• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 07 September 2011

I would like initially to thank you, Commissioner, for ensuring that the borough commanders in my part of London were able to, by having a show of strength, prevent any trouble in any of the boroughs which I represent, and I thank him for that. The question I would like to ask is probably one for Kit. One of the few positive things which has come out of this has been the demonstration that it is possible to cut through the red tape which there habitually is in bringing people to justice. The rapidity, swiftness and certainty of punishment has...

• Question by: Richard Barnbrook
• Meeting date: 07 September 2011

I think pretty much everyone has made comments on what has taken place, commending the police activity, but there is one situation. When the police, nationwide and in the MPS, are faced with social networking on football hooliganism or on certain political activities, they have sufficient information gathered over a ten-year period to move in there, undercover or uniform, and stop this. So, you are still suggesting there are not enough workings within the MPS to be able to work out the activity of social networking?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 07 September 2011

I think most Londoners are absolutely full of praise for the way police handled this from Tuesday 8 August onwards, and the policing was proportionate, it was appropriate, it was effective, the right numbers were there and we did not need to have the Army coming in or plastic bullets or water cannons or anything like that. It was appropriate, effective policing that restored order. However, the widespread perception on the Sunday and the Monday is simply that the policing operation was not effective either in terms of tactics or in terms of the numbers on the street. Could those...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 07 September 2011

Acting Commissioner, first of all, congratulations on the level of arrests and the speed with which you have been doing that. The public are right behind you, as far as I hear. I represent the Clapham Junction area of Battersea, and we have been out talking to a lot of residents there, particularly, in many cases, fairly young ones. They say that they had been picking up a lot of intelligence from the likes of Facebook, Twitter and so on some hours before Clapham Junction blew up and, indeed, over the days before. You have already talked as the Chairman...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 07 September 2011

It is obvious just from looking at the media coverage that different tactics were used on the ground in different places, and some with a greater level of success than others. In Romford we had some prior notice that this was going to happen by maybe extrapolating the events from the night before in the way that Darren has mentioned, but also information on social media, and that enabled our fairly far-sighted borough commander, Mike Smith, to put measures in place to ask businesses to close early and to deploy his officers at Romford Station, where the considerable police presence...

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 07 September 2011

Thank you. On behalf of our Group, I also thank the many officers for the bravery that they showed over the August period. As the Assembly Member for Tottenham, I think it would remiss of me if I did not ask some questions about what you, Tim, yesterday referred to the House of Commons Select Committee as 'the initial incident', and this was certainly to do with some of the questions that came out of the Select Committee yesterday. You stated yesterday that the response to the shooting of Mark Duggan could have been handled differently, and you referred to...

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 07 September 2011

): There is a very good track record in many areas of London of engagement by the police with the community, particularly in gang intervention, and I know, Acting Commissioner, that this is something you know a lot about. Have there been cuts in that intervention?

• Question by: Richard Barnbrook
• Meeting date: 07 September 2011

After all we hear that emergency services are constantly under attack, from nurses, doctors, fire workers, police, all of this going on, it is a technical question. Outside of the appliances that the London Fire Brigade has, which are static in the sense they rely upon groundwater resource for the purpose of their functioning, how many units are there in London that are mobile water dispensers or water fighters in the sense they carry their own water supply with them?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 07 September 2011

): Can I just begin by thanking, through you Chair, the entire staff of LFEPA for their outstanding professionalism during the riots? I wanted to talk to you about the future of the emergency control mobilising centre, the 999 call centre. I have it on good account that the staff of that centre performed magnificently during the riots. In fact, an entire shift stayed on as volunteers to double up the normal capacity. I hope you would not disagree with me if I said it is fair to say that is the most efficient and effective 999 fire control centre...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 07 September 2011

Commissioner, can I say on behalf of my constituents how grateful we were to firefighters who attended at Clapham Junction in Battersea. Indeed, yesterday, Jane Ellison, the Member of Parliament for Battersea, was visiting the Battersea firefighters at the station. I would have been there too had I not been here on Transport Committee duties. My question is first of all to the Chairman. Do you share my impatience and frustration at Navin Shah's question to you about the budget and the potential budget of LFEPA, when it is so skilfully managed by Councillor Maurice Heaster from Wandsworth and the...