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Greater London Authority Bill

The hon. Gentleman is right. He will know that the London Assembly’s planning scrutiny committee, of which I was for a time the chair and Baroness Hamwee the deputy chair, produced a report criticising the Mayor’s behaviour on those very matters. Does he agree that although the Mayor has, in response to questions in the Assembly, rather belatedly conceded that he would hold planning meetings in public if he got the positive power to do so, it is not satisfactory for that to depend purely on the assurance of one individual, who might change after an election, and that it is crucial that a safeguard is written into the Bill to ensure that planning meetings are held in public? That should not be dependent on the Mayor’s personal concession. It should be in the primary legislation.