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• Reference: 2012/0059-2
• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 29 November 2012

Can you tell us a little bit about how the budget proposals were developed between the Metropolitan Police Service and the Mayor's office?

• Reference: 2012/0060-2
• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 29 November 2012

Commissioner, if I was a serving officer, I would be really worried about the future of my service. Certainly, from a survey that was done in November, there is that low morale in the service and in the Metropolitan Police Service. On 21 November, you told a BBC Radio 5 live interviewer that indeed there was low morale in the service. Can you share with us what you are doing about that? I mean, in the midst of this storm or tsunami of all the political interference and redrafting of the service, what are you doing to support the staff...

• Reference: 2012/0062-2
• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 29 November 2012

I have spoken with the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime with regard to collocation of emergency service provision in London. In the intervening period, the Deputy Commissioner obviously put out some ideas about some fairly major, fairly significant changes in the headquarters element of the estate plan. Could you expand a little bit about where you envisage some of those kind of senior management or centralised management functions being physically located and what thoughts you had given to sharing real estate with other emergency and public services in terms of locating those?

• Reference: 2012/0064-2
• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 29 November 2012

Well, these are questions that arise from issues and it is really for both of you. I am very concerned, and I have raised the question with the Mayor on a couple of occasions, about the increasing percentage of matters that do not go to trial. Your officers spend a great deal of time, a great deal of expense, catching criminals, banging them up, getting them charged, and then the matter does not go to trial. For example, in London there is a gap between cracked trials and trials, which, for some other reason, do not go ahead because they...

• Reference: 2012/0065-2
• Question by: Fiona Twycross
• Meeting date: 29 November 2012

I just wanted to ask about the drop in rape reporting and wanted to ask the Commissioner when the Metropolitan Police Service will conclude its assessment of the reasons behind the recent drop in reports of rape and whether the findings of the assessment will be shared with the Committee.

• Reference: 2012/0066-2
• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 29 November 2012

Can I just pick up some of the training issues then. I am very pleased you said you welcomed outside providers perhaps that deal with violence against women and girls to come in and do some training, because that is one of the issues that was raised with us from those support groups. I understand that particularly with you recruiting more PCs, part of your frontline training is now going to be computer based. How do you ensure the quality of that and the quality of response to vulnerable victims with that computer-based training?

• Question by: Stephen Knight
• Meeting date: 24 October 2012

Stephen Knight (AM): To pick you up on the point you have just made around the high property values in London, compared, I believe with most other developed countries, we have very few property and wealth taxes in this country; we predominantly focus on income and sales taxes. I just wondered to what extent you think the high cost of housing in London is partly driven by the fact that it is a tax free growth area for people, by which I mean it is a tax free investment and therefore that has partly driven the speculation that has driven...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 24 October 2012

Goodness me. I think this is a very worthwhile debate although it may seem a bit arid to some observers and we need to make sure we do not get too academic about it. Would you agree with me that around the world probably the single greatest source of income for city governments tends to be, in one shape or form, from properties? You have said a couple of times now that property taxes are so visible and so potent that virtually all political parties play 'chicken' with each other. Well, the opposite of 'chicken'; they are scared to look...

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 24 October 2012

Nicky Gavron (AM): While we are on land and talking about the planning system, currently the Assembly's Planning Committee is looking at the community infrastructure levy (CIL). That is, to a certain extent, a fixed charge, although there are lots of complications because it is set different in different boroughs and there is not necessarily a duty to cooperate and so on. On top of that is the Mayor's own CIL. I was wondering, this CIL is for Crossrail, but is the Commission going to look beyond that to the way CIL might be used by the Mayor in the...

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 24 October 2012

In the same spirit, how far are you going to frame for the Mayor any of the mechanisms he might be thinking about for the comprehensive spending review for London?