• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 17 March 2010

I want to refer to another of your manifesto pledges, Mayor. It is the big one you made on housing. This is a quote from page 14 of your manifesto: 'There is no question that we need more housing. We will meet this challenge with a commitment to build 50,000 affordable homes by 2011.' With great anticipation we imagined that that would be 50,000 bricks and mortar new build. Do you think people realised that you were not going to be building these new homes and that a lot of them would not even be new; that they would be...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 17 March 2010

I would like to begin just by welcoming some of the residents of Gidea Park to Mayor's Question Time this morning. Gidea Park is a very pleasant part of the London Borough of Havering and Petits Ward, which is a part of Gidea Park, actually delivered the highest ward vote for you, Boris, in my constituency at the time. The reason that they did it was that they wanted to have a Mayor for all of London rather than a Mayor for Zone 1, which is what they had experienced for the eight years previously. Can you tell us a...

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 17 March 2010

Now, I am delighted to follow Ms Gavron who pontificates from her mansion in Highgate, but would you accept that during the past two glorious years, in a rare aberration, you took the wrong decision on the Brent Cross, Cricklewood planning application in a moment of misjudgement? The Secretary of State has now served to stop notice on that development, but would you hope that the Secretary of State will be taking a serious view about West Crawley and it is not just doing it for party political reasons? Could you reassure us that in none of your planning decisions...

• Question by: Navin Shah
• Meeting date: 17 March 2010

I would like to return to transport-related questions, Mr Mayor. Referring again to your election commitment, during the election campaign you visited North Harrow Station and indeed signed a massive nearly 4,000-signature petition. Let me remind you what you said and I will quote you at the time. You said, "If I am lucky enough to take over TfL on 1 May I will keep the ticket offices open. It is a completely false economy. [ ... ] "Why do we not keep them open to give people the sense of security and safety they want? The number one commitment...

• Question by: Caroline Pidgeon
• Meeting date: 17 March 2010

I wanted to pick up a point in your transport manifesto and you just touched on it in referencing the previous Mayor. You stated that you wanted the Tube to open for one hour later on Friday and Saturday nights so Londoners can get home safely late at night. I am wondering what progress you have made on this?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 17 March 2010

On this issue of cuts to borough budgets, in your election manifesto you did promise to direct more resources to frontline policing, which I think most of us would agree with. You said you would spend less on press officers. Now, in 2007/0808, which was Ken's [Livingstone] last year, £5.7 million was spent on press officers at the police and this next year you are going to spend £6.8 million. That is a 20% increase. In the same year, Ken's last year, there were 73 press officers, and for the next year there are going to be 74. So you...

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 17 March 2010

Let us turn our attention to what is important to Londoners. What is important to Londoners, Mr Mayor, is getting crime down; it is to see more cops on the street and increasing the confidence of Londoners to go round their business in a safe manner. They are the commitments and that is what you will be judged upon. Now, it beggars belief that we cannot challenge all parts of all organisations to make savings within their budgets. The police budget, as people know here, is an enormous budget, £4 billion, and has the ability to make savings across the...

• Question by: Gareth Bacon MP
• Meeting date: 17 March 2010

On behalf of colleagues of mine in the London Borough of Lewisham who have asked me to raise the issue of Lee Green which, of course, is one of the estates under the Crown Estates that would be affected by this, I would like to thank you for the work that you are doing on this. Also to reflect on the irony, given their loudly-stated claim that you are not actually going to fulfil your affordable housing pledge, that an organisation that reports to Her Majesty's Treasury, which currently is run by the Labour Party, should be going out of...

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 17 March 2010

Mr Mayor, I think you have been commended in a lot of quarters for taking up the London Living Wage for the GLA. Would you seek to encourage other London local authorities also to adopt the London Living Wage?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 17 March 2010

I had actually indicated to come in on this question if only to pay tribute to the work London Citizens have done in actually putting this issue on the agenda. You really should be careful before being led astray by certain of your Conservative colleagues. What Tony [Arbour] did not tell you was that the job in question was located in Ipswich and thus the question of the London Living Wage does not apply to a call centre in Ipswich.