• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

The buck must stop somewhere and a Cabinet without collective responsibility is a bit like riding a horse backwards basically. You need to have some sense of where you are going and I think a lot of us genuinely feel that there is a potential contradiction there. We have legislation which creates a strong Mayor and that Mayor needs to speak with a single voice. You are implying that it doesn't really matter what comes out. It could be off the hoof, it could be contradictory, it's just one happy family. I think the evidence is that things don't work...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

That answer seemed to cover a multitude of sins because fundamentally it does not answer the question of whether he agrees with Lee Jasper's statement that Lee's non-appointment to the Police Authority was a Labour Party stitch-up and secondly if he is happy that that statement was accurate and whether he is happy that all his spokesmen can make any statement of their choosing on any matter that they like whenever they choose to. I think we might need to adjust the boundaries if, for example, a member of your Cabinet advocated fox hunting in London, would that be something...

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

That's quite a few people covering various different areas of the whole equality issue, but how do you envisage that those people will then work together to actually produce a totally integrated whole within the Cabinet rather than hiding off different bits and pieces all over the place?

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

What concerns me about this whole thing is how we get to the so-called "hard to hear" voices. I am sure that in our boroughs and other various areas of our lives we have always been involved with consultation exercises and know basically it is all the usual likely suspects who actually get round to filling in the forms and sending them back. Consultation exercises have a notoriously low response rate from the Londoners themselves. I am sure the key stakeholders will all be delighted to tell us all what they want but how are we going to get to...

• Question by: Trevor Phillips
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

The Chair pointed out for information that the Bureau of Leaders had set up an exercise looking at exactly that point: how do we reach people who don't fill in forms and who aren't part of voluntary groups and so on.

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

I would certainly agree on the opinion polling. I have a deep seated suspicion and hatred of focus groups going back to my career in advertising which is something you can imagine I keep very quiet nowadays but also, how are we going to get to opinion polling and even focus groups don't get to people who are socially excluded. People like that, maybe disabled people or people who have lower educational levels than others whose opinions are still extremely valid.

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

Asked whether a reply had yet been received; as there had not yet been one, she hoped the Mayor would chase up a reply.

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

I have a second supplementary, please. Will you appreciate that, of course, we have diverse economies across Europe and particularly in this country we go for home ownership in a very big way, whereas on the continent they have a very large rental market. So people are justifiably worried about mortgage rates, for instance, equally a cause for concern would be our taxpayers taking the offer to contributing to pension costs in Italy, for instance, and, therefore, would you agree that people are justifiably worried about the pound in their pocket, not only disappearing but what replaces it being substantially...

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

So, in other words, Mr Mayor, you are not chastened in any way by your Government.

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 29 June 2000

I asked the question not just because I would like to know the company that we are going to be keeping on the Cabinet - and having seen Stephen Norris crop up somewhere in Transport for London I think I would like to know even more - but an issue at the other end of the age scale, looking at education in London, is a question I have asked elsewhere; given the desperate skills shortage that the business community is talking about, given the turbulence, the changes that are taking place in the post school education service in London and...