• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

There is a huge issue about mentality of design and I would hope that we could work together on drawing up with various disability, parent groups and so on, proposals for the simple things, and perhaps follow the example by Sadlers Wells which brought in a group of key individuals who worked together to make sure that Sadlers Wells is a fully accessible theatre. That model seems to me to work very well and deliver the results and I think that Transport for London needs to take on board the models that work to make sure that our Underground system...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

You eloquently described the processes of the paedophiles. That they are cunning. That they are calculated. That they do worm their way into societies and organisations where they can meet and be predatory upon their victims. I too have been involved in a number of cases and a number of issues and those that survive, survive with murdered soles. I am not quite sure whether they are better off than those that actually die. My own view is that given the development of DNA testing, there are certain people and certain individuals whose crimes lead them to lose the right...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

The best thing we could ever do is protect our children. Maybe there is something we could do in the Assembly. We could ask Boroughs to submit to us their Area Child Protection Plans. That would help. We could also ask the Police, and we who are Members of the MPA could help, to speed things up when local authorities ask when they are going to employ people who are going to work with children, is there a criminal record on this person. Sometimes they have to wait a rather long time before they get it. So those sorts of...

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

Can I ask your views on the policy followed by the News of the World in printing the names, photographs and details of individuals on the Paedophile Register and what do you think should be the general policy adopted in relation to communities in which there are known paedophiles living?

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

First of all I am sure we would all want to express our sympathy to the family of Sarah Payne. I could almost have predicted you were going to say something about being nostalgic for the 1950's. But I think you are right to highlight the fact that the number of incidents probably has not changed significantly over the last 50 years and probably longer. You talked about sentencing policy. Are you therefore advocating what are essentially full life sentences for people convicted of paedophile offences and do you support the principle of chemical castration of the individuals concerned?

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

And where did they get their information from?

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

So are you saying that the Evening Standard got it wrong?

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

Thanks for that, but tomorrow morning isn't soon enough. As elected members I think there's a real problem when we read something in the Evening Standard first and have our constituents ringing us up and wanting to know what the detail is and as elected representatives we weren't able to give them any further information and when we went to seek that information we were told there was none to give us, which is clearly not true. At the beginning of this Assembly, back in May, you did agree that all documents would be available to us and I'd have...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

Whether the leaks are right or wrong the fact is that Londoners read these stories and, of course, they are then tremendously interested as to how it's going to affect their particular part of London where they live. Wouldn't it be helpful to at least tell us precisely where you want your boundary to be, because really at the moment it is leaving people not knowing quite where they are with it and it is a blight on where they live.

• Question by: Toby Harris
• Meeting date: 27 July 2000

How could any of them have known about it? I know you are a very open administration, but can I be clear about how that information was being circulated yet Assembly Members were being told by the Press Office that they knew nothing of those arrangements.