• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

You're right that that's the policy of all main and decent parties. How, though, can Mr Murshid's position as a member of your advisory cabinet be sustainable when he has set his name to a press release in such extreme terms as to drive a coach and horses through your and this organisation's commitment to equalities and to community solidarity and fighting against racism? How can he remain?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

The next line in this press release, in Kumar Murshid's name, amongst that of two others, says, "We therefore call upon all decent people not to join this assembly of hatred which poses a major threat to community relations, not only in London, but in the whole of Britain". Do you think it appropriate for any advisor of yours, whatever their capacity, to put his name to a press release which describes a meeting organised by a reputable representative group of the Jewish community in this country as an assembly of hatred, as even remotely appropriate language for a cabinet...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

Your reply there reads virtually verbatim from the reply which you sent to the Board of Deputies of British Jews. May I suggest that there's a further issue in this? You have told us that you gave permission, rightly I think every one of us will say, for the Israel Solidarity Campaign to hold a rally in Trafalgar Square. That was a meeting which was addressed by Members of Parliament from both Labour and Conservative and, I think also, the Liberal Democrat Party, and was a well-attended body. Your cabinet advisor then put his name to a press release -...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

Mr Livingstone, I accept your statement in good faith and I'm glad you've made it and I was glad to hear it, but to say that you have no power and then infer that his employment status blurs this issue, frankly that is just not true. He presented himself as an employee of this authority, as, in fact, a member of your staff. Now, I'm glad you don't agree with him, I don't agree with him. It's a tragic situation out there. But it draws us all into it and it makes it look, to the general public, that we...

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

Just as a matter of fact for the Assembly, indeed I do sit, as John does, with Members of the LMC and on this particular occasion I did ask for the Assembly to be disassociated from these comments. I think the issue here, Ken, is a very simple one. The meeting where this was discussed, the place where it was produced from was here and there was a use, effectively, of GLA resources and I think what the Assembly members want you to make sure that, whatever your view is, that GLA resources are used in line with what the...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 16 July 2002

He didn't write this press statement as a private individual. I mean, we're trying to get it over to you that he wrote it under the umbrella of this Authority and as a member of your office.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 11 December 2002

Would you agree that the evidence indicates that one of the biggest problems about retention of health care professionals, as with other public sector workers, comes at the point at which they wish to move into house purchase. Is the Mayor proposing to learn from the schemes which have been developed in North America, for example, by golden share schemes, to ease the route of health care and other key sector workers into house purchase?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 11 December 2002

Neale, I was very concerned indeed when I read the London Plan, that there is no acknowledgement there of the needs that a population the size of Sheffield would have for health - for housing, yes; for education, no. Knowing as we do from our scrutiny that there is something like 40% vacancies in GP practices, and that we train 50% of GPs in London, but that they don't stay unfortunately, I'm amazed that you didn't draw this to the Mayor's attention when he was writing his London Plan. There is no mention at all, I think, in the London...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 11 December 2002

I wonder if you would agree, therefore, that the important point of increasing the sustainability of health provision in London and, by analogy, other public sector things, will be therefore to adopt an holistic approach in which the housing policies of the Mayor give much greater emphasis to intermediate occupation, which seems to be the demand that's coming from the health economy in London?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 11 December 2002

I think that is important and whether it will come to the Health Committee to be looked at when the report is published, because otherwise you don't know if the money is being well spent. Can I move on to the skills issue and the issue around refugees who come to the country, amongst whom there is reckoned to be at least 1,000 potential doctors? I wondered if the Mayor had taken any steps to support requalification? There have been various schemes going. There's a scheme at the Institute of Community Health Services and a couple of other ones. Has...