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London Assembly

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London Assembly
Coat of arms or logo
Type
Type
History
Founded3 July 2000
Leadership
Andrew Boff,
Conservative
since 4 May 2023[1]
Deputy Chair
Len Duvall,
Labour
since 10 May 2024[2]
Group leaders
Structure
Seats25
Political groups
  •   Labour (11)[a]
  •   Conservative (8)
  •   Green (3)
  •   Liberal Democrats (2)
  •   Reform UK (1)
Committees
List
Elections
Additional-member system
Last election
2 May 2024
Next election
4 May 2028
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.[3] 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

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The Assembly comprises 25 members elected using the additional-member system of mixed-member proportional representation, with 13 seats needed for a majority. Elections take place every four years, at the same time as those for the mayor of London. There are 14 geographical 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.[4] 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.[5]

Former Assembly members

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Since its creation in 2000, sixteen 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; Lynne Featherstone for the Liberal Democrats and Siân Berry for the Green Party.

One Assembly member, Jenny Jones, was elevated to the House of Lords as the Green Party's first life peer in 2013, continuing to sit in the Assembly until May 2016. Sally Hamwee, Graham Tope, and Toby Harris were already peers when elected to the assembly, while Lynne Featherstone and Dee Doocey were created life peers after standing down from the Assembly.

Val Shawcross, AM for Lambeth and Southwark, unsuccessfully contested Bermondsey and Old Southwark as the Labour parliamentary candidate at the 2010 general election, and 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

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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 was held in 2024.

In December 2016, an Electoral Reform Bill was introduced which would have changed the election system to first-past-the-post.[6] At the 2017 general election, the Conservative Party manifesto proposed changing how the Assembly is elected to first-past-the-post.[7]

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
2024
Labour 9 7 8 12 12 11 11
11 / 25
Conservative 9 9 11 9 8 9 8
8 / 25
Green 3 2 2 2 2 3 3
3 / 25
Liberal Democrat 4 5 3 2 1 2 2
2 / 25
Reform 0 1
1 / 25
UKIP 0 2 0 0 2 0
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

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Constituency Member Political party
Barnet and Camden Anne Clarke Labour Co-op
Bexley and Bromley Thomas Turrell Conservative
Brent and Harrow Krupesh Hirani Labour Co-op
City and East Unmesh Desai Labour Co-op
Croydon and Sutton Neil Garratt Conservative
Ealing and Hillingdon Bassam Mahfouz 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 Co-op
Merton and Wandsworth Leonie Cooper Labour Co-op
North East Sem Moema Labour Co-op
South West Gareth Roberts Liberal Democrats
West Central James Small-Edwards Labour Co-op
Additional members
London-wide
Zoë Garbett Green
Susan Hall Conservative
Alex Wilson Reform UK
Caroline Russell Green
The Lord Bailey of Paddington Conservative
Emma Best Conservative
Hina Bokhari Liberal Democrats
Zack Polanski Green
Andrew Boff Conservative
Elly Baker Labour
Alessandro Georgiou Conservative
Composition of London Assembly, 2000 – 2021
  Green Party   Labour Party   Liberal Democrats   Conservative Party   UKIP   BNP

List of chairs of the London Assembly

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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

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The Assembly has formed the following committees:[8]

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.[9]

Result maps

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

Notes

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  1. ^ Includes 6 Labour Co-op AMs.

References

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  1. ^ "Newly elected London Assembly appoints Chair and Deputy Chair". London Assembly. 10 May 2024. Retrieved 13 May 2024.
  2. ^ "London Assembly (Plenary)". London Assembly. 10 May 2024. Retrieved 10 May 2024.
  3. ^ "Localism Act 2011". Legislation.gov.uk. 7 February 2012. Retrieved 3 April 2015.
  4. ^ "How the London election works". BBC. 25 April 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  5. ^ "Salaries, expenses, benefits and workforce information". London City Hall. 19 March 2015. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  6. ^ Stone, Jon (23 December 2016). "Tory and Labour MPs gang up in bid to strip London Assembly of PR voting system". The Independent.
  7. ^ "Tories confirm London Assembly also faces election rules shake-up". Mayor Watch. 19 May 2017.
  8. ^ "London Assembly – Membership of Committees/Panels" (PDF). london.gov.uk. Retrieved 10 May 2024.
  9. ^ "Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011". Legislation.gov.uk. 26 October 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2015.
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