• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

Also, after the first ESF UK Assembly held in City Hall in December, Redmond O'Neill, your Policy Director, was quoted as saying 'The GLA could give substantial support.' That would not be £0.5 million - substantial, but not £0.5 million. Is that correct?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

Forget about the Wombles.

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

But surely then, Mayor, the logical recommendation to the MPA, to LFEPA, to TfL, is simply to say, if this is not a levy, to withdraw in this way and to pay for the advertising and to pay for the pages, and surely that is something we should all recommend.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

So, you will not mind if Lord Tope here recommends to the Finance Committee that, actually, it cannot afford this increase to The Londoner. You will not mind that - you will realise that that is a prudent saving that we must make in order to try and get down to your 2.5% increase.

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

We are talking about millions of pounds of taxpayers' money

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

Well, £3 million is £3 million, shifting from one part of the family to another, and often masquerading as income. It is not income, and if these huge sums are not a levy, then how come, on the basis of the limited figures supplied to us, the statutory bodies like the MPA, like LFEPA, like TfL, are paying anything up to £40,000 a page for the advertising, whereas, on the basis of figures supplied to me last night, the commercial advertisers, including people who have a lot of dealings with the GLA in other areas, are only paying £4,000. So...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

It certainly looks like that, and I asked this question at the Standards Committee. So, you are levying this in advance from the functional bodies, and you have asked the MPA - although you have pegged their increase for the next financial year to 2.5% - for something like an 11% increase towards The Londoner. You have increased it by 100%, from the original £125,000 to, hopefully, what you hope to get out of them, this next amount of £250,000. If you were just levying a set fee to them in advance, that is, in fact, a levy, which actually...

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

The issue of fireworks and the use of fireworks has grown quite dramatically over the past few years, as we have had community festivals, quite rightly, celebrated, and now we are in a position whereby fireworks run from September through to January, almost continuously. What I am seeking is, are we going to do any form of information or promotion of the responsible use of fireworks, particularly in areas where there are high ethnic minority populations who have a wide range of type of community activities, in cooperation with boroughs.

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

I think that, for most Londoners, the issue of the sale of fireworks, in particular, would be the key concern: the huge Chinese firecracker type environments that are not properly regulated, and the sale in one part of London and the use in another is, of course, of concern, which is a matter of wider London issues rather than just a borough based issue.

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 20 October 2004

Are you going to be lobbying for an amendment to the Fireworks Act, to actually achieve that objective?