• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 13 November 2002

One of the other sets of pressures which will exert itself on the Police Service is from the Government of the day. Yesterday, your Labour Chairman, John Reid said that Labour was not infallible on law and order, and indeed accepted that there were a number of failed initiatives over the last five years since you were in power. He said we should be prepared to say, "We tried that and it did not work". If one looks at the number of issues that haven't worked, you could include the child curfews - none of which have been imposed -...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 13 November 2002

Given that that is a list of those who are exerting pressures on the Police Service in London, why do you not accept the premise of the question?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 13 November 2002

It is indeed.

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 22 May 2002

Well, this is the problem, isn't it? If I was setting the budget for the police as you do, then I would want to have some say in how it was spent and the sort of services that people in outer London were receiving. And I wouldn't want to just shrug that issue off on the people who run the MPA, particularly if, like yourself, I was someone who didn't think the MPA was adding much value. I read all about it. Roger Evans: I can tell you that they were very supportive of your work dealing with unlicensed taxis...

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 22 May 2002

Well, on the question of value for money, of course the issue that we've chomped on about a lot is issues of partnership. Can we now assume that with the new people moving into the ALG that you will work with them better than you did in the past?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 22 May 2002

The measure of success of the Mayor, or anybody indeed in elected office, is making the existing system, whatever its flaws - and we would share many of the criticisms of the existing system - making it work for Londoners. And you were roundly criticised, not just by Teresa Wickham but by others, for doing too little on tourism in particular. So, focusing on the Great London Deals initiative, which has just been launched, which is welcome, can you tell us what the response rate is? How are you actually going to measure success of that? It's focused on major...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 22 May 2002

Eric and the Conservatives seem to confuse value for money for actually spending less, whereas from our side it's about spending wisely. Londoners did give the Mayor substantially more money this year, but on culture and tourism he is spending the same - it's level spending in that area. I want to focus his attention to Teresa Wickham, chair of London Tourist Board, who resigned only a month ago and here's what she said when she resigned, 'London needs and deserves a properly funded and well managed organisation that is truly a representative of and reflects all aspects of tourism...

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 22 May 2002

I'd like to continue Roger's theme about what the Mayor has achieved for outer London. I attend a lot of residents' association meetings and I always make a particular point of being non-party political in describing what the GLA has done and I try and be as straightforward as possible in saying what the Mayor has achieved. I talk about the 6% increase in bus rider-ship and bendy buses, but the response I get often from the residents' associations is that it doesn't really add up to very much and to be very honest what they say, "What has Ken...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 22 May 2002

Has the last two years shown then that directly elected Mayors are not the panacea that the government initially held them up to be when they pushed through the idea of a directly elected Mayor for London? And has the election of a monkeys in Hartlepool -- (overspeaking). The Chair: Darren, I really don't think this is relevant to the question. Darren Johnson: Well, it is, it's on Ken's record. Is this the beginning of the end of directly elected Mayors in the United Kingdom?

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 22 May 2002

So, value for money and delivery. We did ask when we did the waste strategy that we talk to you about how the various parties that are delivering the recycling that you were talking about earlier, would be delivering it and how we are delivering value for money and we did talk about that when it came to budget. I've still yet to have a full meeting with you about how that is to get delivered and I've asked for it a number of times. Can you now commit that we will now talk about the action plan for the...