• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

That will remain so - should you be re-elected as Mayor -throughout the future Mayoralty?

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

It is a firm, unequivocal commitment, not an 'aspiration'?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

Sorry, but you are not because the interim report was a complete waste of time. The only recommendation that was worth the paper it was written on was the one about protecting models who are under 16, which I think is good and I welcome it, and the rest of it is a waste of time. The fact is that you cannot get away from the fact that you have a duty to the health of Londoners, and you cannot just say, 'I will put that duty to look after the health of Londoners to one side when it suits...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

Let me tell you a couple of gems of recommendations in the interim report. One is that there should be an education awareness campaign, but probably the pièce de resistance is there should be a campaign to encourage designers to embrace a healthy image. Anyone who has ever worked with designers will tell you that they are almost obsessed with showing their garments on models who look like coat hangers, on the basis that they believe that this shows off the garments to perfection. The idea of their stone hearts being melted by a campaign in the press to encourage...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

The final point I want to make is that I think we need to be aware that when the LDA come to this chamber and give promises, frankly it is just an off-the-cuff reaction and it is absolutely not worth anything, and when you have a duty to protect the health of Londoners you will put it to one side when it suits your purposes.

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

What the LDA is responsible for now is exactly the same as what the LDA was responsible for on the 11 October 2006, when Mary Reilly (Chair of the London Development Agency) came to this Chamber and gave us a categorical assurance ' I can read the verbatim report if you wish ' saying that she was going to withhold funding from London Fashion Week unless and until they followed the examples set by Madrid and Milan. The point is that the LDA have reneged on their promise that they gave to this Assembly, and I would like you to...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

It is not just about the young models. It is about young women who are being led in a fashion that has got a number of long-term consequences. We cannot have it both ways; we either do not put a lot of money in so it does not really matter when we have not got much influence and those are the issues ' and I do take the dilemma that you are in seriously, Mr Mayor, about being a world class city and support to the industry. However, unless you make a stance similar to the one you are making...

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

I am not sure if you have pored over the Milan and Madrid websites of the fashion weeks recently. I have done so in the interests of this debate and essentially what Mary Reilly said is in fact what has happened, because Madrid and Milan, if you are looking for a certain BMI or certain models that are rated to be too skinny; they are all still there. The reality is this is very difficult to enforce; in fact even the under-16 rule is going to be very difficult to enforce for a lot of reasons. They do not know...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

Does that mean that the Prime Minister is going to amend the Department for Transport's budget so that it includes an extra sum for the Metronet failure, rather than expecting to take it out of what was going to be spent on vital projects for London otherwise?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

Well it seemed alright in the first couple of years that you were Mayor before you went back to the Labour Party. Why is it not going to work now?