• Question by: Tony Devenish
• Meeting date: 16 December 2021

Tony Devenish AM: Good morning, Mr Mayor. You talked about the TfL bailout in your statement and you cried wolf as usual. There is a deal on the table, but my question to you is: why did you tell the Evening Standard 35 minutes ago that you are making changes to the Congestion Charge, and not this Assembly?

• Question by: Onkar Sahota
• Meeting date: 16 December 2021

Dr Onkar Sahota AM: Mr Mayor, I want to come in on the issue of how to best protect Londoners from the Omicron strain, which is the dominant virus in London now. Increasing vaccine rates, increasing the uptake of boosters and adhering to public health messages are vital to stop the spread of the Omicron variant. Infection rates in this country, as you said, are over 78,000 cases per day, and 19,000 of them are in London, and hospital admissions will surely follow, just like night follows day. The proportion of the population without a single jab is three times...

• Question by: Caroline Russell
• Meeting date: 16 December 2021

Caroline Russell AM: Hello, Mr Mayor. You mentioned 19,000 cases in the last 24 hours, which really shows the scale of the impact of this very transmissible Omicron variant. I realise you do not run the booster programme, but your Strategic Coordination Group (SCG) was very effective in the first waves of the pandemic in making sure that things worked in London across every borough. Wherever anyone lived in London, they were looked after, they got a similar experience. I just wonder what role the SCG is playing in coordinating this latest response so that, whichever borough you live in...

• Question by: Unmesh Desai
• Meeting date: 16 December 2021

Unmesh Desai AM: Good morning, Mr Mayor. Can I firstly say that I welcome everything that you said so far, especially calling in the Inspectorate to look into what went wrong. Can I also say that the inquest jury’s verdict is a vindication of the efforts of the families who lost loved ones, the families of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth, and Jack Taylor. I pay tribute to them. Mr Mayor, this was a really awful incident in my constituency, which has understandably damaged the trust of the LGBTQ+ community in London. What conversations are you having, if any...

• Question by: Tony Devenish
• Meeting date: 16 December 2021

Tony Devenish AM: Mr Mayor, if it is all going so well in housing delivery, why is Lord Bob Kerslake reviewing your lack of delivery?

• Question by: Leonie Cooper
• Meeting date: 16 December 2021

Léonie Cooper AM: You referred to your 12 years on the planning committee, which was actually in Wandsworth, part of my constituency. I probably do not really need to remind you of the situation there, but from 1979 onwards the local council was very committed to house sales and, in fact, had priority group sales areas, which were found to be illegal by the district auditor. An awful lot of properties were sold off over the years, so there is a great number of leaseholders. Also, there have been a huge number of blocks built along the river frontage for...

• Question by: Emma Best
• Meeting date: 16 December 2021

Emma Best AM: That was a really good question there, Assembly Member Clarke, but I saw that the Mayor did not have any problems answering that statement.

• Question by: Anne Clarke
• Meeting date: 16 December 2021

Anne Clarke AM: Yes, thank you, Chair. As somebody who serves as a local councillor, I very much appreciate local democracy. I was just really confused why it is that the Barnet Conservatives have highlighted a number of carparks as places that we could intensify housing, and then their own Conservative MP turns up outside City Hall to protest about Finchley Central and High Barnet stations, which initially turned up on the Barnet Local Plan supported by Tory Barnet councillors, and then all of a sudden we have the Barnet Tories protesting outside City Hall to save carparks. I am...

• Question by: Susan Hall
• Meeting date: 16 December 2021

Susan Hall AM: Mr Mayor, how does it help London’s housing shortage to continually waste time and resources on proposing ugly tower blocks on suburban TfL carparks such as the Canons Park scheme that was recently rejected by the planning inspector?

• Question by: Unmesh Desai
• Meeting date: 16 December 2021

Unmesh Desai AM: Good afternoon, Mr Mayor. I do not know if this is the final question to the Mayor of 2021 but, since we have some time left, Mr Mayor, I want to flag up three issues and then come to my question. Firstly, the anti-racist cricket initiative that I asked you about, or mentioned, at the last MQT is on course to be launched sometime in January [2022] and your office is aware of what we are doing. Secondly, on what you said about domestic violence: report, report, report. We must get it out. I know the reasons...