• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

The Empty Homes Agency is very keen on this being introduced and the possibility being the need for a pan-London one rather than individual boroughs looking at this because otherwise it is just not going to work.

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

Mr Mayor, I would congratulate your media research team for spotting this statement on the website of the Hillingdon Times. I am sure it is not something which is normally brought to your attention.

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

I recognise what you are saying, Mr Mayor, having been a member of the MPA throughout those eight years. I recognise sometimes the pain that the MPS has gone through and I think tribute should be attributed to the MPA. When we first were formed I remember asking Sir John Stevens how many qualified accountants the Metropolitan Police Service employed to control its £3 billion budget and he said, 'Four'. Even a chip shop has an accountant! It seemed unbelievable that the Home Office had almost ignored the process once money had gone out. The £75 million you talk about...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

Mr Mayor, what a pity they did not read the next week's Hillingdon Times when they corrected the statement and did a proper and full interview. Let us not forget that we did support your Police budget only the other week; we have supported it in full.

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

I think I ask the questions and you answer them! We also recognise that there are, within the £3.8 billion budget, efficiencies that can be made. Indeed the Government demands them year on year. There were reorganisational restructuring savings which Sir Ian Blair proposed through the Budget process and consideration which could have been taken into account and which could have been used to provide more frontline services, which our particular budget did propose. Indeed, you do acknowledge that we suggested more frontline troops, particularly automatic number plate reading squads which is the most effective and efficient form of policing...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

Mr Mayor, we no doubt agree on 90% of the issues; it is recognising the 10% which we disagree on and where we have our fights. London is better for it.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

I was at the launch of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) Job Skills Futures Strategy yesterday and they said they had January figures which I think were even better than the ones you have quoted from. Given the potential for mischief in this area, is there a way that we can have these figures reported regularly and could we have it by gender and ethnicity? I am just fed up with all the mischief that is being made locally about this and local papers, who should know better, using inappropriate information.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

I do not believe the data will demonstrate how many Londoners are losing out specifically as opposed to UK citizens in general. You may remember I have questioned you before on the fact that there is a great deficit in Londoners actually getting employment. The LSC (Learning and Skills Council) when it came in to have lunch with us did admit that there was something like a 39% unemployment rate in London. You then said, when I questioned you about that, that that counts mothers at home with babies. I think that is the first time any government has wanted...

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

The incinerator, I think, comes to the end of its useful life in 2014. I take it that you will not be supporting any plans to renew or build any new incineration plants in London?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 February 2008

I am very concerned about the effect this latest round of post office closures will have in my patch. The last round they closed a post office in the Chadwell Heath area on the basis that there was another one nearby and they seemed to overlook the fact it was on the other side of the A12, which means that all my older people in that area have to go through a very dark, uninviting underpass to get to the post office, collect a large sum of cash and then walk back through the underpass as targets for criminality. In...