• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

: Could I interrupt? It has already been worked out. You have signed a contract off, and the detail has been discussed. There is no discussion now: he is either doing it or he is not doing it, and we have been misled. I took your comments and what the officer told me in good faith, but then I see these words in the business plan. Perhaps it should not be in there, but what am I to make of it? What would you make of it if you were in my position?

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

Malcolm Grant, in his letter, said that that was not to happen. What are we to believe?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

Mr Mayor, when you issued your response to Westminster's UDP, and made quite a lot of comment about tall buildings in Paddington, did it occur to you to declare a conflict of interest, given that Lord Rogers is the architect of one of the tall buildings in question? Will not the problem for you be that he is the architect of many tall buildings all over London?

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

We were told that he would not be giving and advice on any planning issues except in regard to the spatial development plan.

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

So Lord Rogers did not want to undertake master planning.

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

Thank you for supplying those papers, which took so long. I think that we now need to understand why it took so long. Perhaps you can clarify the issue. Was it you or Lord Rogers who wanted to expand the role but was curbed by officers on grounds of propriety and potential conflicts of interest? Who was it? Was it you or Lord Rogers?

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

But what would you make of it if you were in my position?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

To pursue Len's point about the detail of the contract, speaking as a lawyer - [laughter] - could I put it to you that, particularly in public life, what matters is the spirit, and being seen to be entirely proper; and that, if we have to resort to analysing the words in a contract, we have not lived up to the propriety we should seek to attain?

• Question by: Lord Duvall of Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich OBE
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

I understand, Mayor, that you have signed off the business plan Along with your advisers, and I was surprised to see on page 14 of a 38-page document - despite what you and officers have said publicly, that Lord Rogers would not be involved in any planning decisions - a reference to "advice on eye-level market planning and major development opportunities". What are Assembly Members to make of that, in light of your previous statements and what we have been told in the document we have been given?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

In the event of an agreement being reached" - that is what it says.