• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 12 December 2001

I certainly agree with your criticisms of the process and I would add the fact that, as far as I am aware, a number of other important organisations - the blue light organisations, the criminal justice system, the probation system, crime and disorder partnerships - were not consulted either. Can I ask you, did Graham Tope consult you at all about how to go about a consultation process on this issue?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 23 May 2001

A very quick question - having a new and assertive Chair, Chair. You seem to do an awful lot of polling on a range of issues, and I cannot imagine that any of that could be construed as advice to the Mayor. That suggests that it should be published and made available to the Members of the Assembly, including presumably any political questions you might be asking.

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 23 May 2001

This is really a question about when we can see the information, so that we can get in the loop and start preparing our responses. When do you think we might be able to see this information? It is somewhere in the building.

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 23 May 2001

Thank you, Ken. Just picking up on the point that Bob Neill made, we know that you have been terrifically busy, but I wanted to say on behalf of the Member for Harrow, and for the people of Harrow, East, of whom I am one, how grateful we were for your welcome support for Tony McNulty, our MP, last week. In between these extremely important and worthy activities, I wonder whether you have found time to read the 4,000 or so letters that you received from the consultation since we last spoke - when you said you would lock yourself...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 23 May 2001

I also wrote a letter to you, Mr Mayor, about six weeks ago, on precisely the same question that Toby Harris has put to you in his absence. I have also noticed that there is a real problem with this for you. You have refused to come before the Bus Scrutiny Committee to answer questions; you say that you can't because the questions are about contracts. But most of the questions are not about contracts, so that is information you are not providing. I also asked about six weeks for some information on your employment of Lord Rogers and a...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 12 December 2001

The other final question then is - which is probably more interesting for Assembly Members - with Christmas coming and with the Home Secretary making statements about the potential threat to London, are you able to make any comment about our capacity to respond to such a threat, and contingencies that might have been made for it, in terms of police leave over Christmas and in terms of the ability to deploy people quickly from boroughs to the centre, for example?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 12 December 2001

If I could have two other supplementaries, with your indulgence, Chair? The first then is to explore that tangent, as it were, and it is about the budget process we are entering into, where in order for us, as London, to judge ourselves against other budget settlements, it would be very helpful if we could better disentangle the national from the London policing priorities. Do you have a view on that, and whether that can be achieved to a greater extent under this Authority?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 12 December 2001

I am interested also in the question of the transparency of accounting of the national functions as against the London policing functions. Can you say anything about that?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 12 December 2001

Since London has historically exported thousands of officers to those counties, it would be presumably relatively easy to bring them back temporarily and certainly it would address the problem of borough police numbers being depleted which has been, as you say, a very real cause of concern.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 12 December 2001

Thank you for that answer. Some progress has been made since 11 September in disentangling the national from the local policing strands of what is happening. A very simple supplementary question is whether we considered deploying police officers from other forces, other than the Metropolitan Police Service, to cover national functions within London?