• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

I am sure you agree that it is an absolute scandal that the survival rate from cardiac arrest in London is about 2%. Seattle, for instance, has brought it up to 30% to 40%, and that is what we should be doing. Would you therefore support the Fire Authority in seeking to develop pilots in fire stations, where we train and equip firefighters to respond to cardiac arrests?

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

: I do not intend to issue any press releases. I am only interested in value for money, and your good name, Ken. [Laughter.] I worry about people saying that this is a terrible Kim Il Sung exercise to get Ken's face around the town on posters. Perhaps one way that you could help us to get out there and explain to people that it is nothing of the sort, and that this is a genuine exercise in consultation, is if you could let us know how many of the responses were derived from the forms which were sent out...

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

Those figures are indeed stunning, Ken. Let's leave aside the 99,000 clicks, which you could have employed someone to do. Let's deal with the substantive responses, of which there were 20,000 - which to my reckoning, from what you have just said, works out at about £30 per response. Don't you think that that is pretty absurdly expensive, especially in the light of the press release which I gather has just been issued - amazingly, it has been issued almost at the same time as the words came out of your mouth - that 3.1 million leaflets went to Londoners'...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

Can I clarify, then? We would not know in London whether we had an Olympic bid in place until 2004 or 2005 - even if, in July, you and the Government and others decide that it is worth backing. But between now and 2004/05, how realistic is it that some of these projects will get the go-ahead, when we could be competing against New York and Paris for an Olympic Games in 2012? I hope that we could all work together to stand four square behind the communities in east London, to push for these improvements to genuinely begin to...

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

We all know the many regeneration projects that are currently under way, but my concern - I am thinking particularly of Hackney, which is among the boroughs I represent - is that, if we wait for an Olympic bid for 2012, effectively the area will be blighted for another four or five years while we await a firm decision. There are a number of imaginative plans for regeneration in that area, and they are effectively put on hold while we wait. In addition, transport projects, particularly the Hackney to south-west London line, are currently not projected to happen for some...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

Can I just ask the Mayor if he has heard something that I have heard a whisper about - that yesterday the Standing Committee on Culture at the House of Commons has expressed doubt about the World Athletic Championships managing to get going in 2005? That bid was won on the back of the use of Wembley. Now that Wembley cannot be used, Picketts Lock is the next thing. They expressed a doubt yesterday that that would happen, considering the difficulty with transport access as well as the stadium having to be built.

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

I welcome your commitment on that, Ken, but I think there are two other little questions on the back of it. The first is that, although the Olympics would be, for a number of very selfish reasons - and very good reasons - very welcome in London, they are not the only reason why we need to open up transport as a motor to regeneration in east London. I am particularly focused on the Hackney area and the Channel tunnel area around Stratford, but key to this is the river crossing package. Much as I love my colleague Len Duvall...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

I am certainly glad to praise the leader of the most effective local authority in the country, with 20-odd Government chartermarks for its service - many more than any other local authority. We have had this argument before, and I can remember telling you about the millions of pounds Wandsworth has put in of its own council tax money - £25 million over the last years - in affordable and social housing. No other local authority has put the money into its own housing that Wandsworth has done. I remember telling you and Samantha Heath this before: one in three...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

You have said that, to accommodate 50% affordable housing on such sites, you would be willing to see a doubling of the density. Are you really advocating that, on riverside sites such as these, there should be twice the housing density which is already proposed in their UDPs?

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 04 April 2001

When boroughs are crawling up to 13% a year, what action can we take with the SDS? You have called for 50%, but what will we be able to do about it?