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• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 10 November 2007

Lastly, can I just thank Sebastian [Coe] for his visit to my constituency and they were well received as he knows, but what he has left behind is big questions about when our young people going to be able to wear the 2012 badge like yourself and other city members! It seems a little bit odd, doesn't it? We talk about legacy in bricks and mortars and yet there is just the privileged few who are wandering around in their badges! I mean how is this? I have to say I gave my badge away when I got it at...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 10 November 2007

Can I go back to the sustainability announcement that was alluded to earlier and is presumably what you were just referring to, Seb. What is that? Is that further commitments or is that the reality behind the commitments that have already been given? That is the first question. Then in terms of the scope of it, you have said it was kind of biodiversity and so forth, but is it sustainability in an economic, social and environmental sense or is it essentially still environmental-related commitments?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

We are referring to the programmes which the boroughs have already subscribed to, which was not the 50% target. I need only refer you to those boroughs which said that they did not want 50% - that said they wanted 40% - and those boroughs provided, in their 40%, infinitely more houses than the total. I merely refer you to a borough like Richmond which produced 300% more than the target.

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

So why have you set such a low limit? Why not 25% or 30%?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

I have not got time to get into an argument with you so I would just like to ask you a question if that is all right. I know that sales of social housing have fallen this year and there was actually an increase in the number of social housing, but it is always like a leaky pot, isn't it: as fast as you build the social housing there is the right to buy process, and so you are losing those houses? Doesn't the Mayor have any powers to remove the right to buy on new social building?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

I think we are going to be able to explore all of that. We have given you a long opportunity for a publicity stunt! Can I first of all congratulate the person who wrote this report; I think it was Alan Benson (Head of Housing and Homelessness, GLA). It is an extremely readable report, but probably it is readable because the plot is a work of fiction. We take the view that the central targets, contrary to what you have said, are unlikely to be met. We say this because of your track record. There has only been one year...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

That is entirely wrong because you have not addressed the central part of the thesis. 50% of 500 houses is infinitely less than 30% of 2000 houses, so, if the only way they have been able to meet their affordable housing target is by reducing the overall quantum of houses built, it suggests that the policy is an entire failure but you are able to meet your statistical figure.

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Finally, what are you going to do about the still considerable number of empty properties that are not brought onto the housing market at all?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

I have asked him where these buildings are going to be built and who is going to build them. I also draw to his attention that the largest chunk of building which is being proposed is at the Thames Gateway where the Strategy says there will be 100,000 new dwellings built, but, in July, in reply to a question from me, the Mayor said there were only going to be 40,000. In effect what I am saying to you is this: the figures that you are producing relate to slogans and have no relationship whatsoever to what has actually been...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Only 31% of the houses built in 2005/6 were affordable, which was a grand total of fewer than 8,000. What you have done is simply cherry picked the figures.