• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

My house only got one, so I don't know what that says about my part of south London. Although I have to say I know it arrived, because I saw it in our recycling bin. My four-year-old is trained to take all the junk that comes through the door and put it straight in Lambeth's very excellent recycling scheme. The serious question is that, as I understand it, this is only going to 2.9 million households, which is less than the total number in the Greater London area. How have those been selected? What is the targeting strategy?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

I saw splashed all over The Londoner this offer for vouchers for trips to London Zoo. I did ask you some questions about what level of money was being allocated at a previous Mayor's Question Time. Can you confirm that £372,000 is being spent on funding these trips to the Zoo, free vouchers for the Zoo, whilst only £51,000 is only being spent on actual hands-on biodiversity work. I fully admit that trips to the Zoo was one of the 72 pledges within your biodiversity strategy, but to spend £370,000 on one of the proposals, with only another £51,000 for...

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

Well, indeed Barnet has completely radically overhauled, since we took over in May, our publication, but what we put through is a genuine public information exercise. And indeed it contains only photographs of two Members of the Council. One was me and one was the leader. Despite pressure from other members to have their photographs in it, all the public relations professional advice is, that you do not shove photos of yourself on the literature through doors, because people just take not a blind bit of notice. And what we have been determined in Barnet, and what I wonder where...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

What priority will be given by the LDA to funding training for that staff, and in particular the substantial non-clinical health workforce that's going to be needed to service that population?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

: I think the concern is when you look at the allocations of housing development, the sites and so on, in the areas where growth is going to be, the Plan is extraordinarily thin, upon what steps will be taken to ensure that the Health Service infrastructure that's required is there; where the hospitals will be built, where the GP clinics will be placed, and there seems to be nothing at the moment to indicate what supplementary planning guidance will be given to assist in the development of integrated Health Service provision, within those new housing developments.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

I take it you include the Learning & Skills Councils.

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

As a matter of design, if you like, and seeing the problems that we all see for sole practitioners, sole GPs, now. The way seems to be, though I am not an expert, for health centres and for combined facilities. You talked about shining examples, one shining example which I know, is the Bromley-by-Bow centre, and I think actually Members of the Assembly have visited it. That's got a health centre which is operating alongside other community facilities. Is this something which could be -- how to achieve this could be put onto the agenda of the Architecture and Urbanism...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

Mr Mayor, I have lots of humility, because in fact Wandsworth has excellent, excellent social housing, as you well know. Millions of pounds put into our social housing. Unfortunately other local authorities have not done that. Now, stop looking back and look forward! You, as Mayor of London, can do something to force these local authorities to improve their social housing. I read recently that still something like 100,000 empty homes, some of them in the private rented sector I admit, but a lot of them still in local authority social housing. And you can do something about that.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

The NHS, as you know, is the largest employer in the country; particularly in London, the largest employer of all sorts of skilled workforce. But damp and crowded housing conditions, particularly in the East End, have contributed greatly to the increase of certain communicative diseases, and we will be highlighting that in our scrutiny in Access in Primary Care. But what you can do, I think, is to talk to these inefficient local authorities, mostly Labour and one Liberal, who have the most appalling social housing conditions and allow this to remain, so that we have the spread of TB...

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 November 2002

In answer to Bob Neill, you said that the population figures had only recently become clear, but I think it's been clear for quite a long time, that we're losing GPs, particularly from inner London. Did you talk to the health authorities about trends, in order address the needs, either within different areas of London, or the type of practice that the health authorities think might be the way for the future?