• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 20 March 2013

Joanne McCartney OBE (AM): My two boroughs are Enfield and Haringey and they are two of the four boroughs in London that are going to be testing the proposed welfare changes from this next month before it gets rolled out across London In Enfield and Haringey poverty is already disproportionately high. Those boroughs have both seen increases in people applying for Local Housing Allowance (LHA) and Housing Benefit. Between March 2011 and November last year, there was a 29% rise in the case of Haringey, and a 21% rise in the case of Enfield. We believe that this is due...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 20 March 2013

Richard Tracey (AM): Mr Mayor, just to bring a few facts into this discussion, are you aware that certain survey data from the DWP has shown that only 3% of Londoners have had to move home to deal with the shortfall in Housing Benefit.

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 March 2013

Roger Evans (AM): I think there have been some reasonable concerns raised this morning, but we do need a reality check on some of the things that have been said. In my own borough of Havering we have quite a lot of social rented property and some of it belongs to the London Borough of Newham who built it there many years ago because it was a cheaper and more pleasant option for housing their tenants than doing it in Newham. Waltham Forest Council, 20 years ago, was housing some of its tenants in properties in Essex. These are Labour...

• Question by: Onkar Sahota
• Meeting date: 20 March 2013

Onkar Sahota (AM): Mr Mayor, I want to carry on, but I want to talk to you about the bedroom taxes. Your own Health Inequalities Strategy consistently makes the point that to live a healthy life and in order to lose health inequalities it is important that families need a decent household income. Poor quality housing and overcrowding is a major driver of poor health. You have said previously that you want support regional vision, good leadership and sports trading partnership with actions. Can you explain to me why a child who is autistic, or a child who suffers from...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 20 March 2013

Richard Tracey (AM): Mr Mayor, I am glad you paid tribute to the excellent work of Steve O'Connell, which is I think of very great assistance to the boroughs in formulating their planning policies, because you may have heard that in Southwark local residents have saved a pub by specifically identifying it as a community asset. Indeed, in my own borough of Wandsworth, Jane Ellison, the MP for Battersea, is seeking to save two - the Castle pub and the Eagle pub, where developers clearly want to buy up these places and simply build housing on them.

• Question by: Gareth Bacon MP
• Meeting date: 20 March 2013

Gareth Bacon (AM): My colleague, Dick Tracey, made the case for Crossrail to be extended into the West to Reading. Could I just reinforce the case for the East?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 20 March 2013

Tony Arbour (AM): Yes. I am glad you mentioned South West London, Mr Mayor. Do you realise that if Crossrail 2, option B, is followed through, you will have the opportunity to right an historic wrong and that wrong is that the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames only has access to one railway line which goes into Waterloo. We have no Underground. We are pretty well cut off from the rest of London. It is true, many of my constituents think that is a good thing, but nevertheless, Crossrail 2, by going through Kingston and extending to the delights of Chessington...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 20 March 2013

Jenny Jones (AM): I do not know if you know, Mr Mayor, but in fact there were other boroughs whose rape reporting leapt up when Sapphire was centralised. For example, Sutton, their rape reporting went up 70% and in Haringey it was something like 59%. So I am glad to hear --

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 20 March 2013

Kit Malthouse (AM): I just wanted to ask you about what you said regarding two crime types that were moving in the wrong direction. One was sexual violence and domestic violence.

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 20 March 2013

Richard Tracey (AM): Yes, Mr Mayor. I believe you are going to be at the mega rally. Is that correct, on 27 April?