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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: 08 November 2006

The problem is when the Chair of the Federation is saying what he says, which is so seriously strong when he says that it is being reported it is far below what really happens, underplayed for political reasons, you can play with statistics in that sense and the public does not feel that we have gotten on top of it. I think that independent statistics surely are the answer.

• Question by: Graham Tope
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

I take the point, wholly, that the train operating companies should be paying for their policing. Historically they do not. I do not think the public is going to be much impressed by this turf war.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

It was suggested to me that this had been requested by TfL in order to collect figures on the congestion charge and people's journey times and choices.

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

Thank you for that answer. I freely admit this is a semi-planted question. The question is not planted but I received a briefing from the police several months ago precisely as part of the strategy which I think the Authority supports of seeking to reclaim funding for policing at London City Airport, and I quite strongly support that, it is a very profitable enterprise. As I understand it the figures are that currently policing at Heathrow costs roughly £48 million a year, of which we recover £26 million, and we want to increase that to £35 million. From the public...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

London City Airport; roughly we spend £7 million on policing - I think this is public information - and we are hoping to recover £5 million of that £7 million from them. That is not unreasonable.

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 08 November 2006

Thank you, Chair. I think you have put your finger on it when you say partly a problem of transition. My experience has been that the public and the elected representatives of the public are not yet quite clear how the new system should be working, and there is perhaps some hanging on to old consultative contact structures that could really be burned back in order to save police time, because there is some concern about use of police time in the evenings if everybody was clear about how they could access the new consultative and dialogue framework. I would...