• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

You made no reference to two spurs when we had this discussion last time. Are you saying that now because you have had a chance to think more carefully about this matter; or are you thinking more carefully about it now because it has been raised as a question?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I am surprised and disappointed by the Mayor's lack of knowledge of this matter - [Laughter.] - bearing in mind that, at the last Question Time, he said to me: "There is no unemployment in Woodford - that is not where we want" the Wimbledon-Hackney line "to go." That was a sweeping generalisation, not a detailed analysis. [Laughter.] Roger Evans: It certainly was, and I can tell you that Woodford Bridge ward has an unemployment rate of 9%, which is higher than the national average of 8%. It comes 2,805th in terms of deprivation out of a total of over...

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

I want to go back to your desire to fund the more deprived parts of London from the richer parts. Probably across the board, everyone agrees that deprived areas need parity of funding. But what I am scared of is the way in which that is developing in your strategies as an either/or, and formula is following funding. From what I have seen so far of the transport strategy and the spatial development strategy, the focus is on the deprivation. Great - but I know from Nicky's presentation in Haringey that there are many concerns about jumping on the opportunities...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

Mr Mayor, could you tell me what the unemployment rate is in Woodford Bridge ward, please?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

Then we can increase the services, can't we?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

So can we reverse the current export of money from Croydon and Sutton to the London budget?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

I am sure that we support your "abolish capital punishment" publicity programme, but you made the point to Len Duvall that you want equality of treatment. I can understand the anger, because the new Labour Government, after all, is a north country and Scottish party more than anything else, and it discriminates against London. If we are to have that equality of treatment, surely the same principle should apply within London as well, and I am rather concerned by what you say about the transfer of resources from rich parts of London to poor parts. Does south London count as...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

You say, Mr Mayor, that you are going to run this campaign over the next three years, and you say whom you have been talking to. Some questions have been raised over the Carlton debate and the management of that. Questions have been raised by others about your style and the way you operate. Everyone accepts that you are the Mayor of London, and that you should take a lead, but what comfort do we have that you will not hi-jack the campaign for your own image projection rather than making the real case? What assurances are you going to...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

So it is fair to say that London and south-east should, in theory, subsidise some poorer parts of the country?

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 20 June 2001

Can you explain a bit more background, and help us to get behind some of the thinking in your manifesto? When did you stop believing in redistribution of wealth?