• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

To continue to compare it to New York, one of the unfortunate comparisons with New York is emergency response. The London Emergency Services Liaison Panel consists of representatives from the Metropolitan Police, British Transport, the Fire Brigade, the Ambulance Service, local authorities, the Port of London Authority, the Marine Coastguard, the RAF and the military. The Metropolitan Police chair this service. They have produced an 80-page report, The Major Incidents Procedure Manual, and refer to other organisations, for example the Salvation Army, the British Red Cross, St John's Ambulance, WRBS, First Aid and utility companies. You are not mentioned on...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

452.

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

You and Bob Kiley, Commissioner of Transport for London, have called for more police on the London Underground from the British Transport Police (BTP). If you look within the three BTP commands, North, South and Underground, Underground actually has the largest number of officers and it has falling crime rates. It is those who travel on the overground railways that are causing increased crime rates. Why do you want to emphasise the Underground and take police away from the overland trains?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

Would the Mayor agree with me that Richard Barnes's question demonstrates that he and his colleagues have lost the plot, that really you cannot not support an increase in funds to pay for police and then, when that is passed and we have got more police in, continue to complain? You cannot be supportive of your leader's view that there should be a 20% reduction in public offending because that would clearly decimate the funding formula for police and other vital public sector workers. What does the Mayor think of the proposal that was seconded by Richard Barnes in terms...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

No doubt Londoners will watch your patience with interest. The comparative figures between 1991 and 2003 in police officer numbers is always an interesting one. If you actually do it by head of population, there were 239 Londoners per police officer in 1991 and there are 246 Londoners to a police officer in 2003. Whilst the absolute statistic you have is right, London is actually getting less policeman per head of population now that it did 10 years ago.

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

Are you aware that one of the reasons why the very welcome increase in the number of police officers are not actually being seen on the streets, particularly in Outer London boroughs, is because of the very high numbers that are still be abstracted for anti?terrorism and other duties in Central London? To give you an instance in my own borough, the average daily abstraction " the number of officers taken each day for duties elsewhere " is higher than the total number of officers that Sutton will receive throughout your term of office. That does have a rather negative...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

That brings us to an interesting thing because research shows that the fear of crime is not falling. If I look at what the populations in the other metropolitan districts pay rather than New York because, quite honestly, the Bronx and Staten Island do not mean a great deal to Londoners but Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester actually do. In the West Midlands, Birmingham, the precept per head of population is £17, in Greater Manchester it is £21, in Merseyside, Liverpool, it is £29 but in London it is £50. If we go up to your 35,000, which Sir John Stevens...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

What I have got is that you report to the Assembly that on 22 May, "I opened Our Lady of Grace Roman Catholic Primary School nature garden. I met with the Deputy Mayor and local residents to discuss the A406 Bounds Green on 22 May. I sent in my regular BBC monthly phone in on 22 May. Nothing else is reported. I am raising it with you as a matter of self-protection and transparency.

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

But making fairly rigid assumptions that trends are cyclical rather than structural, that does not suggest that that is `plan, monitor and manage'. You have got some fairly rigid assumptions.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 16 July 2003

The point arises that you thought fit to report the opening of a nature garden, a fairly insignificant but worthwhile issue. No doubt opening the underpass was a worthwhile thing as well but given the sensitivity of the issue that you chose to talk about, would it not have been a sensible and transparent thing to have reported to the Assembly your presence at that function, which was apparently supported by the developers?