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• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 12 January 2021

Andrew Boff AM: Professor Fenton, on I think 3 March [2020], the Mayor of London said that there is no risk of people catching coronavirus while travelling on buses or trains in the capital. Did you give him that advice?

• Question by: David Kurten
• Meeting date: 12 January 2021

David Kurten AM: Thank you, Chair. I would like to ask Dr Fenton. We heard from the Chair and you earlier about admissions to hospitals with COVID being the highest since the start of the declared pandemic in March 2020. How do total hospital admissions now, this January, compare to last January and other winter seasons before this year?

• Question by: Caroline Russell
• Meeting date: 12 January 2021

Caroline Russell AM: Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Martin, for that really clear description of what is happening in our hospitals and to the people working in those hospitals. I want to talk about the vaccination of frontline workers. I do realise that vaccination rollout is in early stages and that we will not know for a few months whether vaccination has any effect on reducing transmission, but yesterday the Government released guidance that said phase two of vaccination may include targeted vaccination of those at high risk of exposure and/or those delivering key public services. This week we...

• Question by: Navin Shah
• Meeting date: 12 January 2021

Navin Shah AM: Thank you very much. My question is to Professor Fenton. We saw in the first wave that BAME Londoners were disproportionately affected by COVID-19. In fact, the figures were very damning and not acceptable in any situation. What lessons have we learned since the first wave and what has been implemented as a result to improve the situation, which needs to be done speedily and dramatically?

• 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...