• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 14 September 2005

Appointing someone who has clear links ' and nothing wrong with it, in itself ' to organisations like Socialist Action, the Socialist Campaign Group ' these are highly partisan areas. The ESF was criticised for being highly partisan. You might well want to do it, but why not go through a merit test, rather than do it by single tender, again, to make sure there was no political favouritism?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 14 September 2005

Is the Mayor aware that there is, in fact, a cross-party audit panel of the London Assembly, and there is a full programme of internal audit, which happens to be conducted by an external company, and an external audit programme, and that that audit panel and those auditors have consistently found good quality, good practices, and consistently high standards of probity within the GLA? Does the Mayor think that if any Member of this Assembly had any serious concerns about a matter of probity within the GLA's expenditure that they ought to make that complaint and that information available to...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 14 September 2005

Is not the key thing here, I am sure we would all agree, not only that everything is above board ' and I am not suggesting otherwise ' but that it is seen to be above board?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 14 September 2005

You see, that is the problem. You promised the most transparent form of administration that this country had ever seen when you were first elected as Mayor. What we have, on any view, is a situation where your senior policy adviser in that field is, in effect, promoting a Mayor's decision ' he is the officer who is responsible for bringing it forward, in other words ' which involves the grant of £100,000 of public money to the organisation which he happened to work for, until he became your senior policy adviser when you were first elected and which, by...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 14 September 2005

Nobody in your office would have had an inkling? I understand your point there. The issue is that your office ' we have established in previous scrutinies ' had very deep involvement in the organisation of the ESF. That is the rub. Given that your office knew of the members of the ESF organising committee, why not then just be cautious? That is all I am saying.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 14 September 2005

Given that this person was a member of the European Social Forum (ESF) organising committee ' the organisation which had generated enormous controversy ' do you think it wise to go through a single tender process when awarding a contract to someone who had been connected with such a controversial event?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 14 September 2005

Okay, well, I want to ask you about your job as emperor of this grant empire. Do you think you are likely to remember a specific grant?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 14 September 2005

Can you not give me a global figure? Is it 100? Is it 1,000? Is it 10,000?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 14 September 2005

I am pleased to hear you say this, because, of course, he is the policy adviser on grants to organisations of this kind. Can I draw your attention, please, to their website. When you agreed, with the assistance of your adviser, to give these people an additional grant, they were putting on their website the following statement: `Act now. Blink' ' which is what they call their website ' `is urging its readers to support Ken Livingstone by lobbying the Standards Board for England.' Would you not say that was porkbarrelling of the worst kind? You give them money, so...

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 14 September 2005

How could we pursue manufacturers of cars and have them taking some responsibilities? It is always clear to me what types of cars they are, and maybe that is the way to go in the long term, rather than trying to expect the public sector always to pick up the burden on this front.