• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

Two points, Mr Mayor: Are you aware that the majority of that increase in the precept that your party was so against supporting went on policing and community safety?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

I am sure, Mr Mayor, the boroughs will be extremely welcoming to this initiative of yours. Do you remember back in the late 1990s when the legislation setting up the Greater London Authority was going through the House of Commons, the Labour Minister talked about this being a slimline authority that was promised, with a light touch in London? Instead of that of course it became a group of interfering busybodies led by the previous Mayor. I guess you will agree with me that is why the council tax precept from here has gone so high and I trust you...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

So you accept that of any precept raised from the Council Tax payers of London in any year of the last administration of the last eight years about 80%, probably 85%, went on policing and fire services; community safety issues? Do you accept that? I am not sure if you do.

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

Parking controls. We have a question down from one Labour Member saying that it is horrendous that they are different in one borough than another one. I personally see no problem with that. I am trying to get into the mind of a centralist; what it is that they think is important about having everything the same everywhere or everything appallingly bad everywhere is what actually it ends up as.

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

Mr Mayor, would you agree with me, however, that what has been proven time and again across London in terms of Council Tax and taxpayers' money is that more taxpayers' money does not necessarily mean better services? We have seen time and again, particularly across my constituency in West Central, in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham, that very often the councils that tend to be at the top of the Labour Government's own league tables are those that charge the lowest tax and that try to get the best value for money. Any kind of connection between...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

The question is: we are not elected as politicians to skip around in circles and love each other; we are elected to solve difficult problems. You gave an anecdote about Croydon. A similar anecdote might be about Bazalgette and the 30 years or so it took before a municipal authority was able to impose a sewerage system on London which resolved the 'great stink' as it was called. It was a massive public health problem; people died of typhoid and cholera. Finally people got their act together and realised you needed to have a strategic intervention. There are going to...

• Question by: Caroline Pidgeon
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

OK, but Bromley Conservatives are actually blocking the agreement to settle the costs on this and this is going to cost Council Tax payers in London more. Is this the value for money that you so often recite to us in this Chamber?

• Question by: Caroline Pidgeon
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

What about your colleagues we are talking about here; do you support them?

• Question by: Caroline Pidgeon
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

I wanted to focus on the important service issue with the boroughs. Do you support the Bromley Conservatives on London Council's Transport Committee who last week blocked the all party agreement on Freedom Pass costs, thus delaying this by several months and at high cost to the Council Tax payer? Are your colleagues once again threatening the Freedom Pass in London?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

Mr Mayor, would you therefore support the main thrust of the arguments within the Trusting Devolution document forwarded by London Councils which spends some time talking about the best way to deliver services is at the most a local level and that really the only time that the Mayor for London or the GLA should be involved is where there are those London-wide issues? Also, do you think that this new approach would be able to heal the divide that has developed over the past eight years between inner and outer London boroughs and that outer London boroughs can expect...