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

We can all welcome, and we do welcome, those steps. My point is that that is not enough and this is why my second question is around the role you play in terms of getting others around the table. If you accept that the Speeding Up Delivery report is correct in terms that there is a capacity in the building industry, for example; if you accept that the boroughs have got to up their own game in terms of speeding up the planning process; if you accept, as you have implied you do, that boroughs need to step up to...

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

But they don't add up to the total that you have set. That is the point. My question is do you accept that list does not add up to the 28,000, which is your target in the Housing Commission?

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

I appreciate the need to read the press release into the record and we should, indeed, be grateful that this subject, which the Liberal Democrats regard as crucially important for London, is the subject of your media spin for today. What I want to do is to get beyond that long list of aspirations for the future to draw your attention to the fact you haven't actually answered the question, which was, "How many extra affordable housing units have been built as a direct result of the steps you have taken?" The answer is what mathematicians would call `tending to...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 22 May 2002

You say you have no powers to tell the MPA but that wasn't really the question. The question was have you invited them to contribute in this way?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 22 May 2002

Given that you could do with a quick housing feather in your cap, and given that the housing for key workers has been such an issue and was part of the scrutiny led by Meg Hillier, I wondered what you had actually done in terms of getting people together. It is quite obvious that the educational establishments, the health authorities and the Metropolitan Police are big land owners? Have you done anything to try and convince them to come up with some land and a scheme to provide key worker housing so you don't get back to the police house...

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

Londoners are going to need quite a lot of convincing though, when the SDS comes out, that we can manage this huge population growth; that we can keep hold of all our green space and actually increase it in some areas and that we won't add to the congestion problems and the public transport overcrowding in central London. That is quite a juggling act. Are you going to be able to pull it off when the SDS comes out?

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

Could you just give me your understanding of what the affordable housing provision should be on the site in question or remote to that?

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

My final point is that actually the solution to this is not only regionally but nationally and will he therefore agree that we need to reform the borrowing rules? National Government needs to reform borrowing rules so we can have parity; that we need to reform the payments in lieu rules so that we can transfer some of these things between boroughs. A whole range of things. Will he, indeed, agree that the 50% guideline is effectively a back door development land tax and, if the public thinks we can extract value from the booming housing market we should do...

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

The press release does not answer the question. Could I ask you to answer the question, please?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 22 May 2002

Point of Order, Chairman. Sorry to interrupt the Mayor. Can I just ask about the procedure, because the Mayor has already issued this answer as a press release at 10.02am, saying he had already answered at MQT. I mean what is the point? I don't want to interrupt procedure. I just want to know, do we set protocols about these questions or what? Because if the Mayor's office is issuing these as press releases before we actually hear them ourselves at the meeting, then something is not quite right and it needs to be looked at.