• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

Can I give you another question? Can you tell me how much of the £300 million for elite sport is going to be spent on disability sport? Do you know the answer to that?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

Sorry, with great respect, it is our job to ask you questions and it is your job to answer them. Can I ask you another?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

I think that that is quite concerning; I know that disability sport is something that you feel passionately about. I really do think that you ought to better briefed on that because it worries me if you as a member of the Olympic board do not know where this money is coming from. Is there a black hole?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

It is not out of the LOCOG budget. The LOCOG budget has got £90 million, of which £45 million is coming from sponsorship and tickets, and the other £45 million is coming from the public sector funding package. What I want to know is: is that £45 million coming out of the £2.075 billion that Mr Higgins has got, or thinks he has, or is it coming out of the £300 million for elite sport?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

I want to know where the £45 million is coming from. Are you saying that the £45 million is part of David Higgins' £2.075 billion? That is the question.

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

): I understand that; that is not the point. I am becoming concerned about the funding for the Paralympics because it seems to me there is an element of double counting. When David Higgins (Chief Executive, Olympic Delivery Agency) was here last week, he was very clear about what he thought his funding package was for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) to build the Olympics. He talked about the £2.375 billion, less £300 million for elite sport. He did not mention anything else that he would lose from that budget, [such as] £45 million for Paralympics. Either, as I see...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

You clearly need to be held to account for this. Would you agree with me then, Mayor, that the right way of looking at this issue is that the Olympics are an opportunity for London to make a step change in which we facilitate access to sports for disabled people, and that the approach is one which, as people often say a social model which says that a disability is to a great extent created by the society that creates obstacles, than it is a disability held by the person who has that impediment?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

The question in my mind is that while Dee Doocey is, I think, somewhat premature in accusing you of betrayal before a single brick of an Olympic facility has actually been laid, would you agree with me that this is an important subject? I spent a bit of time in Barcelona the other week looking at their Olympic legacy work and the way in which they have integrated disabled sports into the Olympic legacy. The way in which the Olympic Institute, which is going to be part of the legacy of the Olympics, is built is pretty critical. Would you...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

That is not in doubt. It is the £45 million I want you to concentrate on, please.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

Is the real point not what we actually heard from Mr Higgins, who I may say gave an excellent response to our questions; I think we were all very impressed with him the other day when he came. It was not that he is going to be held to the £2.3-odd billion. I think Ms Doocey slightly misread him. What he said was that figure was now historic, and that actually he would not be prepared to put a figure on what he might be prepared to spend on the Olympics, and indeed was still at the stage of working...