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• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Can I just go back to Neale's comments. I am glad to hear that local authorities are looking at areas where there is already the social infrastructure to provide additional housing. It strikes me, though, that the last time the capacity study was done at the GLA, during the first term, the local authorities in the south-west, where there is the infrastructure, the roads and what have you, got off lightly. I am talking about Richmond upon Thames and Kingston upon Thames. It seems to me, when I go through those parts of town, the infrastructure is there to accommodate...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

It is good that we have got an opportunity to make a step change in the quality of development, particularly in affordable homes, with this Strategy and the Mayor's new powers. We also, as Assembly Members, had a rather robust conversation over lunch with the London Housing Corporation. That was about the very great degree of variance there seems to be at the moment between the housing management standards and the estate management standards - the neighbourhood management standards - between existing housing associations, amongst which there has been a great balkanisation; there are 500 or so housing associations in...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 14 June 2006

The good students of Malmesbury School might be interested to know that out of all this chaos we have a bunch of Assembly Members quizzing the man who is responsible for delivering the Olympic Games in London. By the time they are voters, the Olympics will be finished. The area of the Olympics will be regenerated, and there will be many jobs there. Mr Higgins has already said that he wants to put other people on the spot to make sure it is not just the Olympics delivering all of these benefits, but it is the whole regeneration of the...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 September 2005

A lot of people will look to their local councillors as being people to protect their interests. How do you see that working? I know the local five boroughs have, more or less, agreed a single position on the Olympics and how they work with it. Do you have any problems with any of their requests and proposals?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 08 September 2005

Sorry, it is not about percentages. It is just: are you saying that there is a commitment and that we will not see boards made up of white men in suits?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 September 2005

I have a feeling that if Angie (Bray) were Mayor of London, she might have problems with it, as well. Leaving that flippant comment to one side, do you see, for example, London Citizens having a continuing involvement with the Olympics?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 September 2005

It would be very helpful for everyone if those relationships were understood, so that if the DCMS Select Committee makes a point, and the Assembly contradicts it and has a different perspective, there is a coherent response to that, and we understand how the hierarchy works, and how the different interests are being responded to and protected and so on. This could become a rather bureaucratic conversation, but some serious work needs to take place outside of meetings like this. Otherwise, we are going to have lots of very interesting headlines, but maybe not a lot of light shed on...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 September 2005

Some months ago, in Mary's (Reilly) absence, I had the privilege, as vice chair of the LDA, to be a co-signatory with you of a letter to London Citizens. They are a particular pressure group on behalf of a number of faith groups, in particular. A number of comments were made to them about housing, about training, and so on. How do you see that being followed through in the coming months and years?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 September 2005

Thank you for that. Clearly, it is a bit like the situation with local businesses, that although there may be a range of formal commitments which are very well detailed and set down, individual people and interest groups might have difficulty understanding how they get into the structure of the Olympics. Say your road is stopped up, because there is some work taking place, or some development happens at the end of your street for the Olympics, and you do not really understand who to go to, or why it is happening. How is that mechanism going to work?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 September 2005

One final question, and I can ask this by posing a possible answer, I suppose: who should hold the Olympics to account? Potentially, the Olympics board holds it to account; the ODA holds it to account; the LDA holds it to account; and the London Assembly and each of the individual boroughs might consider they have to. There is a Select Committee of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) which might want to, as well. Is there potentially a real messy soup of accountability, out of which everyone will want a soundbite, but no one will actually wrestle...