• Question by: Alex Wilson
• Meeting date: 20 March 2025

Alex Wilson AM: Thank you, Chair. Mr Mayor, I would like to ask a fairly straightforward question: is the chant “from the River to the Sea” antisemitic?

• Question by: Alessandro Georgiou
• Meeting date: 20 March 2025

Alessandro Georgiou AM: Mr Mayor, you have had to apologise for what many have deemed a non-violent faith-based hate crime incident. How can Londoners trust you to move forward with this issue?

• Question by: Unmesh Desai
• Meeting date: 20 March 2025

Unmesh Desai AM: Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, as you already mentioned, Tower Hamlets Council has twice rejected this planning application. My own personal position was right from the beginning I opposed it as well on planning grounds, not political grounds. The police previously objected to the application because of concerns relating to protests at the site and the impact this would have on both police resources and the need for road closures, which would cause transport challenges in the local area. Since 2019, there have been 37 protests against the Chinese Government in London and...

• Question by: Krupesh Hirani
• Meeting date: 20 March 2025

Krupesh Hirani AM: Thank you, Chair. Mr Mayor, the Conservative Group proposed a series of reckless cuts in the Budget process that would have decimated TfL’s Budget and staffing levels. What impact would this have had on TfL’s ability to deliver a safe transport service across London and also for Londoners to get around the city?

• Question by: Emma Best
• Meeting date: 20 March 2025

Emma Best AM: Thank you. Mr Mayor, one saving you have settled on is cutting a service that was clearly working for Londoners, The Cyber Helpline, which assists victims of fraud, cyber stalking, revenge porn, to rebuild and protect their digital identity. This service also has an investigative arm which is used by MPS officers every day and has led to the reopening of closed cases. It was only last week [at the Police and Crime Committee meeting on 12 March 2025] that Jain Lemom, the Head of Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) [at MOPAC], said there was...

• Question by: Zoë Garbett
• Meeting date: 20 March 2025

Zoë Garbett AM: Thank you, Chair. I am really concerned about your Growth Plan and how it will benefit many Londoners. Some of the maths is quite questionable. I wanted to just raise my concerns; London has been open to overseas investment for decades and what it has resulted in is increasing house prices, increasing rent, land banking, speculation, 300,000 homes that have not been built that have planning permission. We are seeing the city emptying out of nurses and children and teachers. In November [2024], an economist from King’s College wrote a paper on the UK housing market and...

• Question by: Alessandro Georgiou
• Meeting date: 20 March 2025

Alessandro Georgiou AM: Thank you, Chair, and good morning, Mr Mayor. I hope you and your family are well. As has been explored from the questioning between you and Assembly Member Small-Edwards, your Growth Plan is entirely contingent on what happens with the Government. Therefore, Mr Mayor, the decisions taken by [The Rt Hon] Rachel [Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer] “from accounts” last year now means that next week’s Spring Statement [26 March 2025] has become an emergency budget, with the Chancellor scrabbling round to find billions of pounds to balance the books. Your Labour Government promised one fiscal event...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 20 March 2025

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair): I do not know how you can take it seriously, sitting in this meeting and listening to someone who rubbished your attempts to talk to manufacturers about trying to do the best thing by stopping mobile phone thefts, disconnecting [stolen mobile phones], all those issues, and it was rubbished and poo-pooed that it was not good enough. Do you accept, Mr Mayor, that the MPS’s mission is to tackle crime in all its forms, it does not have to be specifically in plans, but it is there that the mission is to deal with all...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 20 March 2025

Len Duvall AM (Deputy Chair): This relates to a release of information about the operational planning associated with the former Her Majesty the Queen’s funeral. In that planning, people would welcome that information to cause harm if they could have access to that detail. I am not sure why a political group on the Assembly would support that, in terms of putting in jeopardy future planning operations with [protocols] which were used in the past, and that would be used in the future. What would that be about? This is not about the central premise that was raised about the...

• Question by: Emma Best
• Meeting date: 20 March 2025

Emma Best AM: Thank you, Mr Mayor. You will be aware there is significant concern over why you accepted free VIP Taylor Swift tickets from a company - at the time that it offered you those tickets - that was tendering for business at the [GLA], business that it went on to win. Journalists have submitted FOI requests around those documents relating to the decision-making around that process, which were rejected on grounds of national security. Are you really sitting there now and asking Londoners to believe that information relating to why you went to see Taylor Swift is an...