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• Question by: Sakina Sheikh
• Meeting date: 07 September 2023

Sakina Sheikh AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning to the panel. It has been a sort of informing but somewhat depressing conversation so far this morning. I wanted to just drill down into this conversation that has been had around the use of hotel accommodations to house asylum seekers. Enver, I am going to come to you specifically. I had a roundtable meeting organised by Migrant Voice with a lot of asylum seekers recently. Then they also released a report called No Rest No Security. Some of the details around the conditions in the hotels are shocking. We have heard...

• Question by: Tony Devenish
• Meeting date: 07 September 2023

Tony Devenish AM: Thank you. I will start with the Deputy Mayor. Apart from one or two bits of emotional language, I agree with virtually everything that has been said this morning. We clearly have a major issue and we need to do more to resolve it. of course, there could be a change of Government, I hope not, but there could be a change of Government in only 12 or 13 months. We can all set out the problem, it is easy to set out the problems and there has been great work done by people. I would like...

• Question by: Sakina Sheikh
• Meeting date: 06 July 2023

Sakina Sheikh AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning to you, Mr Mayor and Commissioner; it is great to have you here with us. I think it is a well-known fact that all roads lead to Lewisham, Assembly Member Duvall’s patch. Unfortunately, all Tube lines do not lead to Lewisham. In fact, no Tube lines lead to Lewisham. I am so pleased for the laughter because I really worked on that one. We, as you know, are incredibly keen for the extension of the Bakerloo line that was promised and that case was made by Ifia Conteo , a really articulate...

• Question by: Sakina Sheikh
• Meeting date: 08 June 2023

Sakina Sheikh AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning to the panel. Sir John Armitt, I am going to take us back to some of your opening comments around the wider strategic priorities and framework in terms of how we navigate decisions in London for infrastructure projects. To that end I wanted to ask, how should the GLA determine which infrastructure projects in London should be prioritised? Please feel free to draw on your opening remarks and build on them.

• Question by: Tony Devenish
• Meeting date: 08 June 2023

Tony Devenish AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning, panel, and good morning, Deputy Mayor. I think that was the best excuse I have heard for the Mayor not turning up yet. We get one every time. There is one thing that has not been mentioned so far this morning. As somebody who has spent most of my career in infrastructure, it is the vision thing. You are going into the begging bowl at the end, Deputy Mayor, but before you have a begging bowl you actually need a vision. Both of the first two Mayors really - and I do...

• Question by: Sakina Sheikh
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Sakina Sheikh AM: Good morning, Lyn. Good morning, Lord Hendy. It is great to see you both. Lyn, recently you came - it feels like a long time ago now - in November [2022] to the Planning and Regeneration Committee and we had some really interesting conversations about the LLDC and the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC). I just wanted to go back to some of what was talked about and draw out some of the themes. One of the things that you said through the conversation was that displacement of people in regeneration schemes is inevitable...

• Question by: Tony Devenish
• Meeting date: 01 December 2022

Tony Devenish AM: Thank you. My questions are for Sir Mark, please. Eighty days into the job and clearly you are talking about good signals that things are getting better in policing in London, and I want to pick two topics, please. The first is obviously anti-Semitism, and AM Pidgeon has already mentioned the terrible incident last year in Hanukkah on Oxford Street. Is there any progress, please, on that investigation? You realise it is not specifically the investigation itself; it is the signal that that sends in terms of fighting anti-Semitism.

• Question by: Sakina Sheikh
• Meeting date: 01 December 2022

Sakina Sheikh AM: Thank you, Chair. I want to speak a little bit more about the issue of fraud, building on Assembly Member Garratt’s line of questioning. I was absolutely shocked to see that fraud constitutes 41% of all crime committed in the UK and costs the UK £137 billion each year. Commissioner, I just wanted to ask if there is anything you wanted to expand on in terms of how confident you feel in the MPS’s ability to get a handle on tackling fraud. Then I will move on to yourself, Mr Mayor, to ask what we are doing...

• Question by: Tony Devenish
• Meeting date: 01 December 2022

Tony Devenish AM: Thank you, Chair. I am going to follow the Chair’s request earlier, Sir Mark, in terms of South Hampstead and also ask if you could look at blatant drug dealing in Earl’s Court. My wider question is: do you think, once you have been in office for a good year, we could get rid of blatant drug dealing? It has become far more blatant right across London in recent years. It really does - I use an old-fashioned expression - lower the tone of an area. It is all about trying to reassure Londoners that we are...

• Question by: Sakina Sheikh
• Meeting date: 17 November 2022

Sakina Sheikh AM: Thank you, Chair. Building on the conversation that we are just finishing off with Assembly Member Marina Ahmad about the scrappage scheme. I thought it would be worth, given that we have had a back and forth and were looking for lessons learned, drilling down a little bit more into the review of the London-wide ULEZ Integrated Impact Assessment. In front of me it says: “TfL is reviewing the effectiveness of the previous ULEZ scrappage scheme that enabled over 15,000 polluting vehicles to be removed from London’s roads to inform the development of any future scheme.” It...