• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Does the Mayor share my huge disappointment at the state into which the Linford Christie Stadium in Hammersmith has been allowed to fall? This is a stadium which was intended, apart from anything else, as a very important sporting facility for young people in West and Northwest London. What sort of message does that send out, allowing it to get into the sort of unusable state that it's in at the moment?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

I welcome that because I've been trying to get some of that off the ground and it seems to have not got too far. Finally, about 18 months ago you said, in answer to a question from Nicky, that you wanted to establish a children's fund to allow children to bid for small sums to enable them to develop out of school activities. Partnership is the obvious way forward here and the boroughs mostly have pupil parliaments, youth forums and so on and they, I'm sure, would be very keen to be involved. So what progress have you made?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Thank you. Without wanting to suggest that that's not important, just going back to the question of involvement in the political process, one of the things that I had hoped that we might be able to do was - perhaps with less expenditure at least - emulate the example of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly which have quite substantial education programmes. I think the Scottish Parliament actually employs two teachers. I wouldn't suggest that sort of expenditure, but could we have your personal backing to programmes to make sure that the work of the GLA is publicised, material...

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Well, two things on involvement which are more general and will tie in with your own approach to involvement of citizens of all ages. One is the use of the website. I know you've said that you want to see the website used more to reach young people and it's certainly much better, so the first question is, how is it being used to reach young people? The second is that you've said that you want to create structures and processes which involve young people and help them speak for themselves. Again, what has been achieved, what's being done in...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

You might like to pass back to your friends on the Labour council in Hammersmith and Fulham that all sorts of other youth sporting groups have been desperately trying to get some answers from the Council and they normally don't get their calls or their letters answered. So, perhaps you'd like to pass back that there's a lot of anger out there and people want to see something done.

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

We would all like to see it in place, but also of course also make sure that the consultation period isn't curtailed as a result of that. Can I, on that basis, go onto ask you about stakeholders? I think there is a young people's stakeholder group. Can you tell us how often it meets, what it's been able to do and whether it's contributed to the work on the Children's Strategy?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Thank you. That's very interesting. I'm sure we'll follow up on some of that in detail on other occasions. Can I ask you about the Children's Strategy first of all and the timetable for it? I understand that's you've recently told the Assembly that it will go out to consultation in September. Oddly, the Annual Report, which mentions it in a couple of places, doesn't list it as one of your forthcoming strategies. I'm sure you find it frustrating when your strategies slip, because it gives less time for implementation before 2004, but can you confirm that you will be...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Are you still opposed to the principle of free travel for under 18s which is not just socially-inclusive and helps people with their high living costs if they're in full time education, but also will help get young Londoners in the habit of using public transport and weaning them off cars. I still think it's got a lot going for it and you have in the past been very clear in your opposition to it.

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

That is a fairly long menu and agenda that you gave in answer to the first question, which shows us how broad the agenda is on young persons issues for London. The Public Services Committee will also be scrutinising the issue as well. But one of the issues for young people, particularly those in the night time economy in different suburbs around London, is the quality of public transport available in evening time. One of the problems that we and the Police service face is that the night time economy are typically now finishing about 3.00am or 4.00am and there...

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

I recently attended a young person's transport forum in Enfield. This is a group of young people elected as part of the youth assembly of Enfield and it's a very good initiative. They were very tuned in to modern transport issues and they asked a couple of questions that they wanted me to ask you, so I'm very pleased that we have this opportunity. One of them was about the reliability of buses during school rush hours. They feel that the young people, who have to wait while bus after bus goes past them or for buses that don't come...