As I say, I believe this antipathy to foreign investment is very largely misplaced. Yes, there are certainly parts of the city where a large proportion of sales are going overseas, and yes, it would be a good thing if new homes were targeted first at Londoners and not sold off-plan in foreign capitals. But even in the hotspot areas foreign sales are running at the same rate as they were in 1990, and across the city as a whole they are about 6.5 per cent by value – the same as 20 years ago; and as I tried to explain to this woman, it is foreign investment that enables us to go ahead with developments, like Battersea, that would otherwise be stalled forever; and it is those new developments – tens if not hundreds of thousands of new homes –that offer real hope for her and her daughter.