• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 20 January 2016

Richard Tracey AM: Mr Mayor, can I bring up with you once again the subject of Putney High Street. You will have read the stories that within a few days of the beginning of this year Putney High Street’s pollution level had exceeded the legal limit. Many councillors and local people there are asking that TfL should make a specific move to introduce all hybrid or indeed electric buses on the services that run along the High Street and also to look at the possibility of moving the bus depot, which is right by the side of the High Street...

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 20 January 2016

Murad Qureshi AM: Mr Mayor, can I just move this discussion to the impact on schoolchildren. Your favourite think-tank, Policy Exchange, released a report just before Christmas 2015, Up in the Air, which stated that 328,000 children are attending schools in London where the NO 2 concentration exceeded the legal and health limits. That is nearly 25% of all pupils in London. Can you tell me what specifically you have done to limit the exposure of London’s children to toxic air in your time?

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 20 January 2016

Steve O’Connell AM: On the same subject but stripping schools out of it for the moment, there are proposals in Croydon as part of the consultation on the Croydon plan to downgrade many acres of Metropolitan Open Land in Shirley. There is a very strong campaign around that and that is not to build schools but to build homes and we all agree that homes are needed, but that there are sufficient brownfield spaces. You said earlier that you have refused many such applications and I would not expect you to prejudge any particular application, but would you not agree...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 January 2016

Roger Evans AM: I am pleased that we are constructing so much new housing, certainly in my constituency in Havering and Redbridge for my residents, but I am getting complaints from residents of one of the new sets of buildings that was constructed recently that the work has not been up to standard and that people are having to come back to do plumbing, electricity, decorating and basic things. I appreciate that this is largely the responsibility of the local authority’s building regulation people to make sure that it is done right, but can you just reassure me that we...

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 20 January 2016

Steve O’Connell AM: Thank you, Chair. Mr Mayor, we need to strip the ideology out of this particular one. As a former council estate boy for the first 24 years of my life, I saw the benefits that Right to Buy gave to many people at that time as a leg-up and empowerment. That is the right thing to do.

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 16 December 2015

Steve O’Connell AM: Mr Mayor, back on the subject of protecting green spaces, thank you for your earlier comments. Your London Plan does have significant protections around back garden development. I would like to see it strengthened but, at the moment, it is strong. Mr Mayor, would you be instructing your planners to ensure that any submissions on draft changes to borough plans that specifically weaken the protection of back gardens are looked at and to object to those sorts of proposals?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 16 December 2015

Andrew Boff AM: Mr Mayor, thank you for referring to the substantial changes that have taken place or that were announced yesterday with regard to the provision of health in London. They are very welcome innovations. There is just one thing in the proposal. A London Health Board, it is said, will “provide political leadership, oversight and support for the London strategy”. Could you, as soon as possible, let us know what you understand by those words?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 December 2015

Tony Arbour AM (Deputy Chairman): You, in your answer on erosion of the Green Belt, spoke of developers if the Green Belt becomes available being reluctant to put effort and investment into looking at brownfield sites. Can exactly the same not be said of the Education Funding Agency, which identifies sites for schools on Metropolitan Open Land (MOL)? I have cited to you in the past what happens at the London Borough of Hounslow without asking that a sufficient assessment be made of whether or not brownfield sites are an alternative to easing development of MOL. Can I ask that...

• Question by: Caroline Pidgeon
• Meeting date: 16 December 2015

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: You said this morning that a third runway is undeliverable and previously you have said that investing in it would be “investing in decline”, yet you have allowed City Hall to invest over £3.5 million in Heathrow third runway corporate bonds. Will you be instructing officers to withdraw from this investment?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 16 December 2015

Nicky Gavron AM: Mayor, good morning. I am very pleased to hear your reassurances on protecting the Green Belt, but part of that announcement by the Government was tied into two other proposals, which are very worrying, one on employment land and one on affordable housing. Boris Johnson MP (Mayor of London): Sorry, one on? Nicky Gavron AM: Employment land. I will just explain it. It goes like this. In addition to wanting to release Green Belt land, the Government wants to release employment land for housing. This is hard on the heels of the expanded - and now made...