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

I suspect, Mr Ross, that you cannot commit the Mayor, or can you?

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

Mr Faulkner and panel, going back to your opening remarks, I very much concur with what you said, because it squares with my own personal experience. The businesses are prepared to invest in training of their staff when things are prosperous; when things are not so prosperous they cut back, and training is one of the first things to go. At the moment we have a situation in London where unemployment is rising, where the closure of small businesses, according to the VAT figures, is actually more than those businesses which are opening, so, we seem to be in a...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

Can I put that to the rest of the panel? Do you think that it would be useful if all GLA strategies were subject to a poverty impact assessment, and that we take a more across-the-board approach?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

Picking up on Kate (Green)'s point about more joined-up thinking on targets and so on, in linking with other strategies, in 2003 the GLA Consultation Tackling Poverty in London had a number of recommendations including the commitment to assess GLA policies and strategies for their contribution to poverty reduction and to produce an annual Poverty Monitoring Report on the success of GLA interventions. Can I ask John why these recommendations were not carried out?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

Certainly my perception is that the LSC has failed to encourage a breadth of skills training, and that's why we have this deficit in the building trade. Joiners, plumbers, they are all Europeans coming in and filling these jobs, and the indigenous population in young people leaving schools are not getting a chance because they do not have the skills and there is somehow no way that they can get the training. So, I am afraid, this is very true and I see this all the time in my constituencies. There is, actually, a wonderful life for people who have...

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

I concur with your experience, Bishop, about the work of faith groups within the community, and I have seen some excellent, proactive work done by faith groups. However, there does seem to me to be a gap, and I wonder if my anecdotal experience is confirmed by your broader experience, that even some of the most energetic and creative churches, and, indeed, mosques, where they are falling over themselves with political visitors, nonetheless find that, when it comes to cutting the deal, and getting some cash resources from the local state, or the state generally, the resource isn't coming into...

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

So, do you think that there is much more potential for the faith sector to address problems, and help the most extremely poor communities to move on, if they had more support from the state.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

Isn't that precisely the point that I have been making: that you are sitting there waiting for the poor to come to you, rather than' Brian Coleman (Chairman): I do not quite think that that is what the Bishop said at all, Mr Arbour, to intervene on his behalf. The Bishop can explain himself.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

Is being more effective you going out and knocking on people's doors, saying: `You are poor. You need help from us. You need our charity'?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 19 July 2006

Bishop, I wonder if you think that the function of the church ought to be more proactive? Things you have just been talking about; advice groups and playgroups and all of that kind of thing, is that that people all come to you, ought you not to be going to the people?