Greater London Authority Bill

My Lords, all those skyscrapers mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, must confirm the forecast of extra transport demand mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine. They also confirm her view, which I share, that Transport for London, with the mayor as a kind of democratically accountable chief executive, is one of the real successes of the past few years. It is internationally recognised as such, particularly for the congestion charge, which I think should be made much wider—within the M25 would be really great. I do not think that the Government in Westminster are going to go for that in a hurry, but it would have a massive beneficial effect on people’s quality of life, provided that good public transport was available. The leadership that the mayor has shown is commendable. I shall briefly mention two issues. The first is waste. I have spent a lot of time in the past few months visiting waste disposal places: one in Wandsworth and one in Oxford. I was struck by the differences between them. When you go in to the one in Wandsworth, which my noble friend Lord Dubs will know well from his time as a Member of Parliament there, you go in with a load of stuff you want to get rid of and there are six people with yellow jackets standing in a huddle, talking to each other and smoking. If it is raining, they are in the hut, and if it is not raining, they are out in the open. It is very nice for them. Everybody just dumps everything in the thing marked landfill. Well, it is not marked landfill, it is just where you go. You back up, and you tip all kinds of things there. You can see metal, televisions, printers, even quite nice furniture put in there.