• 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?

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

You seemed to be suggesting at your press conference yesterday that you were being offered either Crossrail or a bail out on Metronet from the Government, at least that is the way that the journalists who saw your performance interpreted it, and Londoners are quite worried about that. Could you clarify that for us now?

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

Well it sounds to me, and it sounds to Londoners, as if we are going to have to do without some of the vital transport projects in the city, potentially Crossrail, because the money will be used to bail out Metronet, to pay Gordon Brown's bill instead of paying for developments that London needs. We need you to stand up for Londoners and to present the case to the Government, now will you undertake to do that and to be robust? Some support for the Labour group in this would be helpful as well!

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

It should not constrain your approach. How much are you asking the Government for?