• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

Around the same theme on planning controls; in the prospective Green Paper we have talked about third party planning appeals. I think we will recognise that there is an imbalance in the planning system whereby only a developer can appeal against and the residents cannot. I think we all tend to agree that that is a grotesque imbalance that needs addressing. The Open Source document did put some thoughts around that and I would like your amplification on it as well. It seemed to me that it is a very good point to address, but the Open Source document talked...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

We are really talking about the Mayor's wants. Are there Government wants? You have outlined the Government vision around devolution and on the NHS strategic functions that are being taken back into Government and obviously Ministers will want to take stock. Is there not a case that some of those strategic aspects carried out by the Strategic Health Authority for London should not come under the Mayor's ambit? Is there any thinking about that going on in Government at this stage, or if not at this stage, at some stage in the future?

• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

Minister, one of the challenges that I think is going to be faced by the coalition Government is that the very people that you rely on to help you drive this localism are the very people who are going to be disempowered. I am thinking particularly of your civil service team; it is from their desks that the power is going to be taken. Is there a structural plan? Is there a mechanism in place to make sure that, after this initial set of proposals are put forward, there is a way of providing a constant review and maintain that...

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

Minister, the Act you referred to, which in 2007 gave the London boroughs and the residents of the Greater London area the right to serve up parish councils, also changed the legislation to the point where establishment of parish councils was removed from the Secretary of State and given to the primary authority. In a London context I am assuming that is the London boroughs. That would mean that the only requirement that a London borough would have if it was being pressured to set up a parish council would be to conduct a community governance review which could prevent...

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

Minister, you have talked about devolution to the boroughs as a whole. Recently I read the suggestion by a former Parliamentary colleague, Rob Hayward [former Member of Parliament for Kingswood], that perhaps there are too many London boroughs; currently there are 32, and some of them are rather small. He said that he had been an advisor to the Secretary of State when he was in the Shadow Cabinet. Are you aware that your Department might be looking at reducing the number of London boroughs?

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 10 March 2010

I just wanted to generally raise some environmental issues and I think the main one here in the legacy is the Olympic Park and how that is going to be managed in the future. Could you just tell me how you intend to tender that, what specifications you have got in mind to deal with that and who you think is going to be interested in managing that major part of the legacy, which will probably be around for a lot longer than other things?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 10 March 2010

I absolutely understand that if you are going to grow vegetables it has to be remediated to a certain level and the LDA has not done that. I also understand and accept LDA's assurance that it has remediated it to a standard fit to hold the Games on. That is fine. What I am interested in is the commercial exploitation of the land and any uncertainty. You just said, Margaret, as with any Brownfield site developers would have to be aware, but the LDA told us that it is giving you this brilliant land that it has spent an absolute...

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 10 March 2010

On remediation, are you aware of any warranty protection that the ODA might have on remediation with the contractors and, if so, will you inherit it? If not, is there a general remediation insurance policy in place for any works that may or may not be needed, and are you going to inherit and therefore keep that one on?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 10 March 2010

): Are we at the section of the meeting where we are asking more general questions? I wanted to come back to somewhere close to where we started, informed by the discussion we have had. My question is to be clear about who you are accountable to because is there not a risk that you are accountable to so many different layers in so many different ways that, de facto, you are accountable to nobody? By which I mean you are accountable to your directors, obviously, your Board, and you are accountable to your shareholders, 50/50. I think the wider...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 10 March 2010

I want just to pursue this issue of what the land is fit for. You talked about longer term development and you talked about family housing and so forth. We had a meeting of [the Assembly's] Budget and Performance Committee a couple of weeks ago and the LDA, when pressed about the debt, said that a fair chunk of the debt actually will still sit in the LDA's books to pay off the bills for the remediation so the issue of remediation then came up. Could I therefore just be clear what your understanding of the condition of the land...