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• 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?

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

Thank you for your verbal report. No doubt, there will be some follow-up from others who are on the MPA about clarifications for your conversations with the Home Secretary, and the West London Tram will be brought up later on in subsequent questions. The thing I wanted to do was actually just congratulate GLA Events and Media team for doing a very good event on Sunday at Trafalgar Square.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

I mentioned about the hospital because in times of illness, that is something that stays with people, because of all the other factors, but there are other spin-offs as well. Somebody told me recently that when you look at elders, they are not able to use the holiday schemes that are on offer, because many of those--

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 18 November 2006

Do you know that is a bit rich, really, coming from you, saying that things are being dealt with for party political reasons. Many people would say that the London Plan and your amendment is driving forward a political agenda; for example, your policy relating to affordable housing. That is a political matter. In the opening statement which you made this morning, you talked about your casual attitude to events being rather more casual than, how shall I put it, more formal parts of Government. The truth of the matter is -

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

Am I right in saying that the target for the percentage of time spent on community fire safety at station level has risen from 6 per cent to 8 per cent? Looking at the actual performance last year, over a third of our stations exceeded 10 per cent and one of them, Sutton, according to the figures, spent 25 per cent of their time on community fire safety. Is not 8 per cent really too low as a target, therefore, and should we not be getting the average a lot higher?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

If some can achieve above 20 per cent, can we not encourage the others too?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

Thank you, Sir Ken. I think we would all like to congratulate those success stories that you have just highlighted. Obviously the picture we are getting is that it is a patchy performance across London. Would you agree with that?