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• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

Minister, the Act you referred to, which in 2007 gave the London boroughs and the residents of the Greater London area the right to serve up parish councils, also changed the legislation to the point where establishment of parish councils was removed from the Secretary of State and given to the primary authority. In a London context I am assuming that is the London boroughs. That would mean that the only requirement that a London borough would have if it was being pressured to set up a parish council would be to conduct a community governance review which could prevent...

• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

Minister, one of the challenges that I think is going to be faced by the coalition Government is that the very people that you rely on to help you drive this localism are the very people who are going to be disempowered. I am thinking particularly of your civil service team; it is from their desks that the power is going to be taken. Is there a structural plan? Is there a mechanism in place to make sure that, after this initial set of proposals are put forward, there is a way of providing a constant review and maintain that...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

We are really talking about the Mayor's wants. Are there Government wants? You have outlined the Government vision around devolution and on the NHS strategic functions that are being taken back into Government and obviously Ministers will want to take stock. Is there not a case that some of those strategic aspects carried out by the Strategic Health Authority for London should not come under the Mayor's ambit? Is there any thinking about that going on in Government at this stage, or if not at this stage, at some stage in the future?

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

Around the same theme on planning controls; in the prospective Green Paper we have talked about third party planning appeals. I think we will recognise that there is an imbalance in the planning system whereby only a developer can appeal against and the residents cannot. I think we all tend to agree that that is a grotesque imbalance that needs addressing. The Open Source document did put some thoughts around that and I would like your amplification on it as well. It seemed to me that it is a very good point to address, but the Open Source document talked...

• Question by: Gareth Bacon MP
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

): I want to talk to you about garden grabbing. Firstly, I would like to thank you and the Government for re categorising gardens as green land rather than brown land, primarily because, the previous designation, taken into account with the need to drive housing targets, has led developers to change the character and nature of boroughs like mine, which you are very familiar with, against the wishes of local people. We are very, very pleased and encouraged that Government have echoed the Mayor's sentiments in terms of trying to put a stop to this. It could be too early...

• Question by: Richard Barnbrook
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

Minister, you mention quite specifically about the devolution of the coalition and also a reduction of quangos. Where does the Thames Gateway Corporation fit in to this new planning?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

One historically controversial area has been the sale of school playing fields by local authorities for development. What sort of controls are you going to keep over that because the public do have some very strong feelings about it?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

My first point is that in thinking abut the London Plan in relation to boroughs and in relation to the point made by Roger Evans about consultation, I think if one is not very careful, the time will be taken up with consultation. That is what takes time - consulting. I just want to point out that we had nearly 1,000 responses to this London Plan, which is three times as many as the previous London Plan, which shows that something is working around consultation. The second point is a strategic point. It is really important for us to be...

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

Minister, there is quite a geographical expansion of the Mayor's powers with the Port of London Authority (PLA), going into the Thames Estuary. I just wanted to know whether it was the intention, or is the intention, to get the Mayor involved in planning issues to deal with wind farms, changing shipping channels or even airports. Is that the thrust of this? I just want to know where we are going with this.

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 21 July 2010

I just want to put on the record for the purpose of the minutes that there is substantial agreement around this table on a lot of the points that are being raised. We agree that the MPA should be following an LFEPA model; we agree that strategies should be subject to rejection by the Assembly on a two thirds majority and we agree that bodies should have elected representation on them if possible rather than being entirely appointed. Something else we would like to see is more cases of ministers being accountable to this body and coming to give evidence...