London Assembly
Coat of arms or logo
Type
Type
History
Founded3 July 2000
Leadership
Andrew Boff
since 4 May 2023
Deputy Chair
Onkar Sahota
since 4 May 2023
Group leaders
Structure
Seats25
Political groups
  •   Labour (11)
  •   Conservative (9)
  •   Green (3)
  •   Liberal Democrats (2)
Committees
List
  • Audit
  • Budget and Performance
  • Budget Monitoring
  • Confirmation Hearings
  • Economy
  • Education
  • Environment
  • GLA Oversight
  • Health
  • Housing
  • Planning
  • Police and Crime
  • Regeneration
  • Transport
Elections
Additional Member System
Last election
6 May 2021
Next election
May 2024
Meeting place
City Hall, Newham, London
Website
www.london.gov.uk

The London Assembly is a 25-member elected body, part of the Greater London Authority, that scrutinises the activities of the Mayor of London and has the power, with a two-thirds supermajority, to amend the Mayor's annual budget and to reject the Mayor's draft statutory strategies.[1] The London Assembly was established in 2000. It is also able to investigate other issues of importance to Londoners (most notably transport or environmental matters), publish its findings and recommendations, and make proposals to the Mayor.

Assembly Members

The Assembly comprises 25 members elected using the additional member system of proportional representation, with 13 seats needed for a majority. Elections take place every four years, at the same time as those for the Mayor. There are 14 geographical super-constituencies, each electing one Member, with a further 11 members elected from a party list to make the total number of Assembly Members from each party proportional to the votes cast for that party across the whole of London using a modified D'Hondt allocation.[2] A party must win at least 5% of the party list vote in order to win any seats. Members of the London Assembly have the post-nominal title "AM". The annual salary for a London Assembly Member is approximately £60,416.[3]

Former Assembly Members

Since its creation in 2000, fifteen Assembly Members subsequently were elected to the House of Commons: David Lammy, Meg Hillier, Diana Johnson, and Florence Eshalomi for Labour; Andrew Pelling, Bob Neill, Angie Bray, Bob Blackman, Eric Ollerenshaw, Victoria Borwick, James Cleverly, Kit Malthouse, Kemi Badenoch, and Gareth Bacon for the Conservatives; and Lynne Featherstone for the Liberal Democrats. One Assembly Member, Jenny Jones, was elevated to the peerage as the Green Party's first Life Peeress in 2013, continuing to sit in the Assembly until May 2016. Sally Hamwee, Graham Tope, and Toby Harris already Life Peers were elected to the Assembly, while Lynne Featherstone and Dee Doocey were created Life Peers after standing down from the Assembly. In addition, Val Shawcross, Assembly Member for Lambeth and Southwark, contested unsuccessfully Bermondsey and Old Southwark as the Labour parliamentary candidate at the 2010 general election, and likewise Navin Shah stood unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate for Harrow East in 2017. Andrew Dismore, Graham Tope, and the late Richard Tracey are all former MPs later elected to the Assembly. John Biggs, formerly AM for City and East, served as the directly-elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets from 2015 until 2022.

Structure of the Assembly

London Assembly elections have been held under the additional member system, with a set number of constituencies elected on a first-past-the-post system and a set number London-wide on a closed party list system. Terms are for four years, so despite the delayed 2020 election, which was held in 2021, the following election will be in 2024.

In December 2016, an Electoral Reform Bill was introduced which would have changed the election system to first-past-the-post.[4] At the 2017 general election, the Conservative Party manifesto proposed changing how the Assembly is elected to first-past-the-post.[5]

However, since the general election of 2017, which resulted in a hung Parliament with the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party in a confidence and supply arrangement, no action has been taken with regard to the electoral arrangements of the London Assembly, and the 2020 election, delayed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was held on the current electoral system of AMS (constituencies and regional lists).

Political party Assembly members
2000
2004
2008
2012
2016
 2021
Labour 9 7 8 12 12 11
11 / 25
Conservative 9 9 11 9 8 9
9 / 25
Green 3 2 2 2 2 3
3 / 25
Liberal Democrat 4 5 3 2 1 2
2 / 25
UKIP 0 2 0 0 2 0
0 / 25
BNP 0 0 1 0 0

On 12 December 2018, following Peter Whittle's departure from UKIP, he and David Kurten disbanded the UKIP grouping and formed the Brexit Alliance group.

In March 2019, following the departure of Tom Copley and Fiona Twycross to take up full-time Deputy Mayor roles, Murad Qureshi and Alison Moore replaced them as Labour Assembly Members. The end of the term in office for AMs was extended from May 2020 to May 2021, as no elections were being held during the COVID-19 pandemic.

List of current Assembly Members

Constituency Member Political party
Barnet and Camden Anne Clarke Labour Co-op
Bexley and Bromley Peter Fortune Conservative
Brent and Harrow Krupesh Hirani Labour
City and East Unmesh Desai Labour
Croydon and Sutton Neil Garratt Conservative
Ealing and Hillingdon Onkar Sahota Labour
Enfield and Haringey Joanne McCartney Labour Co-op
Greenwich and Lewisham Len Duvall Labour Co-op
Havering and Redbridge Keith Prince Conservative
Lambeth and Southwark Marina Ahmad Labour
Merton and Wandsworth Leonie Cooper Labour Co-op
North East Sem Moema Labour
South West Nicholas Rogers Conservative
West Central Tony Devenish Conservative
Additional Members
London-wide		 Siân Berry Green
Caroline Pidgeon Liberal Democrats
Caroline Russell Green
Shaun Bailey, Baron Bailey of Paddington Conservative
Andrew Boff Conservative
Zack Polanski Green
Susan Hall Conservative
Elly Baker Labour
Hina Bokhari Liberal Democrats
Sakina Sheikh Labour
Emma Best Conservative
Composition of London Assembly, 2000 – 2021
  Green Party   Labour Party   Liberal Democrats   Conservative Party   UKIP   BNP

List of chairs of the London Assembly

Chairs of the assembly
Name Entered office Left office Political party
Trevor Phillips May 2000 May 2001 Labour
Sally Hamwee May 2001 May 2002 Liberal Democrats
Trevor Phillips May 2002 February 2003 Labour
Sally Hamwee February 2003 May 2004 Liberal Democrats
Brian Coleman May 2004 May 2005 Conservative
Sally Hamwee May 2005 May 2006 Liberal Democrats
Brian Coleman May 2006 May 2007 Conservative
Sally Hamwee May 2007 May 2008 Liberal Democrats
Jennette Arnold May 2008 May 2009 Labour
Darren Johnson May 2009 May 2010 Green
Dee Doocey May 2010 May 2011 Liberal Democrats
Jennette Arnold May 2011 May 2013 Labour
Darren Johnson May 2013 May 2014 Green
Roger Evans May 2014 May 2015 Conservative
Jennette Arnold May 2015 May 2016 Labour
Tony Arbour May 2016 May 2017 Conservative
Jennette Arnold May 2017 May 2018 Labour
Tony Arbour May 2018 May 2019 Conservative
Jennette Arnold May 2019 May 2020 Labour
Navin Shah May 2020 May 2021 Labour
Andrew Boff May 2021 May 2022 Conservative
Onkar Sahota May 2022 May 2023 Labour
Andrew Boff May 2023 Incumbent Conservative

Committees

The Assembly has formed the following committees:[6]

The Police and Crime Committee was set up under the terms of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 in order to scrutinise the work of Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime, which replaced the Metropolitan Police Authority.[7]

Result maps

Note that these maps only show constituency results and not list results.

References

  1. ↑ "Localism Act 2011". Legislation.gov.uk. 7 February 2012. Retrieved 3 April 2015.
  2. ↑ "How the London election works". BBC. 25 April 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  3. ↑ "Salaries, expenses, benefits and workforce information". London City Hall. 19 March 2015. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  4. ↑ Stone, Jon (23 December 2016). "Tory and Labour MPs gang up in bid to strip London Assembly of PR voting system". The Independent.
  5. ↑ "Tories confirm London Assembly also faces election rules shake-up". Mayor Watch. 19 May 2017.
  6. ↑ "London Assembly – Membership of Committees/Panels and Terms of Reference 2023/24 | London Assembly" (PDF). london.gov.uk. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  7. ↑ "Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011". Legislation.gov.uk. 26 October 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2015.
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