• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 15 November 2000

In view of your difficulties with younger people, can you remember whether you ever found anyone older than yourself to represent older people in your Cabinet?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 15 November 2000

Can I also add that we ought to be assessing these projects from the point of view of every purpose that the GLA has, which includes regeneration? That ought to be a dimension which is looked at " its impact on the local community, my constituency. [Laughter.]

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 15 November 2000

Would colleagues agree that the smart thing to do would be to table a full Assembly discussion on this when we have a report from both Budget and Environment Committees, who are taking the inquiry lead on this? I am thinking of some time like February, which would still give us enough time to warn the Mayor. Would that be acceptable to everybody?

• Question by: Brian Coleman
• Meeting date: 15 November 2000

Yes it is.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 15 November 2000

Given that you are apparently the only enthusiast for this unsuitable and inaccessible - [Cries of "No.".] Given that you and your friends on the Labour side are the only enthusiasts for this building, and since you have repeatedly told us of your ambition for a second term, and conceivably a third, or indeed Mayor for life, isn't the real reason why you want this building so that it can be a memorial to the Livingstone years?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 15 November 2000

Can you confirm, as your reply seems to suggest, that the sole criterion for your decision is financial? If so, would you accept that other issues, such as the physical environment, the air conditioning, the knock-on costs of the space available for individuals to work and so on, all themselves have financial consequence?.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 15 November 2000

That seems just a little optimistic. Experience here does not suggest that so far. Can I press you on this point? I am grateful for what I take it is your acceptance that you will specifically seek our views. But I was pressing you to initiate more detailed work, because real damage could be done to the reputation of the GLA as an institution if the same scenario developed for our new headquarters as has developed with the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly's buildings. Although I accept that it might be attractive to say that this is yet another...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 15 November 2000

Would you accept that there is a growing concern, both among the Assembly and throughout the broader London public, that what might have appeared to be a superficially attractive deal financially may be undercut by inadequacies of the building in a number of other regards - in particular, its inability to accommodate the whole of our staff? This will mean that a number of them may have to be based elsewhere, where you will have not a subsidised rent but one which it has been suggested could be four times the level. Secondly, it is suggested that there will be...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 15 November 2000

I wanted to advance on Jenny's statement. She is right: we will be coming to you in person and in depth next Tuesday. While I accept that it is realistic to recognise that people are using their cars and may have to continue doing so, you say that public transport will be improved in outer London. That was not clearly coming through. I wondered where you think that improvement will come, as most of the routes are still the radial routes in and out of central London.

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 15 November 2000

During our recent scrutiny of your congestion charge proposals, Jenny Jones, who was a member of our Committee, articulated Green party policy in a well-judged sentence as "reducing congestion without increasing the speed of traffic". Do you feel that that objective is either possible or desirable?