• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 17 June 2015

Murad Qureshi AM: Thank you, Chair. Mr Mayor, can I just come back to the discussion at the House of Commons on air quality. I was actually very impressed by how informed our London MPs are on the issue and I was particularly impressed by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) Minister, Rory Stewart OBE MP, responding to all those points, particularly from London MPs. Really, should you have not been there to respond to many of those points made by London MPs, particularly when the choice was between attending a prerecord at LBC or being accountable...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 17 June 2015

Richard Tracey AM: Mr Mayor, on this question of Heathrow that you mentioned in your report, apart from whatever Zac Goldsmith’s views on Heathrow and pollution and so on might be, you may have noticed yesterday that there was a little bit of confusion in the Labour ranks when Mr Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting - who is also aspiring to be the Mayor of London - seemed to have changed his mind. He is now against Heathrow expansion, but back in 2008 and 2009 he apparently supported the expansion of Heathrow. Do you think Londoners might be a bit...

• Question by: Stephen Knight
• Meeting date: 17 June 2015

Stephen Knight AM: Thank you, Mr Mayor. In terms of the debate on 9 June on air quality in the House of Commons, a debate at which I noticed you were not present and I am sure you had good reasons why you could not be there ‑‑ Boris Johnson MP (Mayor of London): I am afraid I was unable to be there, Stephen. I had pressing engagements elsewhere, but one of the things I have noticed about ‑‑ Stephen Knight AM: I believe you were giving an LBC prerecord interview and so it cannot have been that pressing. Anyway...

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 17 June 2015

Joanne McCartney AM: Good morning, Mr Mayor. Thank you for your response in regard to my request about these fake mobile phone towers or ‘stingrays’, as they are known colloquially. Sky News undertook an investigation and said that it found 20 in London that appeared to be intercepting Londoner’s phone calls before they reached the official mobile phone towers, which obviously gives great concerns for Londoner’s security of their personal information. There are two main issues with this. Firstly, I understand that they can be bought for about £1,000 and so they are relatively cheap. I understand that criminals can...

• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 01 July 2015

James Cleverly AM MP: Thank you, Madam Chair. Prompted by Mr Knight, you mentioned more corporate involvement in the housing market and the provision of housing specifically for employees. Across the country, there are some significant examples where business owners have taken a very direct role in the provision of housing. I am thinking of Port Sunlight, Bournville, etc, where those - for want of a better word - early corporate entities recognised that they had a vested interest in the provision of good quality, local housing for the people working in their businesses. You mentioned the utilisation of pension...

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 01 July 2015

Kit Malthouse AM MP: I assume that you would accept that for all the businesses and people employed in the area of green technology and green industries, 80% of what they do and what holds them back is exactly the same as for businesses that are not involved in those technologies. Therefore, your work on small business, science and technology and all those areas of emphasis would be equally as applicable to green technology, Jenny ‑‑ Jenny Jones AM: Yes. Kit Malthouse AM MP: ‑‑ as they are to other things. Harvey McGrath (Deputy Chair, London Enterprise Panel): Indeed. Kit...

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 01 July 2015

Nicky Gavron AM: Thank you very much. I just wanted to make one point. It would be extremely helpful in forwarding this issue if the LEP and Assembly Members could really look carefully at the amended London Plan. I argued on behalf of the Planning Committee that we should have symmetrical high-speed broadband as the new utility delivered to all new developments. There was a lot of querying of me about ‘symmetrical’. I am not a technological whizz, but I explained that it was about having the same speed of uploading as downloading, which is obviously an issue. Moreover, we...

• Question by: Victoria Borwick
• Meeting date: 01 July 2015

Victoria Borwick AM MP: If I may, I would just like to follow on and say that there are other boroughs that are very concerned. In fact, I have a residents group in Kensington and Chelsea that is extremely dismayed that it seems to be that others are moving ahead on this agenda. I would - I think - second the points made by Mr Dismore, not all of them, but I know there are others around here who I am sure could instance their boroughs and issues with this. There seems to be subsidies and other information for other...

• Question by: Andrew Dismore
• Meeting date: 01 July 2015

Andrew Dismore AM: Thank you, Chair. I would like to raise the issue of connectivity and broadband, which does not seem to be moving on particularly well. A few weeks ago, Emily Thornberry [Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington South and Finsbury] raised in Parliament an example she had of a business in central London taking nine hours to upload a two-and-a-half-minute film, which is not particularly helpful. What are you doing to try to do something about this problem of connectivity?

• Question by: Stephen Knight
• Meeting date: 01 July 2015

Stephen Knight AM: Thank you, Chair. My question was on this issue of London’s relationship with the EU, which your report makes quite a few comments about in terms of London ‘staying open for business’. It is quite clear in terms of the need to maintain the relationship with the EU and the dangers of undermining that relationship. In particular, I wanted to ask you about - and I am reading from the report - wanting to: “... strengthen London’s voice on national policies that could put London’s status as the global hub for business and finance at risk: particularly...