• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Has it not struck you that there may be people outside this building who are right and you might be wrong?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Are you prepared to have a discussion with the Labour administration in Brent, which you once represented in Parliament, who express the view that the GLA should agree to an increase close to the rate of inflation, and certainly not above 5%?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

For the first time this year there has been a budget and environment process which looks at the way the GLA group meets your objectives through its business planning and its budgets. There has also been a helpful scrutiny looking at the way objectives are met for the GLA group, but the function of the Core GLA in monitoring and making sure that happens is very important. I just want to relate this to the Annual Survey. The Annual Survey this year included climate change for the first time and I noticed that air quality, pollution and climate change were...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Will you be telling Mayor (Steve) Bullock of Lewisham that he is talking through the back of his head when he says that any precept increase in excess of 5% is unacceptable?

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

That would apply across the board, not just to Assembly members, but presumably to outsiders. That does not validate the Assembly, or what we do, or our role in anything to do with London. I think the core I am getting at is that surely if you look at the LDA, with its enormous budget, it is effectively a form of unaccountable top-down government, masquerading as devolution.

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Can you tell us how much of the proposed precept is to go on enhanced policing?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Will you similarly raise the appropriate digits to Croydon and Ealing, who have both said that the increases should be within 5%?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Therefore, you are not prepared to accept the views of those Labour local authorities who have specifically requested that the precept level be under 5%?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Are you prepared to undertake that your final budget will be less than 5% in terms of its precept increase?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 26 January 2005

Given that the figures we have been given are 12% and 15% respectively, is that something you are prepared to look at jointly with the Assembly to see if there is scope for greater efficiency in delivering the GLA core services?