• Question by: Elly Baker
• Meeting date: 24 June 2021

Elly Baker AM: Mr Mayor, the Secretary of State for Transport has said that TfL’s January 2021 Financial Sustainability Plan does not appear to engage with the majority of the recommendations made in the TfL independent review. Can I ask you about the Government’s engagement? The review says, “We do not recommend significant service reductions”, so why is the Government forcing TfL to conduct a review that requires TfL to be in a position to reduce service levels?

• Question by: Leonie Cooper
• Meeting date: 24 June 2021

Léonie Cooper AM: Mr Mayor, thank you very much for your answer to Assembly Member Duvall. I am still very unclear, though, as to the position of the Conservative Members, Assembly Member Prince and Assembly Member Fortune. You mentioned Government support and they replied with some nonsense about small amounts from business rates, which would just go towards the TfL deficit, as you described. It is actually not really Government support, though, is it? Londoners pay £500 million a year in Vehicle Excise Duty (VED). I am very surprised that Assembly Member Prince, as their transport spokesperson, allegedly, does not...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 24 June 2021

Len Duvall AM: Mr Mayor, I get more and more confused whenever Assembly Member Keith Prince, the Tory transport spokesman ‑‑ Keith Prince AM (Deputy Chair): I am not a Tory. Len Duvall AM: ‑‑ speaks about issues on transport and the issues relating to the ULEZ or even issues relating to the Government’s deal. On the ULEZ, I think it was the Member to my side who said, “History will come to be told by those who are on the side of the ULEZ”. I am still confused about whether the Conservatives support ULEZ in its form as a...

• Question by: Sakina Sheikh
• Meeting date: 24 June 2021

Sakina Sheikh AM: I just wanted to come in on another aspect around regeneration and development that is relevant to Assembly Member Best’s question. Just this weekend, for instance, we saw a number of Conservative backbenchers express real concerns around the Government’s planning reforms, which speaks to Assembly Member Best’s concern around protecting local boroughs’ decision-making powers with regard to this. We saw London MP Bob Blackman has urged the Prime Minister to ditch the proposals, saying growth zones will be like the Wild West for the developers, and the proposals are not popular with the public, either. We know...

• Question by: Emma Best
• Meeting date: 24 June 2021

Emma Best AM: Just to come back there, Assembly Member Ahmad raises a very important point of funding. In the years 2019 to 2020, the funding for early years expenditure was £450,347. For the years 2020 to 2021, it is £233,658. I am sure you can accept that that is quite a drop there. My questions, really ‑ and perhaps in the interest of time you could answer them both at the same time ‑ are: will you commit to not decreasing that fund any more, and would you consider things like your Press Office may be less important than...

• Question by: Marina Ahmad
• Meeting date: 24 June 2021

Marina Ahmad AM: Mr Mayor, as you know, the Government’s own adviser, [Sir] Kevan Collins, who was the education recovery czar and, as you know, resigned his post because he was so appalled at the paltry provision made by the Government for a post-pandemic education recovery for our children. [Sir] Kevan Collins understood that a child’s life chances are best served by investment in her or his early years, as you do, Mr Mayor. In his letter of resignation he singled out early years education as needing further investment and I quote directly, “Not enough is being done” by Government...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 24 June 2021

Len Duvall AM: This is an extremely complex area, Mr Mayor. One of the tests of smell is what they tell police officers to do when they stop cars for the issue of moving towards breathalysation, which is the smell of alcohol. There is increasing concern about driving under the influence of drugs. What I want to avoid and I think you want to avoid is mixed messages. Even the Assembly Member for the Greens would accept that driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is an important issue. If I was a young police officer who stopped a...

• Question by: Tony Devenish
• Meeting date: 27 May 2021

Tony Devenish AM: Good morning, Mr Mayor. Congratulations on your re-election. I would like to fully support your call to build bridges with our Government. Assembly Member Rogers and I met with the Government last night on Hammersmith Bridge. It is clear that the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham needs all our help to reopen the Bridge as soon as possible. Will you please ask the Deputy Mayor [for Transport] to redouble efforts to help the London Borough with the Government to reopen the Bridge as soon as possible?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 27 May 2021

Andrew Boff AM: Thank you, Mr Mayor. We both attended the opening of the Blossom Garden, which was absolutely brilliant, I must say. I was really moved by the commitment of the staff who had been invited towards fighting the pandemic. After the event I went and talked to those staff. I said, “Now I am Chair of the London Assembly, what question would you ask?” The question that those NHS workers, many of whom were London ambulance drivers, asked me to raise to you was the issue for them of the increased costs that they are going to face...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 27 May 2021

Len Duvall AM: You early on alluded to the issues of financing police officers rather than buildings because they are the choices that we have. You have rightly said earlier on that you have funded both enforcement action as well as crime preventative actions. Is there a structural problem in police funding around this and the safety of Londoners? If we go back to 2010 when the last austerity cuts on policing were, and then we roll forward to the grants that we are receiving from central Government, international grants, capital city grants, it roughly equates to the £800 million...