• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

These families are generally led by women; I wondered how significant you thought the gender pay-gap in London was, which is increasing - widening - here, whereas it isn't in the rest of the country. I understand that the most typical job for a woman here is paid at £5.30 an hour, whereas the most typical job for a man is paid at £17.50 an hour.

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

I think you used the phrase `extremely excluded', and I would be interested to hear what disaggregated information there is about the people in poverty that we are talking about, because my experience has been that there are some people in our communities, some communities in fact, which are so extremely poor and excluded that I am not sure that the state is even capable of inter-meshing with the levels of poverty that they are experiencing. For example, there are members of the Somalian community in London, of whom probably more than 75% are unemployed, who cannot afford to dress...

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

Can I just come in and ask Mr Ross whether the Mayor has done any work on this? Has the Greater London Authority done any work on this?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

I appreciate that the widely used definition of the poverty line is 60% of the median income. How was that originally arrived at, and is that an absolutely fixed definition?

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

Mr Faulkner, has the minimum wage helped or hindered in your view?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 14 June 2006

So how do you know they are going to be recruiting staff in London rather than going, say, to Eastern Europe to be recruiting people?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 14 June 2006

In fact, I think you mentioned that you are letting remediation contracts tomorrow, so there are already some very big, high level contracts going out, and this is in advance of the setting up of the business club. We heard, I think, from the Chamber of Commerce last October that from their research businesses do consider that there is a serious lack of information currently available. How have things moved on from there, and how are small and medium sized enterprises in London going to be benefiting from subcontracting, from the contracts that are going to be let in the...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 14 June 2006

Have you set targets to monitor against?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 14 June 2006

Thank you, and welcome David. We wish you well in a very difficult job. Of course, many of the Members around the room here represent boroughs outside of the immediate five around the site where there are, actually, very high levels of unemployment. We are interested in access to employment for Londoners and, in particular, unemployed Londoners. You mentioned that you were going to encourage contractors to recruit smaller contractors within London. Obviously I think many of the small and medium sized enterprises in London tend to be the ones that employ people who live in London. There will be...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 14 June 2006

So the budget you are working to is as per the Bid Book?