• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

The GLA has just recently carried out a pretty thorough best-value review of equalities for all. But when you look at the recommendations in the improvement plan, it says the GLA group adopts six high-level equality categories for service and employment purposes, Gender, Race, Sexuality, Disability, Age and Faith. There are a lot of people on low incomes, disadvantaged people, who are not covered by any of those six categories. And I wonder why they have been left out? Why, poor, white, working class men have been left out of the equalities approach of the GLA?

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

I just want to come back to the target issue, because I think that although the London Plan is a very redistributive document, and one of its main objectives is tackling social inclusion, and tackling deprivation and discrimination> There are not any targets relating to poverty. That is why I wanted the others to come in, because I think you could be putting some targets around fuel poverty, we could be putting targets in on other poverty fronts. That is something I want us to consider in the conversation. That is why I am asking about that.

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

Just very quickly your analysis of people at the bottom end of Hackney is wrong. They all have cars. It is packed with cars. A lot of them are actually the white van drivers, and in all this, they are the ones who are going to be directly hit. I am just really asking, what is the point in you mouthing about a Poverty strategy when you haven't analysed the actual strategies you have got in terms of their impact on jobs in the poorest part of London?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

Am I right, Mr Mayor, that actually you appointed the Deputy Mayor, Nicky Gavron, to produce the London Plan, who is now asking why isn't poverty in it? Is this some new discovery she has made, in terms of a mayoral ambition, about the poor in London? More importantly in terms of some of the things you mentioned, yes, we all agree about the LDA, but is it not a real problem in terms of regeneration that we cannot yet measure the impact of that spend in terms of what it is doing? Is it actually displacing people, or is...

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

You said that you would take some persuading to favour any expansion or a new runway at Heathrow. Can I suggest that you go further than that and actually oppose any expansion at Heathrow, given the comments of Inspector in the T5 Inquiry? He said that the evidence he had demonstrated that a third main runway at Heathrow would have such severe and widespread impacts on the environment as to be totally unacceptable, and he put a limit on flight numbers. We all know the issues of noise and pollution, ground access and so on.

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

Who will make the final decision about what goes in the consultative response from the GLA family to Government?

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

How are you going to coordinate the response of the GLA family to the Government's study on airports, because on the one hand you have, in the air quality strategy, noise strategy and the energy strategy, a lot of concern expressed about the environmental impact of aviation, but on the other hand, we have the public section of the report to the LDA Board in June which is very pro-airport expansion. How are you going to bring these two sides of the argument together?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

I agree with you on that but why does the London Plan continue to support policies for an unsustainable level of demand for air traffic?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

The London Plan talks about minimising the negative environmental impacts of runway extensions and new airports. How practically can we do this? Are we going to be looking at zero emission aircraft? Is that minimising the negative environmental impact? Are we talking about runways that can be rolled up and put in a cupboard at the end of the day?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

Do you honestly believe that the current growth in air traffic in London is sustainable?