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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: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 15 February 2007

All right, David. One thing that I am a bit concerned about is that, if you look, for example, at the actual stadium and you look at the original quote of £280 million, the Government has now acknowledged it will be higher than that because of the fact that you want a legacy from it; you do not just want a temporary 80,000 seat stadium. Now, the problem is that that tends to indicate to me that no account initially was taken of a possible legacy use, so therefore there is at least another £100 million in costs. Ignore the...

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 15 February 2007

If I turn to other areas, you mentioned - Sydney and Athens, and so on. My problem with the situation is, if you look at Athens, and, five years earlier, at a lot of the other venues, and with things like rowing and so on, these things were promised to be legacy. If you look at all the original stuff, it said, `this will be legacy'. But the rowing area now has, sort of, environmentally despoiled a wetlands area. The problem is, I cannot find any situation where I can trust claims. It all seems very pie in the sky...

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 15 February 2007

I am very grateful for Mr Biggs mentioning Croydon and Sutton, and I will just briefly touch on that in the limited time that I have. Recently the Department for Work and Pensions came up with figures for Croydon Central Parliamentary Constituency. It is 14th in terms of number of lone parents who are on income support, so there is a very real need to recognise the importance of investing in this area in terms of social deprivation. But my question is actually about the question which Mr Biggs has down about the economic development impact. I would declare an...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 15 February 2007

On this issue of economic boost, clearly it would give London and economic boost if we committed to a living wage for all the workers. Is this going to be -- I know the ODA is working with London citizens to ease this forward. Is this going to be living wage Olympics? Are we going to be globally embarrassed?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 15 February 2007

Right, I have given you 45 email addresses from these people, who will allow you to reach the parts that you have not reached previously. What I would actually like is a commitment from you that you will change whatever you are doing, so that you get down to these people and you talk to them and find out what they want.

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 15 February 2007

There is nothing like having high aspirations! My concern is that I am not sure that the jobs that are going to be available are going to do what it is everyone is trying to achieve, ie get the people who have perhaps never worked, into jobs. My view on this was made more concrete, if you like, when I chaired a meeting in this building, which your officers attended at my invitation, and there were 45 community leaders in the room representing 15,000 of the most deprived in society. Not one of them had heard of the LDA. They...