• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 20 June 2019

Steve O’Connell AM: Thank you, Chair. Going from the general to the specific, Mayor, I sense that you are being told that it is all working very well on the mutual support and housing officers in police stations. It is not correct. I will give you a little story about Croydon. In south Croydon, officers have to parade in Addington Police Station and take a 50-minute bus ride to south of Croydon. That is to police four wards. Three years ago we had a new fire station open, Purley Fire Station. Much excitement happened about that, although it is being...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 20 June 2019

Len Duvall AM: Thank you, Deputy Chairman. Can I congratulate the Mayor on how he has responded to the colleagues on the opposite side of the table, and rightly so? We should try to do everything on the issues that have been raised. I just cannot get away from this. Taking £1 billion out of policing and expecting that it will not have an impact on the services we can do in London. We can ask and ask, but if we keep going on and do not challenge collectively central Government about the funding of policing in this area, we...

• Question by: Lord Bailey of Paddington
• Meeting date: 20 June 2019

Shaun Bailey AM: Just to pick up on this innovation of using modern slavery laws to get people who are exploiting young children around county lines. I wonder if you could commit to having police training improved. Speaking to people at the Children’s Society, they are saying there is an issue where particularly young people do not get a safeguarding response. They get a criminal response when they are vulnerable and they have been trafficked in that way. I wonder if there is something we could do around police training to help identify that.

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 20 June 2019

Len Duvall AM: Mr Mayor, in terms of keeping with the theme about honesty in politics, I understand you have mentioned about the issues that occurred during the debates about leaving the EU, are you aware what the UK Statistics Authority actually said to the then Foreign Secretary [Boris Johnson MP] when he made his announcement around that £350 million ‑‑

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 20 June 2019

Nicky Gavron AM: Good morning, Mr Mayor. With climate change high on the agenda as well as air quality - and rightly so - you have declared a climate change emergency and I am very pleased that the week after next you are running the first-ever Climate Action Week in London, but we need more concerted effort. Of course much of that should come from the Government in terms of regulation, support and investment, but you have very strong powers in planning. How are you going to ensure that we accelerate towards zero-carbon developments? Just before you answer that question...

• Question by: Unmesh Desai
• Meeting date: 20 June 2019

Unmesh Desai AM: Thank you, Chair. Mr Mayor, on 9 June [2019], the flats at De Pass Gardens in my constituency at Barking Riverside were engulfed by fire, destroying 20 homes and damaging 43 more. Mr Mayor, I am sure you will join me, firstly, in thanking the emergency services for ensuring no one was hurt. Indeed, within five minutes, Barking fire crews and vehicles were responding to the incident. Mr Mayor, will you also join me in noting and congratulating the extraordinarily swift response of Barking and Dagenham Council to this incident? Thirteen minutes after the initial reports, the...

• Question by: Fiona Twycross
• Meeting date: 20 June 2019

Fiona Twycross AM: Thank you. There has been a rise in hate crimes, as has already been noted, since the EU referendum, and there have been particularly bad spikes in the aftermath of some of the major events we have seen in our city, such as the London Bridge terror attack in 2017. What role do you think the re‑emergence of the far right has had to play in this, and what measures are you taking to protect the diverse communities in London and prove that London really is open?

• Question by: Florence Eshalomi MP
• Meeting date: 20 June 2019

Florence Eshalomi AM: Just on the stop and search, Mr Mayor, which sometimes is a contentious issue, especially in the two boroughs I represent where a disproportionate amount of young black men are stopped and searched inappropriately, but we know that stop-and-search, when intelligence-led, does work. I have a group of students from St Michael’s sixth form in Bermondsey, and a big issue for them is around knife crime. Can you talk about some of the other initiatives to help reduce knife crime about getting our young people engaged in positive activities from a younger age?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 16 May 2019

Andrew Boff AM: Mr Mayor, you have restated what was in your press release, that more homes were started at social rent levels than ever before. How do your 3,991 compare to the 11,329 that were started in 2010/11, the 10,663 homes that were started in 2009/10, and the 7,439 that were started in 2008/09?

• Question by: Florence Eshalomi MP
• Meeting date: 16 May 2019

Florence Eshalomi AM: Mr Mayor, just following on from that, you may be aware of the Pecan food bank in Peckham. On 1 May [2019] the Bishop of Southwark opened the first of its kind, Peckham Pantry, in London. This is based on a membership scheme where local residents and families can pay £15 and can come to that pantry and buy a lot more than £15 worth of food shopping, going a long way to help address the issues around food poverty and the number of families relying on the food banks. I very much appreciate that your diary...