• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

I think we are going to be able to explore all of that. We have given you a long opportunity for a publicity stunt! Can I first of all congratulate the person who wrote this report; I think it was Alan Benson (Head of Housing and Homelessness, GLA). It is an extremely readable report, but probably it is readable because the plot is a work of fiction. We take the view that the central targets, contrary to what you have said, are unlikely to be met. We say this because of your track record. There has only been one year...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

I have not got time to get into an argument with you so I would just like to ask you a question if that is all right. I know that sales of social housing have fallen this year and there was actually an increase in the number of social housing, but it is always like a leaky pot, isn't it: as fast as you build the social housing there is the right to buy process, and so you are losing those houses? Doesn't the Mayor have any powers to remove the right to buy on new social building?

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

So why have you set such a low limit? Why not 25% or 30%?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

We are referring to the programmes which the boroughs have already subscribed to, which was not the 50% target. I need only refer you to those boroughs which said that they did not want 50% - that said they wanted 40% - and those boroughs provided, in their 40%, infinitely more houses than the total. I merely refer you to a borough like Richmond which produced 300% more than the target.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Why do not you simply address yourself to last year's figure, which was the only year where the Mayor reached his target.

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Before we move on to the next question I wonder if I could just ask you this: you have referred, Neale and David, to the relatively short time period covered by the Strategy. Leaving aside issues of the outcomes of elections and so on, what is anticipated in terms of roll forward of the Strategy, revision after it has been adopted and when a new one would come, or a revised one would come, onto the stocks to take us beyond 2011?

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Why then has the Mayor opposed, for example, what Wandsworth has been doing to bring back empty homes into the housing market?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Does that mean that the figures that you previously published, for all the previous years, were made up?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Well it has failed. It has failed, hasn't it?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 10 November 2007

I have a couple of specific questions; maybe I will cover them all together. First of all, is it just going to be for two years and will you ensure that the additional money will go to those schemes, many of which are working very successfully, rather than try to reinvent the wheel with trying to identify other schemes? Will young people decide how the offer money is going to be spent, and can you confirm that the targeted offer will be distributed to small groups with multiple needs?