• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 30 January 2013

Well, whatever. Mr Mayor, I am interested in how the proposals will affect my patch so could you, just for clarity, tell me how many fire stations are going to be closed in Havering and Redbridge?

• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 30 January 2013

When the PCSOs were first introduced, part of the explanation for why they did not have the power of arrest was that, if they had the power of arrest they would arrest people and then they would have to go and fill in the huge amounts of paperwork, which would keep them off the streets and we want them on the streets. In the new policing model the balance is shifting back towards fully warranted police officers which I think most people would welcome. My concern, and what I would ask of you is that, with the balance moving back...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 30 January 2013

My constituents find the neighbourhood policing model very reassuring because they know they will have a large number of police dedicated to their particular ward. However, all too often, Mr Mayor, it has been a false level of reassurance because a lot of those officers have been abstracted for purposes elsewhere. Under the new scheme with its greater level of flexibility between wards, will there actually be less of that abstraction so that people will actually get what they have been promised?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 30 January 2013

Thank you, Chair. Mr Mayor, do you share my surprise at this exchange this morning because at the recent Police and Crime Committee, which was chaired by Joanne, we actually asked leading academics and criminologists for their view on your estate strategy and they said they felt it could well actually improve public confidence by getting police out onto the streets and in contact with the public?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 30 January 2013

Richard Tracey (AM): Putney High Street is almost in my constituency, Mr Mayor, and you will be interested to know that it is in fact at the junction with the South Circular Road, so it receives very heavy traffic as well as being a canyon, effectively, as you say. Can I ask you, are you aware of the work that Wandsworth Council has been doing --

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 05 June 2013

Murad Qureshi (AM): Can I be bold enough, Tony, to ask you things that you have not really touched on in your report? The first is mansion taxes. Our sister city New York has a 0.5% mansion tax for properties over $2 million. Do you see a place for something similar if it was hypothecated to build social housing, for example?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 05 June 2013

Nicky Gavron (AM): Thank you for the report and thank you so much for the way you are amplifying it, Tony. This is a little bit different from what Jenny Jones and Murad Qureshi have been saying but it is building on that. Do you think if there was a targeted form of land tax on those sites which have planning permissions, and we know now we have 211,000 homes sitting on land with planning permission at the moment, that would help bring forward housing?

• Question by: Fiona Twycross
• Meeting date: 05 June 2013

Fiona Twycross (AM): I think you made some really interesting points on English devolution and in one sense localism represents a very basic form of devolution. Did the recommendations of the report represent radical localism? If so, what benefits could devolving revenue-raising powers bring to the rest of England?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 05 June 2013

Richard Tracey (AM): Tony, what makes you any more optimistic that the Government is going to accept these ideas you have put forward than they did in dealing with business rates? They first of all said that they were going to hand the whole of business rates over as I recollect and it finished up being 50%, so what is the prospect?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 05 June 2013

Andrew Boff (AM): I do hate it, Professor Travers, when you come here because you answer all my questions before I have asked them. But do you think the Mayor is missing a trick in just lobbying for London when he should actually be lobbying for cities? It strikes me that the 'carrot crunchers' have their lobby groups and unfortunately the cities do not seem to have a cohesive one.