• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 11 September 2013

Tony Arbour (AM): Mr Mayor, are you aware that rather than seeking alternative proposals to the fire budget, the Labour Group have spent a considerable amount of time and a considerable amount of public money on challenging a counsel's opinion which justified and said that your direction was completely legal? They were unwilling to accept that. They insisted that the Fire Authority appoint a Queen's Council (QC) named by them to give an opinion. Are you further aware that the opinion which was given by that second QC not only confirmed the first opinion that what you were doing was...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 11 September 2013

John Biggs (AM): Very briefly, Chair. East London is seeing the largest population growth of any part of our city and yet you are shutting three stations within walking distance of my home. I know we have been through a long consultation on this, but you have not quite said it yet, can you tell us that you think London has too many fire engines at present to manage?

• Question by: Gareth Bacon MP
• Meeting date: 11 September 2013

Gareth Bacon (AM): Mr Mayor, Mr Knight just said that this very week the Commissioner is working on alternatives to the Fifth London Safety Plan (LSP5). The Commissioner himself has been very clear that that is not what he is doing. He has been very clear that LSP5 represents his best judgement as to what is needed within the budget that he has. Are you further aware, Mr Mayor, that the Commissioner and the Finance Director this week presented not a list of alternative cuts but a breakdown of departments and their associated costs within the Fire Brigade? It is...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 11 September 2013

Jenny Jones (AM): Thank you, Chair. I am not on the Fire Authority but I have been following this and I remember back in 2008 when you were first elected, part of your election platform was that you would work closely with the boroughs and listen to their views. In this case, you are ignoring the boroughs, you are ignoring your own Fire Authority's views, you are ignoring the 94% of Londoners who oppose these cuts and this is just so that you can reduce the council tax by 1%.

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 11 September 2013

Steve O'Connell (AM): First of all I thank you for the investment of a new fire station in Purley. It is interesting to hear from Mr Biggs that he has three fire stations all within walking distance of each other. Although I do not know intimately the area that John is talking about, that would seem to me probably is not a good way of applying resources across London and East London. Would you not agree with that, Mayor?

• Question by: Stephen Knight
• Meeting date: 11 September 2013

Stephen Knight (AM): Clearly, the London Fire Authority on an all-party basis has actually agreed tens of millions of pounds of efficiency savings over the last few years, so the previous point about no savings being agreed by anybody I do not think is very fair. Will you accept that actually it has been the position of the majority of the Assembly for months now that the budget that you have allocated to the Fire Authority was not sufficient because it would lead to unacceptable cuts to frontline fire services? That is our position and we have put forward a...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 11 September 2013

Valerie Shawcross CBE (AM): Mr Mayor, I make no apology as a Fire Authority member for trying to find legal and proper ways to block your irresponsible closure of fire stations. I believe that that was what I was elected to do, but you can look in your manifestos and not find any reference at all to your plans to close fire stations. Just the opposite. You said you would not do this and you have no mandate to do it. Let me refresh your memory, Mr Mayor, because you are clearly having memory problems this morning. There used to...

• Question by: Andrew Dismore
• Meeting date: 11 September 2013

Andrew Dismore (AM): You talked about your mandate, Mr Mayor. On 25 January 2012, just before the election which returned you, you said, 'Under this Mayor there will be absolutely no reductions in fire cover'. Your mandate comes from the people of London. You have lied to the people of London by implementing these cuts.

• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 11 September 2013

James Cleverly (AM): Mr Mayor, in December 2012 when you issued your original budget guidance to functional bodies, did you receive from the Labour Group any proposals for savings in the London Fire Brigade at that point?

• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 11 September 2013

James Cleverly (AM): Mr Mayor, I do not expect you necessarily to recall, but in 2009, 2010 I asked a series of questions about the rise of TB cases in London. The recommendation I made at the time was that you lobby Government, because there is a threshold, and for the life of me I cannot remember exactly what it is, but I think it is 40 cases per 1,000. There is a threshold whereby if children are travelling to countries with a TB threshold above that level that they are inoculated. Yet, there are parts of London, boroughs in...