• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 13 January 2010

Harvey, can I bring you back to the beginning when you mentioned the LDA objectives and one of them being international promotion? It is interesting, over Christmas reading things like The Economist, it was suggesting that the developing countries have come out of the recession much better than anyone had expected and that this has profound consequences on the rest of the world, including London. Hearing that, I understand that we do not now have an office in Delhi or Bombay, one of the leading BRIC countries and one of the countries that we can expect to trade with in...

• Question by: Richard Barnbrook
• Meeting date: 13 January 2010

Good morning, gentlemen. We have heard about the fact of how London will survive without the LDA. We have also heard from Mr Duvall regarding the workings or possible wrong workings of the LDA. I want to touch on something that is a bit old and I hope is not going to occur again; that is perceived corruption within certain officers and employers of the LDA. One project comes to mind. I know it has been put to bed and I think it has been put to bed a bit too quickly; the Brixton project and the slap on the...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 13 January 2010

I just wanted to carry on a point that Len has already picked up around the spending against priorities because, at our Budget and Performance Committee last week, of which I am a Member, we heard, exactly as you have confirmed this morning, that you have some underspends from this year that you are taking as part of your funding package for next year. I cannot remember the number. I just simply want to put some numbers on these things so can you just remind me, was is about £16 million? What is the amount of underspend from this year...

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 13 January 2010

Mr McGrath, you said that one of your biggest contributions is to contribute the equity towards the development of projects, in the form of land, and, in order to assist developers, then producing a plan. To what extent do you take a view on the actual quality of that development and how it meets any of the GLA's strategic aims and meets the needs of Londoners, specifically with regard to housing?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 13 January 2010

You identified in your introduction, and I hope I can allude to it then - because it covers the same thing - a number of past failures of the LDA which obviously you are seeking to address. For example, Mr Rogers has said that the LDA's business support programmes were not fit for purpose and I just wondered, first of all, how long that has been going on? How long has the LDA's business support not been fit for purpose and how long do we have to wait before it is?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 13 January 2010

Could I pursue some of what my colleague, Andrew Boff, has been asking you about? To be honest, we are receiving many comments from the boroughs, from borough leaders and from borough officers, that they are really not content at all with the sort of support for businesses which you are giving, so you are not really pleasing anybody it seems. You are not pleasing the boroughs and you are not pleasing us, certainly when we receive criticism from the boroughs, and you are not actually helping the businesses it would seem. I cannot understand why there should be the...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 16 December 2009

Mayor, I do support very much what our colleague Andrew Boff has said. I think the important thing is that you must constantly remind the Olympic Committee and LOCOG that we won this bid very much on the basis that there would be a legacy of sports for the grassroots and for the young. They really must be able to gain access to these facilities whenever possible, both in the year before 2012 and then as soon as possible after The Games are over.

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 16 December 2009

Did you lobby the Shadow Home Secretary and your party to come out with a policy for directly elected Mayors/Police Commissioners?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 16 December 2009

Obviously in setting the budget, Mayor, what you will want to avoid is a duplication of effort and pointless duplication of cost. In that respect, do you share our concern about the proposal to establish a London select committee by Parliament which is going to duplicate the efforts of this Assembly, no doubt at cost to them but also at cost of this Authority when they require us to give evidence? Will you be cooperating with that organisation?

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 16 December 2009

Thank you, Chair. Mayor, would you not share my surprise and indignation of the fact that Mr Biggs over there is criticising a budget of which he is a member of the Finance & Resources Committee in the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) and it has already endorsed that budget and he, therefore, has a corporate responsibility around that budget? So, would you not agree Mayor, that if he continues this line of debate and questioning it holds his position possibly untenable within that committee and he will have to make some hard choices whether he continues to serve on that...