• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

From the Liberal Democrat perspective and from the few short months that I have been here, I have repeatedly raised housing and said that housing is a Mayoral responsibility. But I feel that this particular topic is one that ought to have been addressed. Another thing that the Crisis survey found was that women and people from certain minority ethnic groups are more likely to be staying with family and friends, sleeping on sofas and so forth and therefore if there is a problem with that group of people, getting them into the system, then actually there is a sort...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Indeed the Crisis sample showed that only 15% of the people they identified actually made it to be recognised as homeless, partly because, in terms of statutory definitions, people are tightening up these definitions, exactly as you said. Surely, given that you accept this is a major problem and given that you highlighted it as one of the key themes, is it not therefore disappointing that you are only now getting round to doing a survey to actually quantify the extent. I have been looking, I just looked yesterday, at the GLA website What is the Mayor Doing About Homelessness...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Did you see a piece of work that Crisis did and published about 10 days ago, Your Place, Not Mine, where based on a sample they found that fewer than half of the homeless people in London who have been staying on people's sofas, just as you described it, fewer than half of those actually approached the local authority to explore housing options. Do we not have a problem, getting the message out to people who everybody accepts are homeless or sleeping on people's sofas and so forth, getting them into the system so they can be assessed?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Could you work with the boroughs to push that forward?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

By squatters?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Empty properties - do you think local authorities should be making more use of compulsory purchase to deal with the problem of empty properties and can you play a role as Mayor in pushing that forward?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

The £200,000 is that the maximum cost that will be spent on actually hosting the celebrations, as opposed to the transport and policing costs or will other public money be coming from the other functional bodies to host the celebrations?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

So, was that in the budgets or where has that money come from, that £1.7 million?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

We will all hope that nothing terrible happens, but I have to say, to be barely a month away, one month and whatever it is, four or five days, and not have a safety plan in place and agreed, is a concern. In terms of the money, the LDA £1.8 million is presumably coming out of the promotional funds that we already know about. Where is the TfL £1.7 million coming from? Is that to keep the tubes running through the night?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

No, it is very useful to have both because that is an awful lot of money to be spending on policing, transport and promotion if we do not have some of the basics in place, like a safety plan, because that was always the concern about New Year's Eve. From our side we have very much supported having a major set of events around that time, although obviously not all congregated around midnight in Trafalgar Square. Our concern is that despite repeated efforts from the Assembly side I think Eric (Ollerenshaw) chaired a scrutiny in the early days around New...