biggs (AM): Thank you.
1076/2008 - Gants Hill Pavement Works
Roger Evans
The Gants Hill Business Partnership is worried about the ongoing and overrunning works to the pavements outside their premises. Will the Mayor ensure that his predecessor’s failure to introduce penalties for contractors who overrun is not repeated in future projects? Will the Mayor also investigate why this contract prevents work from starting before 9.30 am when it is imperative that this job is done as swiftly as possible? 37
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, Roger. My understanding from this is that considerable progress has been made on this and - you will correct me if I am wrong - but that from 14 May the contractors got going at the crack of dawn, 7.30am, to get these works going. They are now working on Saturdays as well and the scheme is scheduled to be completed, as far as I understand it, by 18 July. So they are getting a move on, at least so I am told.
Roger Evans (AM): First of all, thank you for your intervention and can you please thank Kulveer Ranger, your Director of Transport, who took this up and got an extremely detailed and very positive response from Transport for London Streets. Since then I have to say there has been a meeting of the local business partnership on 13 June. Their minutes state that the members of the partnership were most complimentary about the pace of work, the quality of the crew, the revised working schedules and the overall appearance and control of the site, which they certainly were not before you intervened. So well done.
One of the things they are not complimentary about is the length of time it takes EDF to plug in the new lamp posts which is quite extraordinary. Could you perhaps get your office to issue a prodding to our electricity suppliers so they will sort themselves out?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes. Why does it take EDF to plug in the new lamp posts? Do we know why?
Roger Evans (AM): We do not know why, no.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I met the head of EDF the other day. I will ask him.
Roger Evans (AM): Excellent. Good. It sounds like it was a fortuitous question.
Can I prevail on you as well about Gants Hill Station? Obviously since the Metronet collapse a lot of the station refurbishments got put back and we are concerned about the Gants Hill Station refurbishment being put back. You visited there during the campaign and you saw the condition of the area and the efforts the council and local traders are making to really make it a good place to live and work. We do not want to be held up because the station has been delayed. So can you promise us you will do all in your power to make sure that we get the refurb and the security improvements that we want there?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes, absolutely. Just to go back to points that were being made earlier on by Tony and others, I do think it important that the outer boroughs generally get the upgrades and the transport improvements that have sometimes been deprived in the last few years.
Roger Evans (AM): Thank you, Mr Mayor.
1037/2008 - Designing Out Crime
Steve O’Connell
Does the Mayor believe that more can be done to build “Designing Out Crime” principles into new and existing developments in London?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I do believe that you can achieve a lot through designing out crime and it is something that we want to pursue and, when we think about the community we want to build, it is important that we do.
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Obviously some of the estates that we built in the 1950s and 1960s were very poorly designed; the high gangways and all the rest of it were not well thought through and they did encourage crime; the stairwells and so on and so forth.
Some of the solutions in designing out crime, in my view, do lead to problems, aesthetic problems; If you insist that cars must always be visible, for instance, it is not always 100% coherent with your aesthetic priorities. So I am very much in favour of designing out crime but I do think we should also have an emphasis on quality and on beauty and on structures that last and will be loved.
Steve O’Connell (AM): Thank you, Mayor. I will turn very quickly to overground stations designing out crime around the British Rail stations under your remit. I think it is very important to flag up that when we are looking at new stations and work around new stations, particularly for example East Croydon Station, we need to look at designing out crime around the overground network, Mayor. Do you wish to very quickly comment upon that?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Since I have had the pleasure of meeting you many times at East Croydon Station and I did not notice any particular criminal activity going on there - at least certainly not between you and me. But I will make sure that we deal with the issue you have raised and please make sure that you bring it up with Kulveer [Ranger].
986/2008 - Motorbikes in Bus Lanes
Jenny Jones
What evidence do you have to support your policy of allowing motorcycles to use bus lanes?
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Well I cannot find my bit of paper but I know it anyway which is that there was of course a famous but suppressed TfL study which basically found that it was neutral for vulnerable road users (VRUs), the introduction of motorbikes in bus lanes did not have an impact either way on safety. By some analysis it actually made it safer for vulnerable road users, pedestrians and cyclists, to allow motorbikes in bus lanes. There are plenty of places which have tried it; Bristol does it and the city of Westminster introduced the measure along ten bus lanes in September 2005 leading to a 24% reduction in pedestrian casualties. I am determined to go ahead with what I think will be a popular and a safe policy.
Jenny Jones (AM): We all know here that you are a person of extreme common sense and hugely good judgement -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): You are not ironising here are you, Jenny?
Jenny Jones (AM): No, not at all. I would just like to say could you please not take a snap decision on this; could you please do a bit more research? The senior person at TfL did actually say that the report was not sufficiently reliable to inform a decision on such an important issue so could I ask you please to do a bit more research on this?
Secondly, if you are determined to go ahead could you please consult as widely as possible? I think the depth of emotion about this is -
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Yes. I cycled in this morning you will be pleased to know. On my way here today somebody overtook me - everybody overtook me - but a girl on a bike overtook me and she said, “Please, please, please do not introduce lorries into bus lanes”. I said, “No, it is not lorries, it is motorcycles”. She said, “Oh yes, please, please, please do not introduce motorcycles into
39 bus lanes” because she had seen the correspondence that was going around. I do want my fellow cyclists to feel completely safe and we will make sure that we consult.
I will point out to you that two schemes in Richmond have seen a 33% reduction in pedestrian casualties and a 67% reduction in motorbike -
Jenny Jones (AM): But it is not only about casualties because if you drive all the cyclists off the road of course there are no more casualties; there are no more cyclists to run over! So the issue is about –road danger.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Do you cycle?
Jenny Jones (AM): Yes and motorbikes scare me. The issue is about road danger; whether or not you actually prevent people cycling. Please do some more research.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): I understand. I really, really do not think there is any increased risk to cyclists as a result of this.
Jenny Jones (AM): Perception.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Far from it. In fact what I think it will do is allow the traffic to flow more smoothly and will lead greatly to the benefit of all road users.
Jennette Arnold (Chair): Mr Mayor, all the Groups have used up their allocated time. Thank you very much.
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London): Thank you very much.
Jennette Arnold (Chair): Thank you. Members will have all questions unanswered in written form.
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