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• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

It's very interested to hear you say that all of this is supposed to encourage people to take up these things. The total number of people who have actually taken up the insulation grants so far is barely 3,000 homes of the 30,000. The thing you principally have been trumpeting to make Londoners aware of how they can cut carbon issues has related to the exchange of light bulbs. Now the Mayor in his press release predicted that there was going to be a 60% take up of London's population of that; that is around four million people. I wonder...

• 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.

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

Where are they going to be built, Neale, these houses?