• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I am concerned that, when you go back and look at your strategies during the consultation period, you do not lose any opportunities and do not prohibit those parts of London which are not the central focus of your plans from making the best of this new government of London.

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

You will be expecting Bob Neil and his friends to say to Conservative MPs in Surrey and Kent, "Sorry, we are on the opposite side from you on this one"?

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

So for the sake of clarity, you are saying that you want a new Barnett formula which will be based on the existing regions?

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

A question about tactics, Ken - a gentle question. [Laughter.] As is my wont. I think we can all feel comfortable with the position you expressed earlier - decentralisation cannot be realistic without true devolution of powers. That means that the interests of different regions might not be the same. The grand coalition that you were essentially talking about is fine in theory, but there are a couple of questions we have to get clear before we start. First of all, when we talk about the south-east - I do not disagree with you at all - what are the...

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

If it is not a veto, how are you going to carry them along if - as has happened in the past - letters go out without full sight, and only a day or so is given for people to wade through huge thick documents? How are you going to ensure that the partners you have identified will feel more comfortable with this campaign, and that it is not just a "make Ken stronger" campaign?

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I am merely asking you not to abuse your position and shoot from the hip on issues without knowing that you have the broad support of partners. That is your tendency: you will come up with a statement one day, and partners who have signed up to something in good faith are suddenly left on the sidelines - The Mayor: Give me an example - The Chair: Can we just agree that the two of you are not going to agree on this?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I am sorry Chair: I have just a little question of clarification. I am not talking about brown-nosing; I do not approve of it, and I would not expect you to do it. But you could at least recognise what has been done - for instance, the huge investment in housing. You will not make London's case better if you do not recognise what is being done, so that you can build on it. That is the point - not brown-nosing, but recognising that investment is there and it is about targeting resources, which you will have to do, and...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I asked a question on another point. The question was about your sensitivity to partners. How are you going to be sensitive to the needs of partners and bring them on board - the outer London boroughs, the inner London boroughs, all the key partners that Sam Heath talked about?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

As you know, some of the coastal towns in the south-east have appalling deprivation, and that will be dredged up. So what you are saying is that you have not discussed this campaign with any other body in any other region. That worries me, because I think you are going to lose on this, and lose badly. Secondly, if we are going to try to make this campaign cross-party and cross everything else, we would like to know who are the other people who will line up with you. Are they, for instance - shall I guess? - London First...

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I declare an interest as an immigrant from Lancashire. Isn't the danger that launching this campaign on Monday, with all the hoo-hah that is associated with anything you do, will simply give the Government what they want - dividing this country into separate regions, turning one region against another, so that they can divide and conquer? That is the great danger. We all understand the argument and many of us sympathise with it, but the real danger of you leading this campaign and setting it off next week without, so far as I know, any consultation with anybody in any...