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• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 14 March 2012

Richard Barnes (Deputy Mayor): Chair, I know a number of hymns that would lift us, but I have heard the gloom from the Labour Party, and as they are only half-full glass people, then it would be difficult. Anyway, Mr Mayor, I am grateful that Assembly Member Doocey raised the issue of the Olympics under this open-ended question. Is it not true that when you assumed office four years ago, there was no legacy plans for the Olympics? Is it not true that the cost of the Olympics had gone up from 2005 at £2.4 billion to £9 billion in...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 14 March 2012

Heathrow, Mr Mayor, sits in my constituency and can I remind you and Assembly Member Qureshi that the previous Mayor did look at Heathrow, did wish to introduce a congestion charge around Heathrow until he discovered he did not own the roads and the income would have attained wholly to BAA and not a halfpenny would have come to this organisation, so he rapidly abandoned it. However, recently when he was in the villages around Heathrow, he again mentioned congestion charges at Heathrow which would be an absolute nonsense and achieve nothing to the people of London. Can you assure...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 14 March 2012

Thank you, Chair. Can I say how grateful I am to Assembly Member Shawcross for raising the issues of outer London and the residents of outer London? I live in outer London. I represent outer London. Indeed, I travel in from outer London on a daily basis. I am pleased that after 12 years the Labour Party is actually interested in outer London. Perhaps they will come and visit us. They certainly did not for the first eight years. But, Mr Mayor, my residents have gone through pain as the Metropolitan line has been upgraded and indeed at weekends as...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 22 February 2012

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for making that last very clear legalistic point for all of us here in the audience. Mr Mayor, would you be shocked, horrified or interested to know that, four years ago, there was a full-time employee in this building using GLA resources to run the Back Ken website. When it was identified, it was, 'I am only doing it in my spare time'.

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 22 February 2012

Mr Mayor, will you join me in recognising that Darren makes a very strong moral point, but he does not make a very strong legal point because the appointment of the official hotels was put out to tender? It has to have done so under the laws that prevail in this land and Europe and it fell within the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) rules. That is that London's Living Wage is a non-legally enforceable living wage in London, although it may well be morally demanded. Although we recognise his moral point, he rather is getting his feathers...

• Reference: 2011/3197
• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 12 October 2011

Will the Mayor outline the effect that a universal 5% fares cut would have on the Piccadilly Line upgrade in Ealing?

• Reference: 2011/3198
• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 12 October 2011

Will the Mayor outline the effect that a universal 5% fares cut would have on the Piccadilly Line upgrade in Hillingdon?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 12 October 2011

Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr Mayor, Murad Qureshi has raised this issue on fuel poverty a number of times. The question, which we skipped over which he was also posing, regarded air quality and CO2 targets. Now, I understand that there is a conflict in policy in achieving CO2 reduction and reducing fuel poverty charges because it is estimated some 15% of energy charges are so called green taxes. If we wished to impact everybody and list everybody in this capital city, could we recommend that the Government reduces the green tax on fuel? Would Murad then support you?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 12 October 2011

Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr Mayor, it is interesting to listen to Jenny Jones and Val Shawcross and we all share a concern where there is an increase in accidents involving children, but isn't the reality that this a multi-agency issue? It is not just something which can be pinned on yourself, as well known as you are across London I know that you are not omnipresent at every school at going home time. There is a responsibility with the schools, with the children themselves and also with the parents. I am a governor at a couple of schools and...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 14 September 2011

Mr Mayor, could you join me in acknowledging that many of our communities did come together and protect their properties? I think particularly the Turkish community --