THE POWERS OF THE MAYOR
Before setting out what I intend to do, I set out what the office allows. This chapter exists so that every commitment in this manifesto can be checked against the power claimed for it.
1.1 What the Mayor controls directly
The Mayor of London is a directly elected executive with a personal mandate larger than that of any other politician in the United Kingdom outside the office of Prime Minister. The powers are held by the Mayor personally, not by a cabinet or a council, and are exercised through four principal bodies.
Transport for London
The Mayor chairs TfL and sets its strategy. This covers the Underground, the bus network, the Docklands Light Railway, the Overground, the Elizabeth line, trams, river services, the taxi and private hire licensing regime, the Congestion Charge and Ultra Low Emission Zone, cycle hire and rental scooter licensing, and the Transport for London Road Network. That road network is approximately five per cent of London’s roads by length but carries around thirty per cent of its traffic, including most major arteries. The Mayor also sets fares, subject to the budget.
The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime
The Mayor is the policing authority for London. MOPAC sets the Police and Crime Plan that determines the Metropolitan Police’s strategic priorities, sets the police budget, holds the Commissioner to account, owns the police estate, and commissions victim services and violence reduction work. The Mayor cannot direct operational decisions in individual cases, and should not be able to. The Mayor absolutely can determine what the force treats as its priority, what it is resourced to do, and whether it is trusted.
The London Fire Commissioner
The Mayor appoints the Commissioner and sets the London Safety Plan and the Brigade’s budget.
Planning, land and the London Plan
The London Plan is the statutory spatial development strategy for Greater London. Every borough local plan must conform to it. The Mayor can call in planning applications of strategic importance and determine them personally, can direct refusal, holds substantial land through the GLA and TfL, and controls the Affordable Homes Programme and other housing investment.
Budget and precept
The Mayor proposes the GLA group budget, which the London Assembly may amend only with a two-thirds majority, and sets the GLA council tax precept levied on every household in London.
1.2 What the Mayor does not control
Equally important, and rarely stated by candidates for this office.
Any manifesto promising delivery in these areas is promising something it cannot give. Where this document addresses them, it does so in amber, as a campaign, and says so.
- Criminal law, sentencing and the courts. These are matters for Parliament, the Sentencing Council and the judiciary.
- Immigration, asylum, deportation and citizenship. These are Home Office functions.
- Taxation. Income tax, VAT, duties and business rates policy are set by the Treasury and Parliament.
- Employment law, landlord and tenant law, and consumer regulation.
- The National Health Service, though the Mayor has a statutory health inequalities duty and sits on London’s health partnerships.
- Schools and the national curriculum, though adult education funding is devolved to the Mayor.
- Broadcasting and press regulation, which sit with Ofcom.
- Foreign policy, defence and international sanctions.
- Water and sewerage regulation, which sits with Ofwat and the Environment Agency.
1.3 The power that is consistently underestimated
Influence is not a consolation prize. The Mayor of London speaks for nine million people, commands a permanent national media platform, sits as statutory consultee on decisions across the capital, and presides over a group that spends billions of pounds a year with private suppliers.
Recent history demonstrates the point. Mayoral pressure has reshaped national policy on cycling infrastructure, on rough sleeping funding, on private hire regulation and on air quality standards. Mayoral procurement conditions have moved employment practices across whole sectors of the London economy. Planning conditions attached to mayoral consent have changed what developers build.
A Mayor working constructively with government has an advantage: an open door in Whitehall and a shared interest in London’s success. The amber commitments in this manifesto are serious commitments. They are things I will spend the term fighting for, using every one of those levers. They are marked amber because I will not tell London that a fight is a certainty, even one I expect to win.