• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

Roger Evans (AM): Excellent. Good. It sounds like it was a fortuitous question. Can I prevail on you as well about Gants Hill Station? Obviously since the Metronet collapse a lot of the station refurbishments got put back and we are concerned about the Gants Hill Station refurbishment being put back. You visited there during the campaign and you saw the condition of the area and the efforts the council and local traders are making to really make it a good place to live and work. We do not want to be held up because the station has been delayed...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

First of all, thank you for your intervention and can you please thank Kulveer Ranger, your Director of Transport, who took this up and got an extremely detailed and very positive response from Transport for London Streets. Since then I have to say there has been a meeting of the local business partnership on 13 June. Their minutes state that the members of the partnership were most complimentary about the pace of work, the quality of the crew, the revised working schedules and the overall appearance and control of the site, which they certainly were not before you intervened. So...

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

I take it this is with immediate effect? Presumably when you were out looking for the illegal mini cabs you may also have talked to some members of the public, including particularly women, who are really scared by the presence of illegal mini cab touts and by the sort of activities that often go on?

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

I am pleased very much that you have made this link between the illegal mini cabs and violence against women. I know last week you went out in a cab with the Chief Executive of Croydon's Rape Crisis Centre, Yvonne Traynor , and I know you visited the Centre which is, shamefully, the only centre in London which deals with rape victims. Also, connected to that - and I am pleased with your commitment to extend the number of rape crisis centres to four throughout London - I would like to draw your attention in Croydon to the Domestic Violence...

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

First off, Mayor Boris, I would like to thank you for taking the race out of Rise. However, I would have liked to have seen the £300,000 go to St George's Day rather than to Rise, but that is neither here nor there. On to the question, thank you. It is my time, as the Chair has said. With regard to mini cab drivers I have two points. It is fascinating that 60% of illegal mini cab drivers are actually immigrants. I wonder what impact that has on other peoples' comments. I would like to put more emphasis upon the...

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 18 June 2008

Mr Mayor, can you update us on the registration of private hire vehicles from the Public Carriage Office? I know the previous Mayor had spent a lot of time and effort on that front. I know all the vehicles have been registered but we had not quite got to the registration of all the drivers. I do think this actually deals with the issue that is in front of us right now. This is something the Public Carriage Office has been undertaking for some time. They have registered all the vehicles which are private hire vehicles. They should be at...

• 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.