This month marks 25 years since Londoners first went to the polls to elect a Mayor to lead our city. A quarter of a century on, it’s difficult to overstate how transformational that change has been for London and for the UK.
Before 2000, there was no single figure directly accountable for the capital’s fortunes, day in and day out. Today, Sir Sadiq Khan holds a million-vote mandate, which not only gives weight to the strategic decisions he takes for the city but also means London has a strong voice on the global stage.
The fact that there are now 12 metro mayors across England reflects how this relatively new role has been embraced by successive governments and local communities. It’s now time to complete this devolution drive so that London and other parts of the country have the powers and resources to deliver better outcomes than the UK’s heavily centralised model has in the recent past.
What have we learned from the past 25 years? The visible leadership of Mayors has delivered some notable successes in London, particularly when it comes to transport. Crucially, the creation of Transport for London as an integrated body accountable to the Mayor has resulted in more coherent, consistent, and customer-focused services.
It’s hard to imagine how the long-term funding and delivery of the Elizabeth Line would have been securing under the old, fragmented system under which different parts of the network were reporting to national government ministers with short-term political horizons.
The same could be said of Ken Livingstone’s introduction of the Congestion Charge and Boris Johnson’s launch of the capital’s incredibly popular cycle hire scheme. Better public transport has also delivered significant environmental benefits in line with the current Mayor’s strong focus on improving air quality, including through the Ultra-Low Emission Zone and a growing fleet of zero-emission buses.
The public transport network has improved immeasurably over the last 25 years and holds up well when compared to those of other major global cities. With demand projected to increase, however, London cannot afford to stand still, so capital investment – including during the upcoming spending review – will be vital to keeping the city moving and supporting growth.
With policing, the situation is more complex. Under the leadership of Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police has made great strides in improve its culture having recently come out of special measures and is adapting to the changing face of crime amid acute financial pressures. But the Met operates under a dual oversight model, answering both to the Mayor and to the Home Office – a structure that has made reform more difficult and accountability less clear.
It’s a similarly opaque picture when it comes to housing, where the Mayor has several levers he can pull to boost supply but is heavily reliant on funding from central government. In the past, this situation has all too often descended into finger pointing between City Hall and Whitehall, with Londoners none the wiser about who is ultimately responsible.
Ask Londoners what the Mayor is responsible for and most would struggle to answer accurately. That’s not a reflection of public apathy, but the result of a system that remains overly-centralised, blurs accountability and makes it too easy to pass the buck.
This gets to the heart of the central challenge for the mayoralty’s next 25 years: ensuring that London has the tools it need to shape its own future. London’s devolution deal has failed to keep pace with those of other city-regions, let alone other international business hubs. The capital’s Mayor retains just seven per cent of taxes raised in the city compared to New York’s 50 per cent.
Enabling regional leaders to retain a greater proportion of local taxes – for example Business Rates – would create a powerful incentive to re-invest locally and deliver growth. It would also increase accountability. Letting London, along with other parts of the country, set its own priorities and delivery strategies would provide better value and better outcomes.
The creation of the Mayor of London brought strategic clarity and leadership to governing one of the world’s most dynamic cities. It is now time to go further and faster so that the capital can continue to flourish.
This article originally appeared in On London.