• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

It says `Commissioned by the Mayor of London' and you were the Mayor of London and, therefore, you commissioned the report. It has your foreword in the front of it. In fact, following the Press Complaints Commission's ruling, the Daily Express remains top of the list of offenders and has increased its incidence of offending, as has the Daily Star. Both of the Richmond Desmond newspapers have increased their use of the phrase `illegal asylum seeker' since the Press Complaints Commission ruling. Can I please repeat to you Graham Tope's question? Will you now write to Richard Desmond expressly '...

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

Yes, I was aware that Sir Michael Lyons had met various members of staff working for the GLA and for the functional bodies. Can I ask you about the exercise that has just started on revaluation? In your answer to Andrew Pelling's question, you said you would be lobbying to protect London's overall position. You have said so publicly, so I know that you agree with the Liberal Democrat policy that local income tax is a fairer way of raising tax for local purposes because it is related to ability to pay. Do you not think that going ahead with...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I can understand where you are coming from on regional/strategic government, but are you saying that local income tax is unworkable for London local government, and does that then imply it would have to be re-organised if it were to be successful?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

However, it is possible to believe the ALG when they say that the prospect is £320 million worth of transfer out of London, is it not?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I take that as an agreement to my first point about unfairness, but what about lobbying the Government about protecting London's overall position on the revaluation?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I am rather surprised that you have made such light of this because my understanding of revaluation is that it is entirely possible in areas where house prices have gone up, very much since 1991, that the likely outcome of the revaluation is that those houses are going to move up two bands, not one band. Therefore, I do not know why you think that it will not be a major problem, because we are talking about figures of between £360 and, speaking from memory, about £580 a year for families. I think that is grossly unfair because people's houses...

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I thought you said that you had been very straightforward with the electorate and that you were an old-fashioned socialist who believed in redistribution through the tax system. What do you feel is the maximum that people who are currently in band D tax homes could afford to pay?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

Obviously, that is what you would have to push. You have a predilection to increase taxes in any case.

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

In some ways, is that not the next logical step for those who support local income tax, that, if it was ever introduced, should not we then be collecting it on behalf of our colleagues in local government and we would become the collecting body rather than local authorities? Furthermore, it is the wrong word, but the constitutional balance of local government has changed, has it not, about setting rates and collecting issues?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 06 April 2005

I will roll my later question (730/2005, Council Tax re-banding exercise: Considering the huge discrepancy in property prices between London and other parts of England, what will you do to ensure that the Government and Valuation Office Agency set a reasonable Council Tax re-banding level for London?) into this one so you do not have to come back to it later on. Have you met with any Government Minister to discuss the likely damaging effects of the re-banding on Londoners? Will you also look to lobby for an expansion of the bands from the current seven to nine, and have...