• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

And so what you're indicating is that should the Mayor tell you a position and should the Deputy Mayor and the advisor, the political people, all say one thing, your position would be to follow that, would it?

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

What's your position on incineration?

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

What do you think the Mayor's strategy and position is on incineration?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

This is not Roger's supplementary, this is mine. Do you not think that instead of the Deputy Mayor and the environment spokesman raising these issues with the Mayor, both of them could have raised these issues at the Environment Committee when we were doing our work on all this last year? They both sit on the Environment Committee and so perhaps if we'd ironed it out there, there wouldn't have been the hold-up in the Mayor's office.

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

What would your role be in terms of getting the Mayor's strategy or delivering the Mayor's strategy? Would you say it would be instructing people what to do or would you say that you'd be taking the lead and advising the Mayor so that he instructs?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

So is it fair then to say that you have a different view from him on incineration?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

Thank you. We were told yesterday that Smugglers Way cost £150 million in today's costing. Can you imagine the cost that's going to be needed and is the Mayor going to explore where these funds are going to come from?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

I want to go back to the beginning of your presentation and I wanted to understand the context in which we're listening to you, because you are the Mayor's spokesman and therefore what you say is the Mayor's view, but on the other hand you made it clear that you're a policy advisor to the Mayor which implies that there are occasions where you have advised him and he has chosen not to accept your advice. First of all, has there been any such occasion and can you imagine that occurring?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

I'm sure you will appreciate that the politicians in Sutton were perhaps the most upset and angry about what happened there, but would you agree that Sutton's recycling figures, notwithstanding this problem, were nevertheless very considerably higher than most others in London? Sutton themselves would want to see their own figures go up, and so would the rest of London, by a huge amount.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

Can I ask how long this is going to take, because you know that the local authorities are now hard up against the line that they have to fulfil contracts and they have to sign contracts now. So how long is this going to take? And if I can quote you the first paragraph of this report we saw yesterday, which I thought was an excellent report and I think better than the ones we've been doing, 'There should be no presumption against incineration or against any recovery techniques and there should be a willingness to explore all options in...