• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

Ken, do you agree that the two prime objectives of housing policy should be to ensure that there is a decent home available for every Londoner, and that we need to keep London functioning, which it cannot do unless housing is available; and that, in order to reach that point, it is necessary to have robust research work, which may in itself be part of a piece of negotiation with developers, who are naturally, at this early stage, trying to cling on to the value of land?

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

When are we going to see the schedule of improvements in terms of the new routes you are talking about? You talk about orbital routes: even in your transport strategy, you do not indicate where we are going to see the improvements to take up the slack that we are hoping to achieve with congestion charging. I am talking about a targeted schedule of improvements - not the current contracts, but what you intend to put in place before congestion charging is introduced.

• Question by: Samantha Heath
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

I am glad that you think that you have tried to give us some detailed response. I have to pay you the inverted compliment that I think that you have responded as I would expect the poorer level of Minister to do. I am so sad that you fell into the fold so quite quickly. Your responses, quite honestly, are not detailed enough. You have had responsibility for buses, for example, for quite few months now. I have not personally seen any improvement on the buses that I take every day. When are we going to see a detailed schedule...

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

Since I was named, can I explain about these fascinating secret discussions, which the Mayor now wants to hold in public? The Chair: If you would do so briefly, Toby. Toby Harris: There was an initial discussion, which was to give me some idea of the extent to which the Mayor was prepared to make extra money available to inform the MPA's budget discussions. In the course of that, the Mayor indicated the sort of figure he was talking about, and the sort of things he was interested in - many of which accorded with what I suspected would be...

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

Are you aware, Ken, of the anger that your announcement of the MPA budget caused to MPA members, and particularly to the non-Assembly members, who are perhaps less prepared for these things than some of us who have been in politics for a long time? They felt very undermined that, on the day before they were to have a budget workshop to consider options, you effectively closed down all the options by making your announcement. That is not the way to work with a police authority. They felt very undermined by it; they still do. The debate on the budget...

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

Is the Mayor aware - clearly he is not - that the resource allocation formula to which Andrew Pelling is that used by the police service itself to allocate resources to the boroughs? He is clearly not aware that the MPA has agreed to review that formula, and I am one of the two MPA members carrying out that review. He is clearly not aware - this is answering Andrew Pelling's question which he should have answered - that the results of that review are intended to be in place in time to affect the allocations for the financial year...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

But it is not just about the Assembly - it is about the role of London boroughs. They have a crucial role in tackling crime. Although I recognise that the police are the main agency for tackling crime, they cannot do it alone. It seems to me that there was a better way of initiating that debate, by contacting various people and talking through the issues. One of the issues that would have come up if you had spoken to other people is this. The levels of policing that you are trying to achieve along with the MPA are laudable...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

We are publicly elected Members: should we not know?

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

So is this going to be par for the course over the coming years in your approach to budget making - not even advising the Budget Scrutiny Committee that you intended to do this, when there was a process in place? Why did it have to take place there and then at the press conference? What is really your thinking? What approach do you want in future to budget making that you are going to oversee?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 20 December 2000

The substantive point that I wanted to raise is this. Do you think that you have been honest with the electors of London in the way you have trailed this? Your report said that you wanted £60 million investment to secure the recruitment of 1,050 police officers. Yet it is very apparent from the figures we have heard this morning that you do not need anything like that sum for 1,050 police officers; and that the Home Office is giving you enough funding through the crime reduction fund - £38 million - for 800 of those, even if you can...