As the Greater London Authority celebrates its 25th birthday, the focus has been very much on the mayoralty and its three high-profile incumbents. But another part of the institution gets much less attention – the London Assembly, also set up in 2000 to scrutinise and hold the Mayor to account.
In the words of 2024/25 Assembly chair Andrew Boff, the 25-member directly-elected group is not just a “crucial check and balance” on a Mayor with wide powers and a budget now topping £20 billion a year, but also an “important enabler of good government in London”, providing a “vital link between strategic decision-makers and our communities”. Twenty-five years on, how’s that going?
In 2000, “no one had any idea what the Assembly was,” according to the capital’s first Mayor, Ken Livingstone. That was understandable then, but not so far from the truth still today. In polling last year, fewer than one in five Londoners could name their local Assembly member (AM). As the Standard’s City Hall editor Ross Lydall told its annual meeting in May, the Assembly “still struggles for awareness amongst Londoners”.
A recent Assembly meeting, which considered Sir Sadiq Khan’s plan to take Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC) powers to pedestrianise Oxford Street, illustrated what’s often seen as the big problem – the body doesn’t have enough teeth, and even when it can in theory veto a mayoral decision, it has to muster a two-thirds majority to do so. That has never happened.
The power of veto covers the Mayor’s annual budget, statutory strategies such as the London Plan, certain mayoral appointments, and, interestingly, City Hall’s power to create MDCs, making it the only body, bar the judiciary, that had the power to block the controversial Oxford Street scheme. But in its crunch vote last month members followed party lines. Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green AMs voted in favour, the Conservatives and Reform voted against, enabling the Mayor to proceed.
The difficulty of constructing that two-thirds majority is down to an electoral system which is, paradoxically, one of the Assembly’s strengths, too. It combines First Past The Post voting for 14 constituency members alongside proportional voting for 11 “London-wide” seats, which are allocated by party vote share. That makes single party control effectively impossible, but guarantees that the Assembly is broadly representative of the city. In the past, UKIP and even the Britsh National Party have won seats. Today there are 11 Labour members, eight Tories, three Greens, two Lib Dems and one from Reform UK.
That was positive, in Livingstone’s view. “Because no party was ever going to have a majority, they had to cooperate, debate and get stuff done,” he once said. In 2024/25 that meant 86 committee meetings putting mayoral policies under the spotlight, 22 investigations on matters of concern to the city, 408 witnesses giving evidence and 18 reports containing 307 recommendations. Assembly members also quizzed the Mayor at 10 three-hour Mayor’s Question Time sessions and submitted 4,147 written questions. They took up casework and local issues too. They certainly work for their £62,761 annual allowance.
The committee hearings give a platform to a wide range of experts and interest group, and ordinary Londoners too. They raise the profile of key issues: violence against women and girls, the needs of disabled Londoners, water quality and net zero targets to name just a few. And they can make a difference. The Assembly’s recent annual report highlights the “lasting impact” of its 7/7 review committee recommendations on emergency service procedures, and its investigation prompting new procurement rules after Boris Johnson’s £43 million Garden Bridge debacle. It’s effectively snapped at the heels of successive Mayors, and those of Transport for London over Crossrail.
Little-known it may be, but there’s no shortage of applicants for seats. More than 200 candidates stood last year, though conventional politicians prevailed. Today’s Assembly line-up includes one peer and 15 current and seven former borough councillors, along with just two AMs new to public office. It’s been a launch pad for national politics too. Over the years, 17 MPs have been graduates from City Hall, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and current and former foreign secretaries David Lammy and James Cleverley among them.
However, if its committee proceedings feel consensual, its higher profile Mayor’s Question Time set pieces can look more like a training ground for PMQs. That’s been noticeable recently, with Tory AMs, led by last year’s mayoral contender Susan Hall, regularly attempting a pile-on which can seem designed to produce point-scoring “gotcha” moments for social media.
Predictable political rough and tumble perhaps, with just those 10 opportunities over the year to interrogate the Mayor directly. But it can make for unedifying viewing. Others of a Conservative persuasion are advocating a more moderate approach, rather than what one has called “uninspiring populism”, while other AMs say less confrontation is more productive.
“We are able to persuade the Mayor to do things that Londoners are telling us that he needs to shift,” Green AM Caroline Russell told Politico in June. Her work on road safety and public toilet provision are cases in point. Witnesses at the Assembly in 2023 agreed, saying they found it most effective “when it worked in a more non-partisan way”.
Calls for reform persist though. In 2023 the Assembly suggested the Mayor should produce a “forward plan” of decisions coming up, and when. That would make its work more effective, they argued, and allow AMs to “call in” decisions, putting them on hold pending scrutiny. Extra powers to summon witnesses, veto more appointments and amend the budget in more detail were also proposed.
Those changes look unlikely to take place. The previous government labelled the proposals “additional bureaucracy”, undermining the “benefits of the strong mayoral model”. Labour doesn’t seem inclined to tinker either, pledging to maintain London’s “bespoke arrangements”, which polling suggests Londoners remain broadly happy with.
To get more recognition, as Lydall suggested, AMs might be better off looking in the mirror. Get quicker and more “punchy” in your work, he said, but also “remain professional and elevate the standard of debate”. And perhaps be just a little less tribal too.
Follow Charles Wright on Bluesky. Image shows AMs Hina Bokhari (Lib Dem, left) and Andrew Boff (Conservative, right) speaking to local people during a visit to Oxford Street. Watch the video it is taken from here.
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Things became so bad in Autumn and Winter that TFL started running a shuttle service of only two trains between Acton Town & Uxbridge.
The excuse from TFL was “excess leaves on the track.” They have had over half a decade to solve this problem. The staff at the stations did NOTHING, they just hid in the control room and did not come out to reassure angry passengers.
The electronic board would say 10 mins till the next Uxbridge service and then five mins later would disappear entirely. Another 15 mins passed, but no sign of the train, then it came back on the electronic board again as another 15 mins wait. Any communication from staff? Nope!
I rightly complained to Ealing and Hillingdon’s London Assembly representative Bassam Mahfouz who has a prominent position in the Transport Committee. He did absolutely nothing and did mot reply. They are absolutely useless the London Assembly and it should be abolished ASAP, it’s a waste of taxpayers money!