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• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

Do you know, I am flabbergasted by this, Deputy Mayor. You have just told us that these low-energy bulbs are in fact a transitional thing, because LED bulbs are going to come in which are going to be efficient, but at the same time your publicity has told us that these light bulbs are going to have a very long life. Clearly it is quite pointless that they should have a long life if something more permanent is going to come along. It is a bit like somebody trying to sell me a Betamax video recorder! The whole thing is...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

One final thing on this; I believe the whole thing is completely ludicrous. This refers to DIY Planet Repairs. Whenever we switch on any of the computers in this building a big thing comes up with an exclamation mark saying `DIY Planet Repairs'; utterly meaningless. I can well understand why there is an exclamation mark there; this has cost the Council Tax payers of London more than £1.25 million! Can you point to any `DIY Planet Repair' which the Mayor and this campaign have actually achieved?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

Of the 30,000 a year that you are predicting?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

Mr Watts, that is not actually true. In the Mayor's press release ' which I suppose in this case is Nicky's press release ' a 63% take-up was predicted, which is four million. Your figure bears no relationship to the press release and the fact that you only made available this tiny number of light bulbs suggests that there was never any truth in the matter at all.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 16 January 2008

It's very interested to hear you say that all of this is supposed to encourage people to take up these things. The total number of people who have actually taken up the insulation grants so far is barely 3,000 homes of the 30,000. The thing you principally have been trumpeting to make Londoners aware of how they can cut carbon issues has related to the exchange of light bulbs. Now the Mayor in his press release predicted that there was going to be a 60% take up of London's population of that; that is around four million people. I wonder...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

I wonder if you could tell us how you're proposing to ensure that the boroughs, when they collect recyclable materials, actually have a market for them and they're not left with a large surplus which they have to dispose of themselves?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

Except there's nothing more disillusioning for the residents of London who assiduously separate recyclable materials then to discover that those materials are in effect going straight to landfill. For example in the London Borough of Sutton, which turns out in fact to be the pariah of recycling authorities rather than allegedly the angel of recycling authorities, glass which is collected in the London Borough of Sutton goes directly to landfill. It does not pass go and it most definitely doesn't collect £200, and this in the London Borough of Sutton and I suspect over the whole of London is creating...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

What about the general point that I've just made to you about those residents who are very keen to collect recyclable materials, but if they discover that these recyclable materials are not actually being recycled at all how would you suggest that borough councils explain that to their residents?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 14 November 2001

So are you suggesting that if there is to be no market for recyclable goods because of perhaps a glut or something, then boroughs should in fact say to their residents, 'Well it's an enormously costly exercise to sort and collect and so on. Just tip it in the ordinary refuse as you would have done before the days of recycling.'