English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Tuesday 2nd September 2025
(1 month, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberEnglish Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 167 / Noes: 367 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:14 - The House divided: - Ayes: 365 / Noes: 164 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
The reasoned amendment in the name of the official Opposition has been selected.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This Government were elected on a manifesto to deliver change—real change for working people; change that people can see and feel around them. That means more money in their pockets, decent jobs, new homes, good transport links, thriving high streets and opportunities for young people. But after 14 years of a Tory Government unwilling to take the tough choices to make life better for working people, it is no wonder that people have lost hope that real change is possible. And we have a plan to change that—a plan to give people with skin in the game real control over their lives and the power to have a real stake in their place and share in our country’s success.
Our landmark English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill will deliver this and more. It will help us to build a modern state based on a fairer, stronger partnership between Government and local people, with the aim of renewing people’s faith that the state can work for them. That faith has been sorely tested in recent years. After more than a decade of broken promises from those on the Conservative Benches, people associate Whitehall with failure and decline. The communities that once built Britain have seen good jobs disappearing, secure homes crumbling and once-strong communities divided. Things that our parents and grandparents once relied on—that I relied on as a young mum—have fallen by the wayside. It is my mission to rebuild those foundations of a good life for all communities in all parts of our country.
I worked on the frontline of local government and I saw how it changes people’s lives. I know that I will not achieve our goals unless we fundamentally change the way that our country is run. That means handing power back to where it belongs—to local people with skin in the game—so that they can make decisions on what really matters to their communities. This Bill will drive the biggest transfer of power in a generation out of Whitehall to our regions and communities and end the begging bowl, micro-managing culture. It will make devolution the default setting by: giving mayors new powers over planning, housing and regeneration to get Britain building as part of our plan for change; rebuilding local government, so that it can once again deliver good local services that people can rely on; and empowering local communities to have a bigger say in shaping their local area.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
In the right hon. Lady’s attempts to drive forward this carthorse of devolution, will she tell us where the accountability and scrutiny will come from and where the voice of local people will really be heard?
Angela Rayner
I am really disappointed, because I thought that the previous Government were the ones to turbocharge devolution, and we are moving on that agenda. We actually do believe that devolution is a good thing and that these measures will enable mayors and local areas to be empowered more to drive that growth that we desperately need in all parts of the country.
This Bill is long overdue. England is one of the most centralised developed countries in the world. Too often, the system works against rather than with local people. Too many decisions affecting too many are made by too few. That, combined with short-term, sticking-plaster politics, has left the country in a doom loop of worsening regional divides.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Madam Deputy Speaker, you many wonder why a Scot would make an intervention at this point in the debate. May I advise the right hon. Lady to look north, to Scotland, to see how this should not be done? The Scottish Government have centralised powers, taking them right away from communities such as mine. That is how we should not do it. This is a cautionary tale.
Angela Rayner
I thank the hon. Member for his guidance. I always look north—contrary to what other people believe. I am very proud of the north. I gently say to him that the challenge at the moment lies with the Government of Scotland. Hopefully, we can reverse things and have a Government who truly believe in putting the power in local people’s hands.
We only have to look at the difference being made by our mayors to see that there is a better way. From building tens of thousands of new social homes with Mayor Rotheram in Liverpool, to fighting child poverty with Mayor McGuinness in the north-east, to making people’s commutes quicker and cheaper with Mayor Burnham in my own Greater Manchester, and to creating London’s summer of al fresco dining and world-leading culture with Mayor Khan—
Mr James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?
Mr Frith
We are very proud of the work of our Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham. On the issue of driving change, I would like to raise a point about drivers. Half of private hire taxis in Greater Manchester are licensed outside the area. That undermines local enforcement and accountability as well as local drivers who do the right thing. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Bill is a chance to fix that, protect passengers, raise and maintain standards, and back the best in trade?
Angela Rayner
As another Greater Manchester MP, my hon. Friend will know that Mayor Burnham has been trying to address taxi licensing for some years. I think, Madam Deputy Speaker, you were here for the previous statement, which I listened to intently, in which the Minister made it clear that there is a commitment to introduce that legislation as quickly as possible. We need to make sure that that vehicle is there, and sitting next to me is the Leader of the House, whose job it is to make sure that happens.
We have also increased opportunities and given young people a voice in decisions in the east midlands with Mayor Ward. We are driving forward a new mass transit network for West Yorkshire with Mayor Brabin, supporting women and girls into activity and sport with Mayor Skaith in North Yorkshire, and, not to forget, working to secure the future of Doncaster Sheffield airport with Mayor Coppard in South Yorkshire. We are also securing the extension of the Birmingham tramline with Mayor Parker.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
For many years under the Tories, the west midlands was at the bottom of the league table for regional transport investment, but Mayor Richard Parker has secured £2.4 billion of investment to extend the metro. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the powers in the Bill will make it easier for combined authorities to deliver these kinds of projects in the future, including, I hope, further extensions of the metro to south Birmingham?
Angela Rayner
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and again give full credit to Mayor Richard Parker, who has been working tirelessly with the Labour Government to invest in the future of Birmingham. I also thank my hon. Friend for his campaigning, pressing the case that his constituents are better off for such an investment, which will bring new jobs and better transport links. This Bill is just the start of that.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
On jobs, in Sadiq Khan’s first two terms as London Mayor, he has seen the creation of more than 330,000 jobs by the Greater London Authority. These are high-quality, well-paid jobs that bring huge opportunity to Londoners from all walks of life. Does the Secretary of State agree that this is the testament to growth that devolution can deliver, which will be further boosted by this Bill?
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This is about unlocking growth in all parts of the country. I hope that most hon. Members can see that people with skin in the game are working across the board to make sure that that potential is reached. I am talking not just about London—although London is incredibly important to that—but about all regions across our country.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
First, I thank Mayor Tracy Brabin for her investment in mass transit across West Yorkshire, including a new bus station in my town of Dewsbury. I am grateful for those investments, but how will this Bill stop a council from making the decision to distribute funding unequally across its borough? How would it stop a council from, for instance, making a decision to shut down a sports centre that is used by people of all ages on the pretence of there being reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete and then not taking steps to investigate or having a plan to reopen?
Angela Rayner
I welcome the hon. Member’s comments on the mass transit network for West Yorkshire, which I am sure will bring added benefits to his constituents. To his other point, obviously elected officials in local councils make decisions, and I would gently say to him that councils have faced significant pressures since the austerity measures of 2010, which I am sure he is aware of. I was in local government at the time, and I remember being a union rep and seeing the devastation.
We are trying to restore and empower local government, instead of this situation where they have to make incredibly difficult decisions that are harmful to their constituents. It is about being able to grow our economy and have a bigger slice of the cake. We are already investing more into local government so that we can deliver the services that people want. Within this Bill is the community assets element, which may be able to help communities in relation to high streets and to sports facilities, which can be utilised as an asset that they value in their local area.
We are also improving local transport for people in the west of England with Mayor Godwin. Our brilliant, ambitious mayors are making a difference every day for their regions. Working with them, we have already achieved so much after just a year in office. We are on track to achieve devolution across almost 80% of the country, covering 44 million people. We have created integrated funding settlements for Greater Manchester and the west midlands, giving their mayors the tools and freedoms to make decisions to get growth going, with Liverpool city region, London, the north-east, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire set to benefit from the same freedoms next year.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
We are in London, the greatest city in the world—some would say anyway—and we have all just come back from holiday, have we not? Our Mayor Sadiq Khan has ambitious plans for an overnight accommodation levy that would put us on a par with Paris and New York and would harness our growth. Those funds could help regenerate the tourism sector and improve the visitor experience. I wonder whether the Secretary of State would be open to using this devolution Bill to give mayors everywhere the power to make decisions about those kind of things.
Angela Rayner
I can hear much provocation from the Conservative Benches, but any new tax is, of course, a matter for the Chancellor at the Budget, and it must balance the potential revenue and benefits against the impact on taxpayers and the economy.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
I really welcome the Bill’s efforts to strengthen communities and local democracy. However, I am worried that not enough is being done to protect private renters. In Lambeth, nearly a third of residents are renters. Rents are rising faster than wages, and the average renter is paying 72% more than the national average, which is leaving many families struggling and in poverty. The Renters’ Rights Bill was definitely a step in the right direction, but it fell short on rent hikes. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Bill is an opportunity to give metro mayors the power to bring in rent controls and protect renters in their cities?
Angela Rayner
The Renters’ Rights Bill does contain measures that mean that renters can challenge unfair rent hikes. The previous Government said many times that they would do something about section 21 no-fault evictions but they did not. Our Renters’ Rights Bill will ensure that we end those evictions, which are causing so much harm to my hon. Friend’s constituents and many around the country.
Our devolution revolution is well under way, with others queueing up to join it. This what we committed to in our manifesto, and we are delivering it through this Bill. Crucially, the Bill will make devolution the default for how the Government do business, with new strategic authorities having powers to pilot and request new functions and Government having a duty to respond to certain requests. It will mean that we can deliver devolution further and faster.
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
On devolving the ability to run pilots, and following up on the point made by the hon. Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), Bristol city council—including Labour councillors—voted cross-party to have the power to pilot rent controls. Recent figures show that typical private renters in my constituency spend 45% of their income on rent. That is not sustainable. This Bill could offer the opportunity for that pilot—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. Interventions have become far too long. There are many Members in the Chamber who wish to contribute, which the Secretary of State might think about before she takes more interventions.
Angela Rayner
I will pay attention to that, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The hon. Lady is right that there is a challenge in housing at the moment, which is also contributing to the rental situation for people. That is why we have a big ambition to build more houses. The Bill gives us more powers for strategic planning so that we can get on with building the homes that people need. The Renters’ Rights Bill does start to make progress toward making housing fairer for renters—something that the previous Government promised but failed to deliver.
I will now make progress, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Before the Secretary of State makes progress, will she give way? [Laughter.]
Angela Rayner
The strategic authorities will be created as a new category of authority in law. They will make it easier for local leaders to work together over larger areas to drive through big pro-growth projects such as integrated transport networks and housing. These will operate at three levels—foundation, mayoral and established mayoral—and the particular powers and responsibilities that each of them will have are to be defined by the Bill.
Working alongside parliamentarians and local councillors, mayors drive forward the delivery of people’s priorities—driving growth, unlocking infrastructure and powering a national renewal from the ground up. That is why the Bill will give mayors wide-ranging new powers in areas such as transport, planning and economic development.
Angela Rayner
I will make progress.
We will create new planning powers to raise the mayoral community infrastructure levy, which has generated over £1 billion since 2012 in London and, alongside investment and leadership from Mayor Khan, has helped to fund the Elizabeth line. With the expansion of their remit, the Bill will allow mayors who choose to raise a precept to spend it on the full range of functions, ensuring that local taxes are spent on local priorities.
I am sure that the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), will welcome this change given that it was the Conservatives who first introduced the mayoral precept nearly a decade ago and that Mayor Boris Johnson used a business rates supplement to help pay for Crossrail. I hope the shadow Secretary of State will wholeheartedly support the new powers in the Bill, which will mean that mayors can intervene in major strategic planning applications to unlock housing—as long as that housing is nowhere near his constituency, of course.
We will also introduce powers to license shared cycle schemes so that they work for everyone and so that bikes are not lying across pavements. The Bill will see more mayors take on police and crime commissioner functions and become responsible for fire and rescue functions, allowing them to take a joined-up approach to improving public safety.
Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr Alaba
In Southend East and Rochford we are a proud coastal community, but we have been left behind when it comes to connectivity, educational outcomes and investment in skills. Does the Secretary of State agree that through this Bill we have a chance to deliver the long-term meaningful change that my constituents deserve?
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This is about all areas being able to join up and create inclusive growth for their areas, and that is broader than at local authority level. By combining those efforts we can unlock the potential, and his constituents will feel the benefit of that as we take this forward.
The new powers also mean new duties, including to produce a local growth plan demonstrating how mayors plan to unlock growth through planning and house building. There will also be a duty to co-operate with local government pension scheme managers so that mayors can attract investment into their local areas, unlocking jobs and opportunities. Mayors across the country will also be able to appoint commissioners to support them as their responsibilities grow, just like in London. The Bill also strengthens the ability of mayors to work with the public sector, convening local partners so that they can lead with a helicopter view of public services across their region.
We are backing the ambition and untapped potential of local areas with a more ambitious role for the mayors representing them. That must be underpinned by elections that command public confidence. Because of changes made by the last Government, mayors can be elected on just a fraction of the vote, despite serving millions of people and managing multimillion-pound budgets. We can do better than that. The Bill will therefore revert to a supplementary vote system for electing mayors and police and crime commissioners after the May 2026 elections to provide greater accountability and a strong, personal mandate for mayors. In addition, the Bill will bar mayors from also sitting as MPs, ensuring that local places benefit fully from having dedicated local champions.
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
If the Deputy Prime Minister feels that elections for mayoral authorities should have a supplementary vote as that gives them sufficient authority, why does she not feel the same for Members of this House?
Angela Rayner
Millions of people are represented by mayors, who have huge powers over big regions. We want mayors to have strong personal mandates for the communities they serve rather than being elected on a fraction of the vote. It is right that first-past-the-post remains in place for general elections to maintain the constituency link.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Angela Rayner
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, who has been very patient.
Sir Julian Lewis
I am truly grateful. This is, I hope, a non-party political point. The White Paper in advance of the Bill mentioned rightly that there had been consultations on strengthening the standards and conduct framework for local authorities, which relates to a campaign many of us have been involved in to try to protect local council clerks against bullying. We were pleased to be called into that consultation. There is, however, nothing about that in the Bill. Does the right hon. Lady plan to bring it forward in separate legislation?
Angela Rayner
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising that important issue. We intend to bring forward legislation. Our response to the local government standards consultation sets out our plans for whole-system reform, including empowering local authorities to suspend councillors who are guilty of serious misconduct for up to six months, with the option to withhold allowances and institute premises and facilities bans. We are committed to ensuring that misconduct is dealt with swiftly and fairly across the country at local and regional mayoral levels. We do want to take action on the issue.
Let me be clear that stronger mayors and strategic authorities will not replace councils, nor the crucial work of the House. MPs on both sides of the House will continue to be vocal champions for their areas, and we expect mayors to engage in regular and constructive dialogue with MPs, working together in the best interests of their constituents. Alongside the freedom for mayors to focus on local priorities, my Department is continuing to explore a local Public Accounts Committee-style model to improve the system of accountability and scrutiny of local spending.
The Government expect mayors to use their new powers to deliver real change, not retain the status quo. This is not about grandstanding or making a political point; it is about using the levers of growth to unlock infrastructure and drive investment. The role of local authorities in delivering vital local services and improving local neighbourhoods is essential, and it will continue. We also expect to see strategic authorities working hand in glove with their constituent councils to deliver for their residents.
The Bill will help rebuild local government for the communities who depend on it day in, day out. As a fit, legal and decent foundation of devolution, the Bill will establish the Local Audit Office to help fix the broken, fragmented local audit system. We will also reform local authority governance, requiring councils with a committee system to move to a leader and cabinet model and putting a stop to new local authority mayor roles being created. That change will streamline decision making across all councils and make it easier for people to understand how their council is run. It will also give the Government the tools to deliver local government reorganisation, resulting in better outcomes for residents and significant savings that can be reinvested in public services and improving accountability.
At all levels, we are backing local people to drive growth and greater opportunities for all, because, from top to bottom, the best decisions for communities are made by those who know their area best. That is why the Bill will also give local communities across the country much-needed new powers, like a bigger say in shaping their place through effective neighbourhood governance, with councils required to make sure that this is happening, as well as the tools to transform their high streets and neighbourhoods through a new community right to buy—to save much-loved community assets, like pubs and shops, from being lost and to protect sports grounds, which are at the heart of so many communities and a source of great local pride. The Bill will also support our high streets by banning the unfair practice of upwards-only rent reviews, preventing the blight of vacant shop fronts, because it is only when every community succeeds that our country succeeds.
The Bill and our reforms herald a new era for Britain: a new way of governing that puts politics back in the service of working people. Where previous Governments promised and failed the British people, this Government are keeping faith.
I note the Conservatives’ reasoned amendment. I must say that after they left the country with the worst housing crisis in a generation, I am dismayed that they would oppose a Bill that will unlock housing and planning on a vast scale. This Bill will empower local communities to take back control of their high streets by ending the Tory policy of upward-only rent reviews, and it will end the begging-bowl culture of the last Government.
While the Tories made empty promises to level up the country, this Labour Government are getting on with the job. Within days of taking office, Secretaries of State were passing down newly-won powers for the sake of our towns, cities and villages, with the Prime Minister leading the way. It has not always been easy, but real change takes hard work. We are rewiring Britain and, with it, growth and opportunity. This is how the British people will take back control, and how we will unite our country in times when we have never needed it more. I commend the Bill to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, because the Bill does nothing to empower local communities, but instead contains measures reducing the democratically elected representation of communities and enables the Government to impose local government restructuring on communities, irrespective of local opinion, disregarding local geography and identity; because bureaucratic restructuring of local government will cost money and reduce focus on housing delivery with no evidence that it will deliver better services; because the Bill will lead to greater costs for residents by creating new mayoral precepts, increasing borrowing powers, and raising parking charges on motorists, and adding more local bureaucrats as mayoral-appointed commissioners; and because the Bill will result in higher council tax bills for hardworking families, at a time when local government is facing increased costs pressures due to unfunded rises in employers’ National Insurance contributions.”
The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill—it is a title straight out of the Ministry of Truth. The Bill is not about devolution; it is clearly a blatant power grab by the Deputy Prime Minister—a right hon. Lady for whom I have a huge amount of respect—and her Department. It is not about community empowerment at all; it is about stripping power from local authorities and concentrating it in Whitehall and the hands of the people in Whitehall.
Big Brother would be proud. Centralisation is devolution. Whitehall diktat is community empowerment. The fact that the Bill does the opposite of what it claims is, as we set out in our reasoned amendment, why we cannot give it a free pass. This Bill sidelines communities. This Bill forces restructuring without consent. This Bill wastes money while families are facing higher bills because of Labour’s mismanagement. This Bill disrupts and distracts councils from building the homes that local people need. Those are our objections. That is what we have set out in our reasoned amendment.
If the Government want to win the confidence of this House rather than just shoehorning their Back Benchers through the Division Lobby, they need to justify the demands embedded in the Bill. During the debate and when summing up, I sincerely hope that they answer our questions. Why centralise control? Why raise taxes? Why deny residents their voice? Those are the questions that those on the Treasury Bench need to answer before this Bill can make credible progress through the House.
The case has been set out, but before Members on the Labour Benches get too excited, let me put to bed a few spectres that have been raised. The Conservative party believes in devolution, not just in theory but in practice: we created many of the existing mayoral roles; we created police and crime commissioners; we empowered parish councils and neighbourhood planning; and we gave families the power to block excessive council tax rises. We devolved by consent—by agreement with local leaders—and not by Whitehall diktat.
The simple truth of the matter is that Labour does not and has never believed in devolution, and it does not deliver meaningful devolution. It is a centralising party and it centralises. This Government are abolishing councils without consent and forcing them to sign up to their model of restructuring. They forced the postponement of elections in nine county councils. That was unprecedented. Elections are the foundation of democracy, and denying them undermines public trust and confidence. In truth, denying residents their democratic voice was done for a very specific reason. It was done because Labour feared what people would say to it at the ballot box.
David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman has just listed a load of things that the Tories did with devolution. He cannot deny that the reason we need devolution and local government reorganisation is because his Government significantly underfunded local government, which is now on its knees. We therefore have to take action to get local government back in a good place, and devolution and local government reform is one of those actions.
Sir James Cleverly
I think the hon. Member said the quiet bit out loud: this is about putting up taxes on local people. That is what this legislation is fundamentally about; we know that to be true. I promise the House that I did not tee up that intervention—it was the next bit in my speech. Labour, by imposing this restructuring from the centre, is leaving local people without a voice. This legislation is about creating what this Government want, which is a cohort of subservient Labour mayors.
Let us look at what Labour mayors actually deliver—as I say, this speech was written before the previous intervention. Labour mayors put up taxes. Labour mayors increase the tax burden on local people. The Liverpool city region—up by 26%; Greater Manchester—up by 8%; West Yorkshire—up by 6%; and London, since Sadiq Khan took office in 2016—up by over 70%. Labour Members are quiet now, aren’t they? The truth hurts.
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me, then, why Labour keeps getting re-elected to mayoralties?
Sir James Cleverly
I will mention Paul Bristow later in my speech.
The difference is that under Conservative mayors, we keep costs down. Ben Houchen, for example, is delivering a zero precept. If more places get mayors under this Labour proposal, how much more will local people pay? Will Ministers—whether that be the Secretary of State or whoever responds to the debate—guarantee that costs will not go up under this model and that council tax will not rise under this model, or is this another set of taxes on hard-working families by stealth? The truth is that the record of Labour mayors is that they increase taxes by well above the rate of inflation. Also, will the pressure on parish council precepts also hit hard-working local people in the pocket? The Conservatives are in no doubt that, once again, it will be hard-working families and local people who will pay the price for Labour’s ineptitude.
It is not only families that will be hit. This Bill forces councils to merge, and prudent councils—those that have been careful with their money—will be forced to inherit the debt of others. How on earth is penalising good financial management at local government level fair? What protections will be in place to protect people from higher bills? Looking through the Bill, there are none that I can see.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
How does my right hon. Friend think my constituents on the Isle of Wight feel about being fused under a combined mayoral authority with Hampshire without having a single say?
Sir James Cleverly
My hon. Friend’s point goes to the heart of these proposals. For all Labour’s warm words about community engagement, community voice and communities actually having a say, that is a classic example. I have visited the Isle of Wight, not only in a personal capacity but as a guest of my hon. Friend, so I know full well that even though the county of Hampshire has many, many excellent things, the people of the Isle of Wight want to maintain their autonomy—and they should have the right to do so if that is what they want.
It is not just that local councils will lose control of their finances; they will also lose control of their powers, which are being stripped from them in this Bill. Mayors are gaining sweeping planning and transport powers without council consent or representation. Let me give an example: what if communities oppose punitive anti-driver proposals from a mayor in their local neighbourhoods? How can they make their voices heard? Who will win? Will it be the mayor who has been imposed upon them, or will it be the local communities? What will the accountability model be for those mayors? We can see nothing in the Bill about people holding their mayors accountable. There is no provision for meaningful scrutiny during the tenure of the mayoralty.
The Secretary of State made reference to the upwards-only rent reviews. I completely get that that is a superficially attractive set of proposals, but what assessment has been made of the effective valuation of commercial property, including properties that are owned by the local authorities themselves? If she is confident that this is such a good idea, why was there no scrutiny? Why was there no consultation on these proposals? Do Ministers really think that that is best practice when it comes to creating a stable investment environment and confidence for people spending money in the high street commercial properties that keep our communities alive?
The silence on those questions about the Bill is frankly deafening, because the Government have no answer. This Bill is not about empowering local communities, and it is definitely not about empowering local councils. It is about creating a cohort of puppet mayors controlled by the right hon. Lady’s Department. I respect her enormously, but her ability to strip power not just from local councils but from the Prime Minister is something well worth watching. I think we should at least be impressed by that. I put this to Labour Members: if this is about community empowerment, why does it reduce local representation? If it is about fiscal responsibility, why will it burden ratepayers—council tax payers—with debts that their local authorities did not create? If it is about more homes, why does it hamper and suffocate councils with increased bureaucracy?
Devolution can work, and indeed does work, when it is done properly. We know that it works because Conservative mayors have delivered. Ben Houchen saved Teesside airport, delivered the UK’s largest freeport with 18,000 quality jobs and secured Treasury North in Darlington with 1,400 high-skilled roles, all with a zero mayoral precept. Paul Bristow in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough is ending Labour’s ideological attack on drivers. Boris Johnson, while Mayor of London, delivered the 2012 games and secured Crossrail. In the west midlands, Andy Street was a genuine champion for his region and a household name. Who has he been replaced by? A person who is not even a household name in his own household. That says it all. We Conservatives deliver. We delivered devolved government that delivers infrastructure, jobs and economic growth. What has Labour delivered? Higher costs and broken promises—[Interruption.] More tax, less delivery. That is the Labour way.
Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way—sorry for treading on his punchline. I was very pleased to hear his new-found enthusiasm for Teesside. That is something we all share, but it seems to stand at odds with the comments he made to my predecessor about the town of Stockton. Does he stand by those terrible comments that he made, or would he like to take this opportunity to apologise to my constituents?
Sir James Cleverly
The hon. Gentleman really does need to keep up. I addressed those comments at the time. I have been to Stockton. I have campaigned with my good friend and colleague the Conservative mayor of the town. I have knocked on doors in Stockton, and I have a huge amount of respect for the town. The point I was making was about the then Labour representative, who I was not terribly impressed with, and the hon. Gentleman knows that that is the case.
We were always deeply sceptical about whether the content of the Bill would match its aspirational title, so we set five tests, framed in the form of five simple questions. First, is this a genuine choice for councils? Secondly, do all the affected tiers agree with the changes? Thirdly, is there genuine public support for the changes? Fourthly, will the changes keep bills down? Fifthly, will the changes protect social care? Having looked through the Bill, it is clear that the answer to every single one of those questions is no. Five questions, five failures.
As I have said, Conservatives are in favour of devolution when done properly, but only if that devolution is meaningful and only if local communities and their immediate representatives have the power to deliver. We are its champions because we delivered it. We have proven that it works, but it must be by consent; it cannot be by compulsion. It should be by partnership, not imposition, and by empowering councils and councillors, not by erasing them. This Bill is not devolution; it is central control. This Bill is higher taxes and weaker local democracy. This Bill is a power grab by the Secretary of State. It fails to deliver on its promise, and that is why the House must decline to give it a Second Reading and demand that the Government rethink these proposals.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With the exception of the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, there will be an immediate five-minute time limit.
Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)
I rise to support the Second Reading of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which is a vital step towards modernising local government and delivering fairer investment and greater accountability across England. I do so with 17 years’ experience as a local councillor, for five of which I was leader of South Ribble borough council in Lancashire, which forms part of my constituency. Although the scope of the Bill covers many distinct subject matters, I intend to focus my brief comments—listening to what you said, Madam Deputy Speaker—on part 3, chapter 1 on local government reorganisation.
Let us be clear: Lancashire is now an outlier. While 74% of England’s population live under unitary authorities delivering all local services through a single accountable body, Lancashire remains part of the shrinking 26% operating under a two-tier system. Frankly, no one would design the two-tier system today—it is inefficient, confusing and expensive. Residents do not understand why one council is responsible for potholes and roads and another for pavements and parks, why education sits at county level while planning sits with district, or why one council collects their waste and another disposes of it. They do not understand why they are paying for two different sets of local councillors for the same geographical area, and for 15 chief executives and senior management teams when they only actually require three or four, or why our neighbours in Greater Manchester and the Liverpool city region are all unitaries, but Lancashire is left with two tiers of bureaucracy. The result? Duplicated services, inefficient staffing and confused accountability.
We know that change works. In South Ribble, through shared services with our district council neighbour, Chorley, we have saved over £1 million for local taxpayers—real money back into local budgets. Imagine what could be achieved with a fully unitary structure across Lancashire. In my time as leader of South Ribble borough council, I froze council tax for three consecutive years while still delivering effective and efficient frontline services. Yet our residents’ council tax bills kept rising as Lancashire county council increased their taxes annually due to its inefficiencies. My community were confused by these council tax bills, not understanding that the local district council only accounted for around 11% of their overall bill and, in fact, that they were paying more to the police and crime commissioner than to their district council.
Beyond efficiency, this is about fully unlocking devolution. Lancashire has been left behind. We will end up being one of the largest counties in the north of England without a metro mayor. We have missed out already on hundreds of millions of pounds of investment seen in Greater Manchester, the west midlands, West Yorkshire and the Liverpool city region. That is why I welcome the powers in the Bill that allow the Secretary of State to mandate reorganisation where appropriate from a two-tier system to a unitary model. It is a necessary tool to drive reform, and I commend the Secretary of State and the Local Government Minister for their bold vision.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
May I start by welcoming the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), to his place on the Front Bench. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I am a councillor at Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
Transferring powers closer to communities through devolution is critical to getting service delivery right and developing trust. The public consistently say that they have more faith in local government than in national Government, and the Bill was meant to deliver on that promise. As the Secretary of State noted, the Prime Minister said in his first weeks in office that he wanted to give power to those with skin in the game and pledged to help citizens to take back control. The Liberal Democrats absolutely agree with that desire.
However, what we see here is a Bill that centralises decision making, limits community influence and, because it leaves areas unsure of their future, risks deepening inequalities between regions. The White Paper promised mayors for all regions and community-led reorganisation, but the Bill provides powers to merge councils from Westminster and fails to strengthen the councils closest to people—our towns and parishes. It even allows councils that have directly rejected a combined authority to be forced into one with their neighbours.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Conservatives have some nerve talking about top-down reorganisation when, against people’s wishes—as expressed in a poll—they imposed an unwanted and unpopular unitary council on the whole of Somerset? Does she also agree that the Bill should introduce fair votes, in this place and in councils across the country, to restore faith in democracy and politics?
Vikki Slade
A similar thing happened in Dorset. In fact, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) voted against a merger in our area but failed, even under his own Government. I will come to the issue of proportional representation.
Strategic mayors have the potential to be our regional champions. The Liberal Democrats recognise the benefits that they have brought to many cities, including London and Manchester. However, the Bill fails to standardise their role or to put all regions on an equal footing. Some areas have been selected for early adoption and funding, while others—Kent, Medway and my own area of Wessex—are left behind with no timeline or support.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
It is unclear for some areas, including Shropshire, where they will end up being made to form a combined authority. Shropshire shares borders with Wales and Cheshire, which is in a different region, so there is no clear partner for it. I am concerned that Shropshire will end up being forced into a combined authority with an area that does not look like Shropshire or give any benefit to its residents. Does my hon. Friend agree that this needs to be better thought through?
Vikki Slade
I share my hon. Friend’s concern that some areas risk being left behind by this muddled approach. I ask the Secretary of State for assurances on how she will ensure that such areas do not fall further behind neighbours that are further along in the programme.
We Liberal Democrats are pleased that the Government are reversing the Conservatives’ disastrous decision to use first past the post for mayoral and police commissioner elections—it is ridiculous that one of the mayors elected this May won on just 25% of the vote—but the Government must go further in making votes fair. We believe that the Government should bring in the alternative vote system so that voters’ voices are properly heard. We maintain that if the Government believe in majority support for elected officials, they should extend that mandate to MPs and councillors, too.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
The Sussex mayoral elections that are due to take place in May next year will use the current first-past-the-post system rather than the proposed system that the Government say they favour. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is totally unfair on Sussex residents that everybody who is a year behind in the programme will get to vote using a better system?
Vikki Slade
I will come to that later in my speech, when I will share the concerns of electoral officials about whether the legislation can deliver in time for any of the changes scheduled for next year. Although I recognise that there is an anomaly for next year, even electoral officials are worried about the Bill’s timeline and the ability to make any changes for 2026 and for those who have already had elections delayed.
Across the sector, there are serious concerns about the power of the commissioners that will be appointed by mayors—people with significant influence but little scrutiny. There is concern that they will hold more sway than elected leaders of local authorities but without any democratic accountability. In the very centre, the Secretary of State will retain sweeping powers to merge authorities and extend functions without parliamentary oversight or local consent. I am seeking an explanation of how and when those powers would be used, so that we can assure our local leaders that they will not be overridden.
There is widespread concern about the loss of highly skilled, experienced councillors through the removal of district councils. I noted the Secretary of State’s concerns about putting power into the hands of too few people. How will she ensure that there is not a democratic and skills deficit and that people are properly represented across these larger regions?
For the last decade, the Conservative Government have cut funding to councils but forced them to do more. Their economic mismanagement and failure to fix social care has left many councils on the brink of collapse. This Bill was an opportunity for real local government reform, but it is an opportunity missed.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
A particular concern of my constituents in Tiverton and Minehead, where we have one local authority in Devon and one in Somerset, is the real difficulties around special educational needs and disabilities. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill could create difficulties for local authorities that are struggling to deliver good SEND education for so many of our children?
Vikki Slade
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Special educational needs are a huge passion of mine—I am sure Members have heard me talk about them many times—and this issue will take so many councils to a very dark place. I trust that the Minister hears that on a regular basis and that we will see in the fair funding review something really serious about special educational needs provision.
Local authorities have unique access to every household and business, which gives them a huge opportunity to improve people’s health and wellbeing. The Bill requires strategic authorities to improve the health of their communities, but I am concerned that it does not provide substantial funding to do that, and without that funding, I cannot see how it can be achieved. While the Bill makes substantial improvements to the workings of audit, it misses the opportunity to shine a light on all the places that taxpayers’ money is spent through the introduction of local public accounts committees. I was reassured to hear the Secretary of State refer to that being in her thinking, but rolling them out alongside strategic authorities would really aid transparency, improve value for money and enable organisations to share resources for the good of the community. I urge the Government to reflect on that as we go towards the Report stage.
The Bill also proposes that strategic authorities take on the functions of police and crime commissioners and fire authorities. However, because of the disparity in boundaries, there is a real risk that community priorities will not be maintained, and the control of such things by appointed rather than elected commissioners further reduces democratic accountability. How will the Government ensure fair funding and effective policing and fire services where strategic authorities cover vastly different communities?
Councils have expressed similar concerns about a mismatch between places within those authorities—for example, the different needs of urban and rural areas, or the inclusion of a single authority among a cluster of places with very different levels of deprivation or demographics. Some communities feel that where decisions are made by simple majority vote, their voice will not be heard. Weighted voting and the meaningful inclusion of town and parish councils can ensure that local insight is retained, particularly around issues such as planning and transport.
Representation must not end there. This Bill was an opportunity to ensure that local services draw on and are informed by the full range of lived experiences in an area.
Freddie van Mierlo
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Bill could make it more difficult for residents to access services, because where authorities that currently deliver services on a county-wide basis are split into multiple authorities, it will create borders within counties?
Vikki Slade
My hon. Friend makes a very good point.
There is the opportunity to use more effectively our town and parish council system to drive community empowerment. Instead, the creation of neighbourhood committees feels like a top-down solution. Without statutory powers or budgets, they risk becoming symbolic rather than effective. While it is welcome that existing town and parish councils can participate, the Bill does not provide a framework for communities wanting to establish new councils or the funding to do so.
District councils have long underpinned the civic identity of towns and driven the activities that reflect their origins. With their loss in ancient towns and cities such as Colchester and Winchester, and without the funding to support smaller community-led councils, there is a real risk that our distinct history, culture and civic pride in our communities could be eroded. We cannot allow that to happen.
The Liberal Democrats welcome the replacement of the community right to bid with a right to buy with first refusal. I have seen some fantastic examples of the right to bid working, such as the Anchor Inn in Shapwick in my constituency, but these successes are few and far between.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Communities such as Teddington in my constituency will very much welcome the new community right to buy. At Udney Park, playing fields have lain derelict for more than a decade. However, although the Bill makes provision for what happens when there is a disagreement over price, it is silent on what happens when a community bid is refused by a buyer even at market valuation. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must look to go further on that point?
Vikki Slade
I agree that there is opportunity to do much more as the Bill moves into Committee. Communities’ long struggles to save such assets is not because of a lack of passion or volunteers, but because the system feels stacked against them. “The Museum of Broken Dreams”, a display on the parliamentary estate, shows some good examples of where community groups have lost out to commercial developers who have demolished buildings and walked away, or where the groups cannot get support.
We are pleased to see sporting assets included in the right to buy and we welcome their indefinite inclusion on the register, but we want environmental assets to be included as well, so that we can protect our land for restoration and nature management. We also want restoration of the funding for neighbourhood plans, so that smaller authorities, which will now struggle to make such plans for their tiny communities, can do so without onerous costs to their residents.
Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)
To pick up on my hon. Friend’s point about environmental concern, at the moment local authorities have a weak duty on biodiversity—to consider from time to time what they might do to conserve or enhance biodiversity—so does she agree that the Bill offers a real opportunity to strengthen such environmental protections, to get this country back on track?
Vikki Slade
I believe that the community right to buy has huge opportunities for councils. In Committee, I hope that we will be able to improve and enhance the Bill for everyone.
As a former retail business owner, I welcome the removal of upward-only rent reviews. Businesses should not be locked into rising costs when market conditions shift. This is a long-overdue reform that will help small businesses to adapt and survive. The Bill makes interesting and welcome changes on things such as pension schemes and transport devolution, but misses the opportunity to improve council standards and attendance, and it fails to establish in statute the promised council of regions and nations or the local authority leaders council, both of which would be important in giving local government a stronger voice in Whitehall.
In conclusion, the Liberal Democrats support the principle of devolution. We recognise the crisis in local government funding and we welcome the fair funding review promised later this autumn. The Bill, however, does not deliver the ambitious shift in power that our communities need. It risks disenfranchising places left at the back of the queue with no funding or timeline to work toward. We cannot support a Bill that centralises control, weakens local accountability and misses the chance truly to empower communities, as we laid out in our reasoned amendment. We urge the Government to think again, and to revise and recommit to genuine devolution and community empowerment so that we can support the Bill.
Alison Taylor (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which includes the fact that I remain a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. My contribution is to assist the Secretary of State and the Government in ensuring that this important Bill will truly deliver on my right hon. Friend’s ambition for a transformative change in our communities—a vision that we share. Others in the House will want to articulate the advantages of devolving power and increasing strategic focus for the English regions, but I have expertise in commercial leases, so the House will forgive me for focusing on that one point.
The Bill represents a crucial step in the vital work of promoting economic growth and opportunity for our communities. Our constituents will all have witnessed at first hand how the previous Government’s failure to promote growth and support economic activity has contributed to the decline in the wellbeing of our communities.
I have spent 30 years in the commercial property industry and, as a result, numerous organisations and businesses have contacted me directly about the proposals to ban upwards-only rent reviews. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is already working to make lease terms, including about rent reviews, more transparent. Since 2020, the “Code for leasing business premises, England and Wales, 1st edition”, which includes advice on rent reviews, has been in place for chartered surveyors to adhere to when advising both landlords and tenants. The proposal to implement by legislation a universal ban on clauses within commercial leases for the provision of upwards-only rent reviews creates uncertainty for the funding of property development. My concern is that this legislation would apply to all commercial properties, not just high street retail or small business properties. As currently drafted, the Government’s proposals would impact high street retail, as well as all other commercial sectors.
The ambition to protect high street retail and small businesses, particularly in tough economic conditions, is certainly not to be underestimated, and nor is it unwelcome. There is a surplus of vacant, unsuitable, poorly configured and energy-hungry retail units crying out for regeneration in most towns across the United Kingdom, including in the towns of Paisley, Renfrew and Erskine in my constituency, but I do not believe that it is just upwards-only rent reviews that are preventing the regeneration of our towns and cities.
With my professional background, I can help to improve this technical aspect of the Bill in order to prevent unintended consequences for the Government’s growth agenda. I understand the desire to support small businesses on our high streets and I understand the pressures faced by those businesses because of difficult trading conditions. Property development can be the foundation stone of economic growth in our regional economies. My experience is that new sustainable development, in the right place, can be transformative, a source of jobs and training in construction, and a source of employment and opportunity in operation. New transformative sustainable development adds vitality to an area, acting as a spur to further development and wider investment.
I know that all Members will intuitively feel that upwards-only rent reviews are unfair, but that is a simplistic view. Among the earliest pioneers of upwards-only reviews were the Church of England’s Church Commissioners, who implemented them to ensure certainty of income for the Church and remain among the largest landowners in the country. My concern is that the well-intended focus on the genuine problems of small business and the high street could have unintended consequences for the broader property development sector.
In closing, I encourage my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to consider an amendment to the clause to ensure that it is focused where it is needed most, without impacting on all property sectors. I stand ready to help with that endeavour.
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
This Bill is supposed to be the Government’s flagship piece of legislation to empower England’s cities, regions and communities, but there is disappointingly little in it about strengthening accountability in existing devolved bodies, especially the Greater London Authority.
It is right that power is returned to cities, regions and communities, but those who hold devolved power must also be held accountable for their decisions, actions and delivery. Nowhere in England enjoys more devolved powers than London. That is in part why it is the only area with a directly elected Assembly, devoted to scrutiny. However, as the Mayor of London’s responsibilities, powers and budget have grown, the Assembly has become weaker and weaker in comparison. A notable issue is the two-thirds majority required to amend the mayor’s budget and strategies, but that is impossible to achieve in the London Assembly, which is why no budget or strategy has been amended in 25 years.
Unlike other combined authorities, the Assembly cannot call in mayoral decisions and London’s 32 boroughs are excluded from decision making. That means the mayor does not have to seek consensus, negotiate or even listen to opposing views. In a city the size of London, it effectively alienates and disenfranchises millions of people. That political fracture was made clear when Mayor Khan imposed the ultra low emission zone expansion on outer London, despite overwhelming opposition.
There is a glaring democratic and accountability deficit in London, which is why so many of my constituents—and, I know, the constituents of other Members—are now questioning the place of the London borough of Bromley in the Greater London Authority. They have never paid more to City Hall, yet people feel that they are ignored on every issue. Mayor Khan has increased council tax by 77% in nine years, meaning that Londoners pay nearly £500 a year on average to fund his policies. Let us not forget the huge sums that Londoners now pay City Hall thanks to his road charges. In the first three months of this year, motorists forked out nearly £220 million thanks to his ULEZ charge, the Blackwall tunnel toll and his hiked congestion charge. What do they receive in return for all that money? ULEZ cameras, too few police officers and green-belt protections being ripped up.
Anyone who wants to see devolution in London succeed must support measures to make the Mayor of London more accountable. First, this Bill introduces simple majority voting in combined authorities as the default decision-making process, but it stops short of doing that in the London Assembly. That is a mistake. It should abolish the two-thirds majority requirement to amend budgets and strategies, allowing a simple majority of Assembly members to force changes. That alone would transform London’s politics and force mayors to the table. Secondly, this Government should consult on a new model to give the 32 boroughs a voice and a vote in London, so that Bromley can no longer be ignored. Finally, this Bill should give the London Assembly the power to call in mayoral decisions.
My constituents in Bromley and Biggin Hill have had enough of being ignored by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. If the Government want to maintain the support of Londoners for devolution, the London Mayor must be made accountable.
Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)
Devolution and local government reorganisation must not simply be a sticking plaster over the problems of today; instead, we must determine what we want the coming decade to look like for our local communities. We must ensure that people in places such as Ipswich and Suffolk have the resources, powers and trust to determine our own futures. We can end the fragmentation of services and decision making that has at times hampered progress and instead usher in a new era of energy, ambition and delivery.
It has been really encouraging to see all Suffolk’s district and borough councils, led by different political parties, working collaboratively and with compromise to form a forward-facing submission. However, there is a stark and disappointing contrast with Suffolk county council. It has been really concerning to see that more time is being spent on aiming to discredit alternative ideas and proposals, rather than promoting why the plans are right for our county. Tactics have at times been bizarre, but there is a serious point here. Residents are entitled to proper information, not a spin-heavy PR campaign.
I fully accept that turkeys do not vote for Christmas, but I expect local authorities to hold themselves to a higher standard. While running such a misleading campaign betrays a lack of confidence in their own proposals, it does them a disservice and, more crucially, treats local residents with a lack of respect and no little disdain. Residents will question why the Conservatives at Suffolk county council are spending so much money and resources on such an overwhelmingly negative campaign at a time when our potholes go unfilled and our children with special educational needs are so badly failed, all the while raising council tax by its maximum level every single year. Suffolk county council looks not like an authority that is ready to grasp the future, but like one that looks to keep power and status for itself.
Alongside the investment in our communities by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, this Bill and the wider efforts of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister offer Ipswich, Suffolk and East Anglia a once-in-a-generation chance to turbocharge investment, growth and opportunity, giving us the chance to determine our own future. While I am supportive of the Bill for the transformative effect it will have on our country, on a local level, a Greater Ipswich council could do far more than just regenerate our town and the surrounding area. It could become a nationally leading economic powerhouse, and our friends and neighbours in east and west Suffolk would also greatly benefit from being able to set the direction of their local communities. This is not just my personal view; it is a view shared by every district and borough council in Suffolk, as well as by political parties of all stripes across Ipswich. From my discussions with local residents, including at my recent town hall event, it seems to be the option that they favour, too.
A Greater Ipswich will renew our area’s economic foundations and deliver the infrastructure we need after years of neglect. Lowestoft and the energy coast will be able to power new jobs and investment for their area, and Bury St Edmunds will be better able to align itself with the opportunities offered by the growth around Cambridge and Peterborough. People want their councils to deliver public services effectively, responsibly and accessibly, which is why I believe our devolution settlement needs to produce unitary authorities of sufficient scale to achieve that. However, people rightly also want their councillors and councils to be rooted in their local community so that they can listen, understand, and act in their best interests. I believe that three unitary authorities in Suffolk, working alongside a Mayor for East Anglia, would achieve that balance.
This is not about loosening the fabric that holds our county together—it is about strengthening it. I moved to Suffolk when I was 10 years old, a quarter of a century ago. It is my home, and I care deeply about what happens next. For a long time, we have been ill served as a town and a county by short-termism and a do-nothing approach. Every day I have entered this job, I have thought about all the ways in which we can leverage the change we need to set us on a new path. The Bill we are debating today will be the driving force behind how we do that. As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has set out time and again, the goal of devolution must not be to tinker around the edges of our current system, sticking with a system that is not working for anyone. Instead, we should look to the future and take this opportunity to transform local government, our public services and our communities for the better. I proudly support this Bill, and in doing so, I will continue to work for an ambitious devolution settlement that meets the needs of people in Ipswich, Suffolk and East Anglia.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as someone who is still a sitting councillor. In fact, when I came into this place, I sat on three different councils, so I speak from a good history of local council knowledge.
This Bill focuses on mayors, yet we hear about putting power in the hands of local people. Having a Mayor of Greater Manchester, which has a single identity, is quite different from having mayors in Devon, which is a vast area containing different sorts of places—let alone, perhaps, a mayor of Devon and Cornwall. That is not power in local hands, and the idea that reorganising councils will save money is a fallacy. We will see a few senior executives go, but the numbers of people on the bins, doing the work in the streets that needs to be done across Devon, will not be reduced. Reorganising councils will not save money; in fact, it will cost a huge amount of money, which is not being funded.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
The Government have claimed that the measures in this Bill, including merging councils, will save significant amounts of money. However, the County Councils Network has revealed that reorganisation could make no savings and cost money. Does my hon. Friend agree that the measures in this Bill are based on out-of-date reports that risk further bankrupting local authorities?
Martin Wrigley
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. However, in my remaining minutes, I will focus on two or three other areas that were not covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade). In all the powers and broad strategic aims of this Bill, the key roles played by town and parish councils are forgotten; in fact, the Bill barely mentions them. It also omits the role played by our national park authorities.
Parish and town councils are the first port of call for residents. They are closest to the ground and most responsive to the day-to-day needs of their communities—these are the truly local hands. As district councils disappear, their local assets of less significant value to the new unitary authority will likely suffer, or be overlooked or sold off without considering local input from the town or parish council, despite any changes to the community right to buy, whose successes—as we have heard—are few and far between. This Bill must contain a statutory obligation to work with the most local and community-rooted bodies, which are our parish and town councils. A duty to co-operate must be put into the Bill. Neighbourhood committees or areas, as vaguely set out as they are in the Bill, may play a part in keeping planning and other functions local within the wider unitary geography, but they must also consider and work with the town and parish councils that they cover. This must be a statutory requirement. The Bill allows mayors to convene partners and request collaboration, but those are discretionary powers. They may be used, or they may be ignored. There is no enforceable duty and no statutory requirement to co-operate, and that is a profound weakness.
National park authorities are mentioned not once in the Bill, yet they carry the legal responsibility for some of our most precious landscapes. National park authorities, such as Dartmoor, have a majority of members from a mix of local authorities—five, in Dartmoor’s case—and a minority of Government-appointed members. Without changes, if Dartmoor ended up completely within the boundaries of a new unitary, it would effectively be managed as part of that unitary and lose its unique identity. Its planning authority will be overridden and its strategic vision may be subsumed. We must protect Dartmoor and the other parks for people to freely access and enjoy, and not let greed rip things apart for mere profit. The Bill must address how these authorities will maintain independence and protect the identities of the areas they serve.
Another missed opportunity is the need to make the provision of public toilets a statutory responsibility. Too often, councils in financial difficulties cut these vital facilities, and in Devon we know that there will be no money left over once the special educational needs and disabilities overspend has been paid for by the carefully managed districts and their reserves. It will still be a case of there being no money left.
Finally, I welcome the return of the alternative vote for mayors, but urge the Government to go further and introduce full proportional representation for all the new unitary councils, making every vote count.
Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister on bringing forward this Bill, which embeds our ambition and champions the promise of devolution. It will mark the biggest transfer of power from Whitehall to our regions in a generation. It means that the protection of our public spaces will result in the improvement of our infrastructure and the strengthening of our local economy. Devolution should promote local accountability and bring decision makers closer to the people who feel the impact, and I wholeheartedly welcome the parts of the Bill that will ensure that. The creation of a community right to buy, offering more oversight on local policing and placing a duty on authorities to improve health and reduce health inequalities are also welcome steps in the right direction. The spirit of the Bill is one we should all support.
I bring clause 57 to the Government’s attention. It effectively abolishes the committee structure and introduces a measure that will impact on Sheffield, one of 38 councils running under the committee governance system. More than 80,000 people in a democratic referendum in Sheffield voted decisively in favour of a modern committee structure over the leader and cabinet model that clause 57 imposes. Through the referendum, Sheffield citizens chose collaboration through their committees, instead of decision-making powers being concentrated in fewer hands. Six years on from that referendum, the committee system works for Sheffield. It has delivered meaningful scrutiny where it was lacking before, and it has proven its worth in those moments where public trust has been under threat.
However, we are not here to discuss the merits and disadvantages of these two models of local governance. What matters is that residents have made a democratic decision at a local level, and it is important for that mandate to be respected and upheld. If the Bill passes in its current form, Sheffield is one of several councils that will be forced to undo those years of democratic engagement. I have received countless emails from constituents and campaigners, such as It’s Our City!, who have stressed just how important this democratic engagement has been for Sheffield, and they are right. One size does not fit all, and the LGA echoes that view.
Iqbal Mohamed
The hon. Member is making an extremely informed and important point in her speech. Does she agree that for Sheffield and her council the committee system has been better, more inclusive and more democratic for her residents than the original cabinet system? Does she endorse the view that any council that wants to go down a committee route, or any community that has already decided to do so should retain that right?
Abtisam Mohamed
The point that I am going to make is about existing committee structures retaining their models, rather than about new committees.
The Local Government Association has also called for councils to be able to retain their structures until local communities choose otherwise, and for my constituents, similarly, this is a matter of principle. Until the people of Sheffield choose another structure in another referendum, as promised, their decision should be allowed to stand, with the same flexibility that is being offered to those who chose to directly elect council mayors. There is still time to reflect that flexibility in the Bill, so I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) and me, as well as our local council leaders, to discuss the impact that these proposals will have on our communities and their trust in local governance and, more importantly, to ensure that devolution works for Sheffield.
Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which states that I am a sitting member of East Cambridgeshire district council.
We can surely all agree that power should be devolved as close to communities as possible, because they know what is best for their areas far better than anyone else. Strong and empowered parish, city and principal councils that are accountable to residents help our democracy and make better decisions for the communities that they serve. Sadly, the Bill does not deliver that. Although the Government’s intention of devolution by default is commendable, the Bill represents centralisation by choice. Instead of providing for genuine decentralisation of power to communities, it empowers regional mayors at the expense of local councils, and the Secretary of State.
Local councillors have expressed concerns, including about the uncertainty that these proposals have caused at a time when councils are trying to set their budgets amid the wider crisis in local government funding, and fears that bigger authorities, particularly in rural communities, will lead to weaker connections with the areas they serve. The Bill has caused considerable uncertainty locally because it comes at a time when integrated care boards are being changed, which means that relationships with key health partners are being doubly unsettled.
Councillors in my constituency fear that because the Bill has been drafted hastily, it will not fix some obvious anomalies in our existing boundaries, such as what some people have called the “Newmarket bite”. The town of Newmarket is almost completely surrounded by my constituency. Many of my residents look to Newmarket for some of their services, and many in Newmarket look to Cambridgeshire for some of theirs. Newmarket and the surrounding villages should have had the opportunity to choose between a Cambridgeshire-based and a Suffolk-based unitary.
I am particularly concerned about the Bill’s provision to enable mayors of strategic authorities to appoint seven unelected commissioners to deliver specific areas of policy. We already have an established system for that very purpose. In most councils, we have an administration consisting of elected councillors, from which the leader of the council chooses a small group to form their cabinet. In other councils, we have committees that are responsible for oversight of policy areas. Like an earlier speaker, I am also worried about the Government’s plans to impose a leader and cabinet model on these authorities. East Cambridgeshire district council has kept the committee system because that is what our residents tell us they want. We cannot have a Minister telling us that we cannot run ourselves in the way our local community wants.
Appointing commissioners rides roughshod over the current system of democratically elected councils by allowing mayors to nominate unelected commissioners to lead on policies. How can the public hold these commissioners to account, if not at the ballot box? Who will scrutinise their judgment calls? How can we improve the transparency of their decision making at a political level?
The Bill is a missed opportunity to meaningfully decentralise power to our communities and make a fundamental shift in where power lies in this country. Where the Government are claiming to make devolution the default, they have introduced centralisation. These proposals weaken existing systems of accountability, and even in parts of the Bill where progress is made, such as on electoral reform, it tinkers at the edges. We urgently need a system where every vote counts, so we need proportional representation.
True devolution comes as a result of grassroots consultation rooted in communities. Top-down attempts at devolution, such as this Bill, sadly end in being well wide of the mark. People in my constituency do not want to be forced into a unitary authority that is, on the one hand, too big to understand local needs and, on the other hand, too small to cover the areas where they work, spend leisure time and receive healthcare. They do not want decisions to be taken by appointed commissioners rather than elected councillors. They would value real devolution and a proper say in the changes they want. I urge the Government to reconsider this Bill so that it delivers the devolution in England that people want.
Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)
I enormously welcome this Bill. It is a thoroughly rare thing for a Government to seek to actively give up power, but this Government understand that we are going to deliver an economy that works for everyone, with a new way of governing that shifts powers away from Westminster once and for all. At its heart, this Bill is about putting power back in the hands of communities, recognising that decisions should be made by those who know their communities best and who are fully accountable for the consequences of those decisions.
For somewhere like Lancashire, this Bill is a great opportunity to address the fundamental issues that have held us back for so long. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster) explained the dysfunctional nature of Lancashire eloquently, but I will recap: we have 12 district councils, two unitaries, a county council, and a police and crime commissioner. This confusing two-tier structure—hollowed out by austerity, with little accountability and remote, fragmented decision making—sits in stark contrast with the clarity of leadership and devolved resources of our neighbouring city regions. We have had to watch Manchester, Liverpool and West Yorkshire forge ahead while we have been stuck in the slow lane.
This lived reality is the status quo that the Conservatives—including the shadow Secretary of State, who is no longer in his place—have sought to defend and maintain, but this Bill gives us a chance to change all that. It is a chance to take back control and empower our communities, and a chance to rebuild local government—to make it more effective and to save money that can be reinvested in local services. It is a chance to bring in resources that can turbocharge growth and deliver on our potential. I urge Lancashire leaders to work together with a sense of urgency in order to grasp this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
But there is an additional challenge. Even with clear determination from local leaders, it will be at least two years until Lancashire has a mayor and a restructured combined authority. It is likely to take much longer before we have the sort of capacity and capability that is already in place in the likes of Liverpool and Manchester. In that time, those city regions will move further ahead. The risk is that Lancashire will fall further behind, yet as the new Lancashire growth plan shows, there is a bright future for the county if we have the tools to create it. The plan identifies 12 transformational projects that will be game changers for us, ranging from transport infrastructure to world-class innovation zones. Overall, the proposed project pipeline has the potential to attract over £20 billion of additional investment to our county, but as things stand these are just bold ideas and possibilities. Taking them to the stage where they are fully worked-up, investable proposals requires the sort of capacity and capability that Lancashire no longer has.
That is in contrast with our neighbouring city regions, which have been able to use devolved resources to have full business cases and shovel-ready projects ready and waiting for the green light. We can see the result, with the vast majority of infrastructure pipeline projects located within strategic mayoral authorities. The stark contrast between the investment in established mayoral authorities and in areas like Lancashire, which is just starting the devolution process, risks embedding inequality in our regions. Places like Lancashire cannot wait until the devolved authorities are in place. To stop inequality taking root, we need support now to ensure that we can progress our transformational projects and deliver on our growth potential.
The recent Green Book review rather fortunately recognises this issue and helpfully identifies some ways of addressing it, including expanding the Treasury’s better business case programme, progressing the National Wealth Fund’s strategic partnership programme and, crucially, secondments from central Government to the regions. That is exactly what we need in Lancashire so that we can start to deliver on our growth plan, with our projects taking their place in the infrastructure pipeline.
Although I strongly welcome the Bill and call again on councils to come together to seize the opportunities it offers, I ask the Government to work with Lancashire MPs and local leaders to ensure that Lancashire receives the up-front support we need to start to catch up with our neighbours and to play our full and rightful role in delivering growth and prosperity for all our communities.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Democracy matters; accountability matters. I am afraid that this Bill strips away both. At the heart of this Government’s attempted reforms lies a democratic deficit where planning committees lose their powers; councillors may scrutinise but cannot decide; and local councils are diminished, while in their place a mayor is handed sweeping powers over planning, housing, infrastructure and even development orders. This is not devolution downwards to communities; it is centralisation.
Let us be absolutely clear. In the west midlands, the Labour Mayor has shown time and again that his focus is on Birmingham, not communities such as mine in Aldridge-Brownhills. This Bill will entrench that imbalance. It gives a licence to concrete over the green belt and drive a coach and horses through local democracy, leaving the elected Member of Parliament with no formal way of holding the mayor to account or even to question his decisions.
The Government say that this Bill empowers local communities, but they have cut the very funding that made neighbourhood planning possible. The neighbourhood planning programme, supported by the National Association of Local Councils, helped more than 2,000 communities to write neighbourhood plans, yet Ministers have scrapped it—at a time when they seek to railroad development across communities. The NALC is right that this move by the Government weakens the very tier of democracy that should be strengthened. It is not empowerment; it is a contradiction. My constituents know exactly what that means. Aldridge-Brownhills is all too often treated as the dumping ground for housing numbers decided elsewhere.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government’s devolution proposal is an urban-based model that cannot be applied to rural areas without fundamentally distorting the character of that area?
Wendy Morton
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. His communities, not dissimilar to mine, are on the edge of a large urban area—the west midlands; Birmingham—and yet we are not deeply rural. We are at real risk of being subsumed into the suburbs of Walsall or Birmingham with no say in the matter.
My constituents know what this all means, with communities feeling “done to”, not “worked with”. We have seen what happens when contradictory housing targets are imposed from above. Take the Black Country plan, which was meant to be a model of strategic planning, but it collapsed. It fell apart because residents across the Black Country lost confidence, and rightly so—it was plain wrong.
The Bill repeats the same mistakes, introducing powers to push development through, riding roughshod over local objections and concreting over our communities’ green spaces. Look at the imbalance: Birmingham’s housing targets are falling while Walsall’s are rising by 27%. My constituency is told to take the strain as our second city offloads its numbers. It is not devolution, but displacement, and it will only deepen distrust. Take Stonnall Road, Longwood Road, Longwood Lane and Bosty Lane; the list of speculative planning applications across my constituency goes on and on—and all this before the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and even this piece of legislation have been enacted.
If this Government were serious about empowerment, they would have put a brownfield-first duty into their reforms, but they chose not to. The west midlands has hundreds of hectares of derelict land that could be brought back into use, and there is funding for this already: the brownfield housing fund, the national competitive fund and the brownfield, infrastructure and land fund. However, there is no requirement for the mayor to use those funds first before launching into our precious green belt and green wedges.
Without a statutory brownfield-first duty, we know that developers will always go for the easy option first. Take the Birch Lane proposal in Aldridge—hundreds of homes on green-belt land now rebranded as grey belt. It is precisely the kind of inappropriate development this Bill will make it harder to resist, with local consultees weakened and mayoral powers strengthened. This Government are not building communities; they are dividing them.
What about infrastructure? My constituents were promised Aldridge train station—as many Members know, I talk a lot about that. Funding was secured and the business case made, yet the Labour mayor diverted the money elsewhere. If he cannot deliver on those commitments, why should this House be handing him more?
There are serious questions to answer about what exactly is grey belt. Regulations suggest that it can be used to redefine a green-belt site with building on three sides. That should alarm all of us in this place. We in Aldridge-Brownhills are now at serious risk of being subsumed within a Greater Birmingham and a Greater Walsall. Do not get me wrong, we do need houses, but let us give it some thought. Let us put them in the right place and let us not lose our identity or our communities because of Government diktat—because that is exactly what it is.
This Government are making a complete mockery of what we call green belt and green wedges, which were there to protect communities from urban sprawl. And all this at a time when Birmingham city council cannot even empty its bins. The mayor has washed his hands of it and the Deputy Prime Minister does not seem interested. This Bill is not devolution or empowerment. Quite simply, it is a developer’s dream and a neighbourhood nightmare, and I shall be voting against it tonight.
Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)
Having served as a town councillor and deputy mayor before my election to this House, I have witnessed at first hand the critically overdue need for reform of our local and very local council systems. Town, parish and very local councils have been plagued by inefficiencies and toothless standards for too long, which is why I particularly support the reform of our local audit system outlined in the Bill. My experiences, and those regaled to me by others over the years, have underscored the urgent need for an overhaul to ensure transparency, efficiency and accountability within our local governance structures. The Government’s commitment to reforming the local audit system is both timely and essential. The Bill prioritises the establishment of a more coherent and reliable audit framework, which will undoubtedly build trust within our communities and foster a more robust democratic process.
By addressing these systemic challenges, we are sending a clear message that councils must be accountable and that the integrity of their operations is paramount. Furthermore, these reforms represent a significant step towards greater devolution, empowering town and parish councils, such as those in North Somerset, to take decisive action tailored to the unique needs of their locals.
However, we must go further. It is crucial to introduce greater accountability through a compliance scoring system that clearly indicates to the public whether their elected representatives are undertaking best practice and demonstrating financial competence with their money. Internal audit parameters should be set nationally to ensure consistency and transparency, and we should focus on establishing effective minimum standards for councillors, ensuring that there are proper consequences when acceptable behaviour is breached. That would not just improve outcomes for local communities, but restore confidence in our local democracy.
It would also help to alleviate the ongoing issue with recruitment and retention of town and parish clerks nationally, who are the impartial and objective legal advisers to the very local councils and are tasked with ensuring that those councils operate lawfully. I am sure that many colleagues will have been made aware of the totally unacceptable behaviours that some town and parish clerks are subjected to, which are enabled by a lack of effective recourse against the perpetrators.
The ongoing loss of highly trained and experienced experts is a great loss to the sector. This recruitment crisis also hits the number willing to stand for very local councils, as potential councillors face the same unacceptable behaviours. We need professional regulation for councillors as an important first step. Monitoring officers must be properly funded through professional regulation fees paid by councils based on the number of councillors. This would enable monitoring officers to perform their vital oversight function effectively.
We cannot continue the current slide towards empty council chambers across our towns and villages, declining community involvement, and, in some areas, poor standards of behaviour and conduct. The Localism Act 2011 that came into force during the coalition Government dismantled essential structures of accountability by abolishing the Standards Board for England.
Since then, powers to suspend councillors who breach standards have been repealed, leaving councils with no substantive recourse against poor conduct. There is now no recourse against poor standards of behaviour. This legislative deficiency has allowed pockets of inadequate behaviour to persist unchallenged, undermining the very essence of local government. We must take this opportunity to effect new systems and processes and to foster a new model of accountable politics at the local and very local level.
I have seen myself how unacceptable behaviours in local councils can go entirely unchecked, eroding trust. The Bill represents a chance to establish a higher standard and ensure that we have appropriate people serving our communities, cutting out the rot in some of our councils. If town and parish councils are to play a larger role in the devolution of local services, which undoubtedly brings the benefits of greater ownership and influence to local communities, it is essential that all councils are effectively held to the same high standards.
I wish to point out that there are very many local councils across the country that do a fabulous job, and there are some great ones in my constituency. They are governed extremely well and enrich their communities, but the minority of councils risk tarnishing the wider reputation of the sector and creating a disparity in community benefit. This Bill represents the foundation that we should build on to do better in order to establish proper standards at the local level of democracy and ensure that we have appropriate people serving our community.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
As I am sure all Members in this place do, I support the principle of devolution and empowerment—two of the words on the face of the Bill—but this Bill is about centralisation and disempowerment. For the Isle of Wight, it is about fusing our island with Hampshire under a combined mayoral authority, where 93% of the population live in Hampshire on the mainland and just 7% live on the island.
There is no empowerment, because island people will not have a say. This plan was last crystalised under the previous Labour Government, who gave islanders a say through a local referendum. Islanders voted no, and the previous Labour Government respected that vote. This Government do not respect my constituents enough to ask them whether they are happy to be fused with a much, much larger county that sits across the water. It is centralising because my local authority, the Isle of Wight council, will lose some of its powers. It will lose powers over strategic planning, so a mayor who represents largely Hampshire voters will be able to allocate more housing on the island, and any mayor who is interested in getting re-elected will, of course, be responsive to the much larger voter cohort in Hampshire.
There are three particularly offensive things about the Bill that the Government are imposing on my constituents. Our police authority is called Hampshire and Isle of Wight. Our health commissioning body is called Hampshire and Isle of Wight. Our fire and rescue service is called Hampshire and Isle of Wight. The vast majority of organisations that operate across our two counties are named after our two counties—Hampshire and Isle of Wight. This Government are going to call our mayoral combined authority Hampshire and Solent, potentially removing our name from all the organisations that the mayor will end up having power over—from our police, our fire and rescue service, our health commissioning body, and who knows what in the future. That will be done without anyone on the Isle of Wight having a say.
The second offensive thing about this proposal for my constituency is the powers that it gives the mayor over local transport. The authority will have Solent in the title, yet the mayor will get no contingent powers over the biggest transport issue facing my residents: crossing the Solent on ferries. Solent is in the name of the combined authority, but the mayor will get no powers over ferries. Our ferries are the only unregulated, entirely privatised, foreign-owned, debt-laden key transport provider in the UK.
The Government are prepared to nationalise railways, extend the arm of Government in buses and put more money into roads, but they are not prepared to do anything about my constituents being left at the mercy of foreign-owned, debt-laden companies. I will acknowledge that they have used some warm words, and the Minister has visited the island, but this is the opportunity to deliver on those words and put powers in the hands of the mayor to regulate cross-Solent transport.
To make a really important point on ringfenced funding, because the Isle of Wight will be fused with Hampshire, the mayor will be able to spend money as they wish across a homogeneous single zone. There is no special provision in the Bill to ensure there is ringfenced funding for the Isle of Wight that cannot be raided for Hampshire. The local integrated care board is already raiding money from our hospice to spend on Hampshire hospices. In the mayoral deal, we need powers to stop that from happening.
Finally, in the consultation of my constituents on the key issue of transport, the F-word—ferries—was not mentioned even once.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
Meur ras, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 5 March this year, the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and said these words:
“We do recognise Cornish national minority status—not just the proud language, history and culture of Cornwall, but its bright future.”—[Official Report, 5 March 2025; Vol. 763, c. 278.]
Since arriving in this place on the back of a pledge to ensure Cornwall is given the devolved powers and funding that we have been craving for centuries, and in line with our manifesto commitment to deliver on the greatest ever devolution powers out of Westminster, today is a significant milestone. With the Prime Minister’s commitment to Cornish national minority status clearly reaffirmed, I support a Bill that delivers tangible devolution to Cornwall. However, I would like to explore clarifications on the implications of the Bill for the people of Cornwall.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the land that you call Cornwall we know as Kernow, a term believed to have been in use for over 2,000 years that means “people of the promontory”. However, the English word Cornwall has a different meaning: it means “peninsula of foreigners”. For centuries, the English have recognised the people of the land at the end of the peninsula as different from them. Right up to modern times, the UK Government have continued to honour the distinct territorial integrity of Cornwall, treating us in unique and exceptional ways.
Our constitutional status was perhaps most clearly outlined in a newspaper article in 2013 by the House of Lords researcher Kevin Cahill, who stated that
“the whole territorial interest and dominion of the Crown in and over the entire county of Cornwall is vested in the Duke of Cornwall…So Cornwall is a separate kingdom.”
He continued:
“I know the Cornish have been shouting about this for a long time, but they turn out to be right.”
The creation of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1337 recognised the distinct history, identity and territory of Cornwall, a unique and exceptional constitutional settlement that we enjoy to the present day. In recent times, Cornwall has been the first rural area outside Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to gain a devolution settlement over aspects of transport, education and renewable energy. More recently it has done so over adult education, Cornish distinctiveness and the Cornish language. Indeed, Cornwall already enjoys some of the benefits offered by the Bill for mayoral combined authorities.
I am often asked—even by colleagues in this place—whether as a Cornishman I consider myself English. Along with hundreds of thousands of Cornishmen and women, I am often sadly mocked for my reply. Let me be absolutely clear today: I am Cornish, not English, although I freely admit that some of my very best friends are English. To those at home, particularly young people, who have been equally ridiculed, I say, “Be loud and proud. It is okay to consider yourself Cornish and British.”
Let me deal with the issue of identity versus status. Cornish national minority status and Cornish identity are sometimes conflated, but when discussing the former, references to identity can sometimes be considered belittling. It is not about identity; it is about a legally binding national minority status. Our status, formally agreed by the Council of Europe 10 years ago, must be respected, upheld and celebrated.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
Meur ras—I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. He will be aware that in previous Parliaments I led campaigns to secure the recognition of the Cornish language and the Cornish people. Does he agree that this is not an issue of isolationism? It is not about cutting ourselves off, but about cutting ourselves into the celebration of diversity and having the identity of a place properly recognised and respected so that it can grow rather than be supressed. Surely devolution is about enabling places rather than controlling them, which is what I fear this Bill will do.
Perran Moon
As a result of our geographical location, for centuries we have been a safe harbour—a port in the storm—for peoples from all over the world. We are an inclusive society.
Let me get straight to the nub of the issue. The Council of Europe framework convention for the protection of national minorities makes it very clear. Article 16 says:
“The Parties shall refrain from measures which alter the proportions of the population in areas inhabited by persons belonging to national minorities and are aimed at restricting the rights and freedoms flowing from the principles enshrined in the present framework Convention.”
In 2016, when passing comment on the then Government’s plans for redrawing boundaries, the Council of Europe advisory committee on the framework convention highlighted
“that Article 16 prohibits restricting the enjoyment of the rights of the Framework Convention in connection with the redrawing of borders.”
In the Bill as drafted, Cornwall is prevented from accessing the highest level of devolution, because to do so would require us to compromise our national minority status. During the passage of the Bill, I will work with the Government to ensure that the Bill as passed respects Cornish national minority status and delivers an historic devolution arrangement that fulfils our manifesto commitment; provides for the economic development support that we need to unleash the Cornish Celtic tiger; gives us the funding and resources to deal with our crippling housing crisis; and celebrates Cornish national minority status.
This responsibility weighs not just on the mind. For us, this is not just about functional local government; it goes way deeper into our souls, to a centuries-old desire for increased autonomy and self-governance in our place on this multinational island. I urge Ministers: together, let us grasp this once-in-a-generation opportunity.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
When the Government get something right, it is important to acknowledge that. The community right-to-buy provisions in the Bill represent the genuine empowerment that constituents need. I therefore acknowledge that.
In my constituency, I have a village community that is desperate to buy the local pub—an asset of community value that has been up for sale for some time. They have raised the funds for the asking price and they have community support, but the owner simply refuses to sell to them. Under the current system, they have no right of purchase and no right of refusal, and although they have raised the money, more time to organise the complex legal and financial arrangement required for community ownership would have been appreciated. The new community right-to-buy provisions in the Bill are therefore welcome.
Just as the Bill gets community empowerment right in one policy area, it misses the opportunity to do so in many others. I draw a contrast with one in particular: the skills architecture. The Bill creates new skills responsibilities for strategic authorities without clarifying how they will co-ordinate with the national role of Skills England—another new body—or the existing employer-led local skills improvement plans, or LSIPs. We have a system in which Skills England sets national priorities, LSIPs identify local employer needs and strategic authorities deliver adult education funding, but the Bill has no clear mechanisms for ensuring that those layers align or avoid costly duplication.
This fragmentation is compounded by the separation of adult skills from the broader skills and education ecosystem. The Bill devolves responsibility for adult education to strategic authorities but leaves 16-to-19 education with central Government and provides no clear role at all for universities in local economic development. This is despite the Education Secretary herself calling for universities to make a stronger contribution to economic growth through closer alignment to skills needs and economic growth plans. How can we develop coherent local skills strategies when we artificially separate the pipeline that feeds skilled employment?
The funding arrangements are also concerning. Strategic authorities will hold the adult skills budgets but have only joint ownership of the LSIPs that should guide their spending priorities. It is difficult to see how democratically accountable bodies can be responsible for outcomes when they lack control over the full planning process. Furthermore, current LSIP boundaries do not align with the proposed strategic authority boundaries, and the Government’s solution appears to be to hope that it all works out in the end. The Bill provides no mechanism for resolving conflicts and no timeline for achieving the geographical coherence that effective planning requires.
Possibly most troubling is the absence of any performance framework linking those different institutional layers. Strategic authorities must produce local growth plans, but there is no requirement for them to align with LSIPs or with Skills England workforce forecasting. We risk having three different bodies in each area producing conflicting skills priorities with no clear co-ordination mechanism. That is a recipe for confusion, waste and ultimately a failure to address the skills shortages that our economy desperately needs to resolve.
I wanted to draw a contrast, so here it is. On community assets, the Bill trusts local people and provides clear, enforceable rights. However, on skills—one of the most critical challenges facing our economy—it creates institutional complexity and lacks accountability and clear lines of responsibility. I hope the Government will go away and think again, and come back with a more coherent approach that actually delivers the local responsiveness on skills that communities and our economy so desperately need.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
The UK is one of the most centrally run countries in the world. For decades, Whitehall has made every major decision on growth and investment, while the communities impacted were too often an afterthought. This has left communities poorer and trapped, playing a game that they can never win. For regions such as mine, physically the furthest away in England, it has meant that we have felt removed from decisions and decision making. This Bill is a chance to change that failure.
In the north-east, during her first year, our Mayor Kim McGuinness has launched important local projects including tackling child poverty and bringing buses back into public control, but she is unable to tackle some of the big economic challenges that we face because she does not have the powers to change them. This Bill makes it easier for the Mayor to decide how local money is spent by putting the pen in local hands, so that our own priorities come first, rather than an agreed list made years ago with Whitehall. This will allow the Mayor to create a growth plan showing where investment is needed most, so that Westminster can follow that lead.
The north-east growth plan sets our priorities so that we can then work with this Government to deliver the projects identified. By creating these local growth plans, the Government can see the shared priorities in areas such as advanced manufacturing, clean energy and digital innovation. Regions are able to create a list of projects ready for investment; we know where the blockages are in our area because we live with them every single day.
Of course, one such priority that politicians, businesses and communities have identified for our region is the case of Moor Farm roundabout in my constituency—something I have spoken about many times in this place. It has already been identified as a priority, because upgrading it would not only address the misery that it causes for local people every day, but unlock investment in manufacturing, clean energy and housing and support business growth.
Alongside changes in the Green Book to a local place-based business case, we can ensure that we approach these priorities with a cross-departmental, mission-led approach. For too long, departmental silos have prevented a cross-Government approach, but now we can ensure that the likes of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Transport, the Department for Business and Trade and the Treasury work together with regional leaders to deliver local priorities.
It is not just new mayoral powers that we benefit from. I am absolutely thrilled to see in the Bill steps to protect communities and community sport for the future. The Bill takes heavily from one that I introduced in May, creating a change to safeguard sporting assets of community value. It would automatically protect football clubs, leisure centres and other sports facilities by giving local communities the first chance to buy them if they go up for sale.
Dr Opher
Just briefly, as my hon. Friend explains about the sporting, economic and social interests, does she believe that environmental interests should also be taken into account? That would allow communities to claim other different types of funds and also to protect the environment.
Emma Foody
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. We should look at what communities prioritise and make considerations as to what they value.
Going back to sporting assets in particular, there are over 6,000 sports grounds in England alone. Protecting them under the current system is complex, buried in red tape and made far too difficult. It has meant that fewer than 100 sports facilities are protected community assets across the country, meaning that almost 99% of sports facilities across the country cannot be preserved if developers try to buy up land.
We want to give people the authority to make decisions about their own areas. This summer I was absolutely delighted to visit so many facilities in my constituency: Cramlington Rockets, Burradon Juniors and Backworth Hall cricket club, as well as working with the likes of Hazlerigg Victory, Wideopen football club and many more. These clubs and facilities are at the heart of our communities, providing not just sport but community activities, running holiday clubs and being a welcoming community space. They are the lifeblood of many of the villages and towns across the Cramlington and Killingworth constituency. I am delighted that this Government are protecting these vital pillars in the community that are so important to local people.
For too long, Whitehall has left communities and regions like mine trapped and poorer because decisions were not taken with them in mind. This Government are changing that with the biggest shift of power out of Westminster to the north-east and my communities. It will boost growth, raise living standards and deliver services for local people. It is about giving power to those who know our communities best. I am delighted that this Labour Government are putting our regions, our communities and our neighbourhoods first.
Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)
I rise to make the case for Kernow, or Cornwall, and its unique status in this United Kingdom. My constituents have been crystal clear with me: Cornwall must never be forcibly joined with Devon or merged into any wider regional authority. But that is not to say that Cornwall wants to go it alone. It is not about separatism at all; this is about respecting our distinct status and history. Cornwall has proudly partnered with other UK regions for decades. It has a proud and unique language, culture, history and—crucially—national minority status, which was granted over a decade ago. We were afforded the same status as our Celtic brothers and sisters in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and so the people of Cornwall deserve a devolution deal that recognises that.
This status is not just symbolic. It creates a duty on public authorities to promote equality for the Cornish people, to support our culture, language and identity and, specifically, to avoid any assimilationist policies. Under the UK’s Equality Act 2010 and the public sector equality duty, Ministers and local authorities alike must consider the impact of their decisions, including in this Bill, on the Cornish people. If they fail to do so, their actions can be challenged in the courts using an array of legal claims, including judicial reviews, an Equality Act claim and a Human Rights Act 1998 article 14 differential treatment claim. Therefore, these rights carry real legal and political weight. To disregard or dilute Cornwall’s status in this Bill would be insulting, unlawful and dangerous. I am alarmed that the Bill would grant the Secretary of State power to force combined authorities without local people’s consent. Devolution, in essence, should give power to the communities, regions and counties that it aims to empower, not to a mayor, a Secretary of State or an unelected commissioner.
At Prime Minister’s questions last October, the Prime Minister told me that he believes that
“Those with skin in the game know what is best for their communities.”—[Official Report, 16 October 2024; Vol. 754, c. 834.]
The Secretary of State has repeated that today. I agree with them both: decisions should be made for Cornwall and in Cornwall by a fully elected Cornish assembly—and not in Plymouth, Bristol or Westminster. They should be made by those from within the duchy who understand our unique way of life and our unique economic and social challenges—the immense challenges of funding rural transport; the unfair and unequal investment in our schools over decades; the plight of our farmers and fishers, who seem to be left out in the cold by Government after Government; and the enormous proliferation of second homes and holiday lets, which lock local people out of our housing market, generation after generation.
In my office, I proudly display a famous painting of the Cornish rebellion of 1497. It illustrates the Cornish spirit of fairness, justice and persistence, of proud Cornish men and women who had taxes imposed upon them by the Government in London. That spirit lives on. Given Cornwall’s history and that strength of feeling, if the Secretary of State imposed a mayor of Devon and Cornwall —completely disregarding Cornwall’s national minority status, as well as legal battles—she might have a full uprising on her hands.
The Bill would likely limit Cornwall to a foundation strategic authority with limited powers, funding and control. That is why we are fighting for a bespoke devolution deal. The Bill should have mechanisms in place to allow such a bespoke deal to take place. Cornwall’s MPs look forward to working together for the good of Cornwall, onen hag oll—one and all—to make that happen. I call on the Government to fully respect Cornwall’s national minority status; to create a Minister for Cornwall, who could sit in the Wales Office; to consider the feasibility of an elected Cornish assembly instead of a mayor; and to commit to a devolution deal that respects Cornwall’s historic identity by excluding it from combined strategic authorities with other regions. Kernow bys vyken!
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
Few matters have occupied as much of my first year in this House as the question of Cornish devolution. For decades, if not centuries, the people of Cornwall have spoken of their desire to have a greater say in the decisions that shape their lives. That desire is founded in our distinct needs and our more than 1,000-year-old national identity. That is why the arrival of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill has been watched in Cornwall with keen anticipation and, in some quarters, with understandable apprehension.
Having pored over the text of the legislation, my conclusion is this: far from being the bulldozer that many feared, the Bill leaves Cornwall’s position intact. It formalises our single foundation status and—once and for all I hope—a single geography. Crucially, it does not strip away the strategic powers that Cornwall already exercises. Recognition of our national minority status is now firmly acknowledged in this place, and, as one of the largest unitary authorities in England by geographic footprint, we retain the ability to deliver many of the functions that are only just being handed to combined or mayoral bodies elsewhere.
Perran Moon
Does my hon. Friend agree that the historic Cornish constitutional status must be considered as part of the devolution discussion?
Noah Law
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. On top of the many examples he has given of Cornwall’s constitutional status, and aside from our devolution arrangements with Westminster, the leader of Cornwall council was in 2023 given permission to attend ministerial meetings of the British-Irish Council, much like the other Celtic nations and the Channel Islands. In the same year, Cornwall council and the Welsh Government signed a historic collaboration agreement, reflecting the shared culture of these two Celtic nations.
Perhaps more weightily in this place, the Crowther and Kilbrandon report of the royal commission on the constitution in 1973 acknowledged that the creation of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1337
“established a special and enduring relationship between Cornwall and the Crown. Use of the designation on all appropriate occasions would serve to recognise both this special relationship and the territorial integrity of Cornwall”.
It went on to say that what the Cornish want is
“recognition of the fact that Cornwall has a separate identity and that its traditional boundaries shall be respected.”
Let me be clear: while the letter of the Bill does not necessarily offer the content of devolution that so many in Cornwall have long called for, I have no doubt that it will be very welcome in cities and other regions across England. But Cornwall is different: a remote coastal community, an existing administrative unit, a functional economic geography and a very good brand, if nothing else, as many Members will know from their summer holidays. Above all, Cornwall is a proud part of the United Kingdom with a distinct national identity, a resurgent language and a desire to be heard after centuries of dismissal. With the right powers, we stand ready to not only shape our own future but help lead the way in a United Kingdom that values local voices and unlocks prosperity across all nations and regions.
I greatly welcome the inclusion of new powers such as the community right to buy. That is exactly the sort of measure that can put power back into local hands, giving people in my constituency the chance to ensure that public assets like the Dolphin Inn in Grampound or the sites of the former General Wolfe in St Austell and the Fowey community hospital remain in public hands and continue to serve local needs.
Andrew George
The hon. Member makes a very strong case for Cornwall. He should urge his colleagues in government to welcome amendments to the Bill that strengthen Cornwall’s ability to achieve its unique and very special status, which we believe needs to be enshrined in this legislation as well as the historic record.
Noah Law
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is incredibly important that Cornwall’s national minority status is respected by the Bill, and that the powers and investment required to meet Cornwall’s distinctive needs—if not enshrined in the text—are considered as part of the devolution process in the months ahead.
Finally, we should acknowledge that while the Bill streamlines England’s devolution architecture, the mayoral model will not suit every part of our country. Cornwall has shown for over 15 years as a unitary authority that there are other effective ways to deliver devolved functions. What we need now is a plan for Cornwall—one that equips us with the powers we require over housing, transport, skills and industrial growth to meet the challenges we face. The truth is that the statutory framework set out in the Bill is not the central issue at stake. What really matters is that we secure a settlement for Cornwall that recognises our unique circumstances, protects our ability to make strategic decisions for ourselves and gives our communities the tools to thrive.
Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I want to raise a few issues, all of which I know are very much on my constituents’ minds.
First, I want to emphasise the importance of ensuring that boroughs such as Reigate and Banstead, which have been managed well and are not loaded with debt, are not left footing the bill for the failures of other councils that have been less prudent with their finances. Reigate and Banstead borough council has a commendably strong record of financial prudence, so please will the Secretary of State reassure my constituents that protection will be put in place to safeguard our community assets, such as the Harlequin theatre, and our community and leisure centres?
On the Harlequin theatre specifically, I emphasise how important the asset is to the people of Redhill and beyond. It has now been closed for more than two years, following the discovery of RAAC, and residents and community groups—notably, the Harlequin Support Group—have been resolutely campaigning for its repair and reopening. I am delighted that, under the leadership of Councillor Shelly Newton, who is one of the most tenacious local councillors I have ever come across, it has now been confirmed that the £4.5 million needed for repair has been allocated. All being well, the theatre is expected to reopen by Christmas 2026. I mention that because my constituents would appreciate hearing directly from the Secretary of State and Ministers that the local government reorganisation will not hamper such projects, which have been agreed but will take some time to complete.
I also make the point that the reorganisation is not the only challenge faced by Reigate and Banstead borough council, which has just had its housing target more than doubled by this Government, at a time of great uncertainty and transition—a recipe for disaster.
I want to focus mainly, however, on the future of the civic mayoralty in Reigate and Banstead. Reigate has had a mayor since 1863. Great history and tradition is associated with the role, and the importance placed on it can be seen physically in the mayoral robes, the chain of office and the mace, which are still very much in use. The Government have been clear that their intention with the Bill is to provide a consistent model for how local government will be structured across England. What is rather less clear—I hope that the Minister or Secretary of State will be able to provide clarity—is what that means for boroughs such as mine, where a borough council is intermeshed with a long-standing tradition of civic leadership in the form of a borough mayor.
Unlike metro mayors, the mayor of the borough of Reigate and Banstead is no kind of political executive. The role is that of a civic figurehead, non-partisan, ceremonial and community focused. We have a truly outstanding mayor, Councillor Rich Michalowski, and, before him, Councillor Eddie Hughes was another dedicated and hard-working public servant. In the past civic year alone, the mayor responded to more than 350 engagement requests, hosted 25 town hall tours for schools and community groups, and oversaw 32 civic and charity events attended by nearly 1,500 people, not including the thousands more who attended Remembrance Sunday. The position of borough mayor does real, practical good. Their attendance at an event brings that extra sparkle, which residents so appreciate.
Through the mayor’s trust fund, 38 families in my constituency have already been supported with grants this year. A single funding workshop led by the mayor’s team unlocked more than £50,000 for local charities. Through sustained community engagement, the mayor helps connect employers with jobseekers, donors with good causes, and schools with mentors. They promote local artists, support care homes, champion the armed forces covenant, and offer practical help to residents in crisis. I hope that Ministers will agree with my constituents in recognising the great value of a borough mayor, and that they will provide clarity on whether such roles will be preserved under the Bill and, if so, how in practical terms that will be achieved.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak on what may prove to be one of the most impactful and transformative pieces of legislation of this Parliament. The Bill represents one of the most significant shifts in local government in more than half a century. It sets out a clear ambition to move power out of Westminster and into the hands of local leaders who know their communities best. For areas such as Cheshire and Warrington, that has the potential finally to give us the tools we need to unlock our full potential and to deliver real, tangible benefits for our communities.
On transport alone, the opportunity is to talk no longer about the decline in bus services but about how we are providing new routes; and to hear, instead of that we have been campaigning for a bridge or railway link for 40 years, “We have a plan to deliver.” On skills, instead of the 92% drop in adult education starters that has occurred in my area between 2015 and 2020, we can talk about how we will fix that.
It is important to recognise, however, that the approach set out in the Bill is not without risks for Cheshire and Warrington with respect to police services. The Bill gives power to the Home Secretary to redraw the policing boundaries to match the mayoral combined authority. There is no consensus in Cheshire that Cheshire police should be reorganised to exclude Halton, which is currently part of the Liverpool city region. Indeed, quite the reverse: it is felt that such a move would be explicitly bad for Halton and would damage the viability of the remainder of Cheshire police. When the Minister sums up, I hope he will provide reassurance that there will be a full consultation before Cheshire police is reorganised, and that it will not be reorganised against the wishes of its communities?
Let me turn to the Bill’s provisions on adult education. The new duty placed on strategic authorities to secure appropriate facilities for the education and training of adults aged 19 and over is a welcome step. In the focus groups that I have run with technology businesses across Cheshire and the wider north-west, there has been a clear divide between mayoral areas and non-mayoral areas, where—with some exceptions—businesses did not feel that there was a good understanding of their needs, nor a plan to deliver on them. The mayoral combined authority presents an opportunity not only to fix that, but to think strategically about taking advantage of projects like HyNet, which will require miles of new hydrogen pipeline and people with the right skills to build it.
An important gap that the Bill does not address is post-16 education. Local authorities currently have a duty to secure enough suitable education and training provision to meet the reasonable needs of all young people in their area who are over compulsory school age, but they lack any powers to deliver this and neither can they meaningfully affect how further education is organised. That is a real challenge, particularly in my constituency, which has been left with big gaps in provision following the 2016 review into post-16 education in Cheshire and Warrington, contributing to NEET levels in Winsford being five percentage points higher than the borough-wide average.
There is an opportunity for the mayoral combined authority to deliver better outcomes for young people in my constituency, but it needs the powers to do so. I urge Ministers to work with colleagues in the Department for Education so that we can use mayors to tackle entrenched inequalities and ensure that every young person, regardless of background, has access to high-quality education and training that prepares them for the future.
This Bill is not just a handover of power, but a partnership between central Government and local communities—between elected leaders and the people they serve. For Cheshire and Warrington, it is a chance to lead by example, and to show what empowered communities can achieve when given the freedom to flourish.
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
I also used to be a councillor, like many Members across the Chamber. I was deputy leader of Chelmsford city council for five years and an opposition member at Essex county council. I have seen at first hand the work of local councils and I know that they do it in very difficult circumstances—circumstances that have got harder and harder, with dwindling funds and increased demands on council services.
Despite the very best efforts of council leaders across the country and council officers, who are often the unsung heroes local government, there are crises in housing, in special educational needs and in adult social care. We do not seem to have a plan to fix any of them, yet we seem to be rushing ahead with local government reorganisation and devolution, which to me seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse. Is the best way to fix the crisis in special educational needs or in adult social care, or to truly deliver all the housing we need a different form of local government? Why are these really important issues not part of the mix? Why do we not have a plan to fix them first—before we reorganise local government and trap ourselves in a corner?
I am in favour of devolution: it is right to have power closer to the people it affects. I want local communities to be empowered, but this Bill does not deliver that. In fact, although it devolves powers relating to transport and skills—and other things in the Bill are good, too—the local government reorganisation that goes with those measures means that this legislation does the exact opposite of delivering devolution.
Let us take Essex as an example. I choose Essex because I represent the constituency of Chelmsford in the very heart of Essex, because I used to be an Essex county councillor and because Essex is in the first wave of reorganisation. Essex will not benefit from the scrapping of first past the post, so my constituents will not benefit from their votes truly being represented. There is a proposal to replace Essex county council plus the district councils with either three, four or five unitaries. If we include the other existing unitaries plus Essex county council, we are talking about 15 councils in total. Replacing them with possibly three unitaries would be the exact opposite of devolution; it would take power away from the people and make the councillors elected to represent the people further away from them.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
I am delighted to hear the hon. Lady’s speech. She and I are both Essex MPs, and I agree that we should not create these huge unitary authorities, because local councils are truly in touch with local communities and local needs. However, does she agree that as Havering is also part of Essex, we should be part of that discussion as well? If my borough wants to be part of an Essex unitary authority—such as Central Essex, which would include Chelmsford—does she agree that my constituents should have the right to make that decision in a democracy?
Marie Goldman
Absolutely. My problem with this Bill is that it feels rushed. More people want to contribute to the discussion. Constituents want to be represented and to have local government reorganised in a way that they have been able to contribute to. That would truly be democracy. What we are seeing right now is rushed and is not a proper representation of democracy.
The three-unitary model is not the only proposed model. That is being proposed by the county council, but the model that has the most support from the local district councils—nine of them—is the five-unitary model. I certainly support that, because if we have to go ahead with local government reorganisation, surely it should be with the model that keeps power closest to people.
Andrew Rosindell
Will the hon. Lady clarify if she would support the people of Havering if they chose to be part of an Essex unitary authority—if that was their democratically chosen wish?
Marie Goldman
I think we are in danger of getting into the weeds on exactly how local government would be reorganised.
We talk about the size of the unitary authorities that would be created. The three-unitary model in Essex would instantly create three of the top five biggest unitary authorities in the country; after growth, they would be three of the top four biggest unitary authorities. It would create enormous councils with considerably less connection with the local communities they served. That is the opposite of devolution, and I worry a lot about the loss of identity that it could lead to.
A lot of the talk is about savings. The Deputy Prime Minister talked a bit about savings from reorganisation, but there is very little evidence to support that using real-world data. Past models produced by consultancies have not used real-world data. However, according to real-world data, if the five-unitary model is chosen, local government reorganisation is expected to save only £105 million across the whole of Essex after five years. If the three-unitary model is chosen, we will end up with £49 million less than that. This is a huge undertaking, with a lot of resources going in for very little, and we still do not have a plan for special educational needs, adult social care and all the things I mentioned earlier.
The really important point is that Greater Essex contains Thurrock, which has a very, very big debt problem: about £800 million of unsecured debt. There is no model of local government reorganisation or devolution in Greater Essex—even keeping the existing structure, frankly—that would be financially sustainable without central Government stepping in and providing funds to cover Thurrock’s debt. The maths simply do not work. I am looking directly at the Minister, because we need a solution. There will be much more unity in Essex on how to move forward if we can work out how to deal with Thurrock’s debt. It cannot be that other local residents, such as my constituents in Chelmsford, are asked to shoulder the blame for something that they did not bring about in the first place.
I turn to Essex county council elections, which were cancelled last May. We have absolutely no idea whether they will go ahead next May; it would seem a bit strange if they did, but equally we want democracy. Can the Government provide some clarity?
Finally, why is first past the post being scrapped for mayoral elections, but not for local government or general elections? That seems rather inconsistent.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
I cannot say that devolution is a topic that comes up very often on the doorstep, but the issues that this Bill is designed to address—too much power exercised by people far away, too little say in shaping the places where we live, and too much confusion over where to go when we have a problem or an issue that needs resolving—certainly do. My constituents have raised those issues with me time and again, and devolution and the measures set out in this Bill will tackle those challenges. They will return power to local people, empower communities and power growth in areas of the country like mine in Norfolk.
In Norfolk, devolution means opportunity. It means innovation and investment, helping create new jobs in emerging industries such as clean aviation, and bolstering our existing strengths, including financial services, life sciences and clean energy. Devolution means connectivity, unlocking better and sustainable transport, which is essential in rural counties like ours. It means enhancing Norfolk and Norwich’s reputation and reach, amplifying our voices, our contribution and our impact nationally. As such, I welcome the Bill and the fact that Norfolk is part of the devolution priority programme. Current proposals will see an elected Mayor for Norfolk and Suffolk alongside the establishment of a combined authority, but we must get the structures below that level right in order to take full advantage of this opportunity. That is why local government reorganisation, and the tools set out in the Bill to deliver it, are so vital. It is a once-in-a-generation chance to provide more efficient public services, to end the overlap of councils and to deliver better value for money.
I am pleased to back the proposals, supported by six out of seven of Norfolk’s district councils, to create three unitary authorities. In Norfolk, there would be a Greater Norwich unitary with extended boundaries and two unitary authorities broadly covering the eastern and western parts of Norfolk. I grew up in Norfolk; we moved there when I was three. I know how essential it is that what is delivered is rooted in place and identity, and I believe this proposal will reflect Norfolk and what is needed there. Of course, the specific boundaries still need to be shaped with the support of community engagement, but it is the shape I believe our county needs. With it, we can unlock the full potential of Norwich. It is already a key city for the region and our country, with its economy having grown by 64% since 2010, but we can do so much more to unlock our full potential as a city of great innovation, culture and prosperity, driving growth across East Anglia and beyond. As the need for affordable and sustainable housing continues to grow—I see that the Housing Minister is on the Front Bench—the establishment of a Greater Norwich unitary authority will also offer a more effective mechanism for addressing housing demand, which is such a pressure in our city.
Devolution and effective reorganisation will be a game changer for Norwich and Norfolk, but only if we get it right. I fear that some of the other options on the table will simply not work. The proposal backed by the Conservative-controlled Norfolk county council calls for the creation of a single county unitary in Norfolk. I believe that would be just too big; its footprint would cover thousands of square miles, stretching ties between local councillors and the people they are elected to serve. Similarly, a model involving two unitary authorities fails to recognise the unique growth opportunities in Norwich, which I have set out.
Although we may disagree on the model, it is important that there is healthy debate on this subject. I thank all the councillors at all levels, who do so much for our communities every single day and who have contributed to the discussions so far. As these proposals are developed, it is vital that we work collaboratively across parties, listening to our residents to get the very best for our communities. On that point, I ask the Minister to underline that this Bill will not affect town and parish councils, and indeed will recognise the vital role they play. We have many in Norwich North—Sprowston, Drayton, Old Catton, Hellesdon and Thorpe St Andrew—and they all play important parts in our neighbourhoods.
I have one minute left—so, as a Labour and Co-operative MP, I take this opportunity to thank the Co-op party and all its members for all the campaigning they have done to deliver so many measures in this Bill, including the community right to buy. I recognise that this process may not be easy, but if we get it right, the benefits will be huge for the constituents we serve and the places we represent.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
As colleagues can see from looking around the Chamber, there are far too many speakers to be accommodated by 7 pm, when this debate has to end. As such, after the next speaker, the speaking limit will be three minutes, and you can calculate the numbers—not everybody will get in, even on that time limit. I call Bradley Thomas.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
While the current devolution plans in this Bill put politics before people, the Government are pressing ahead with the Bill before the independent adult social care review is published in 2028. I believe that to reorganise local government without first confronting the fundamental crisis in care is to put the cart before the horse. Effective reform cannot be done in isolation. The Local Government Association has been clear in its view that devolution must be aligned with health, police, fire and integrated care board structures, with councils kept central to delivery, accountability and collaboration at every level.
Local consent should be a priority throughout the devolution process. Any change in governance must be made with the full consent of the people affected, yet this Bill allows the Secretary of State to impose new governance structures, including strategic authorities and regional mayors, without local agreement. That strips local people of their voice and runs counter to the very principle of devolution.
Local democracy is already being eroded by the unprecedented housing targets being forced on communities, with local objections routinely brushed aside. Residents feel powerless in shaping the future of their towns and villages, and trust in government is draining away rapidly. This Bill will only deepen that resentment, because Ministers promise devolution, but communities will actually receive less say while being treated as little more than an extension of nearby major cities. Birmingham, a city with 140 hectares of brownfield land and established infrastructure, is seeing its housing targets cut by over 30%. Meanwhile, in my constituency, where 89% of the land is green belt, targets have soared by a staggering 85%. That is not sensible planning; it is an attempt to urbanise rural areas against the will of local residents.
In her opening remarks, the Deputy Prime Minister said that at the minute, too much power is in the hands of the few when it should be in the hands of the many. The Government should therefore let local people have more of a say in what the housing target should be. If our current councils in Worcestershire are to be sidelined, it should be for a singular Worcestershire council to come into existence that can deliver value for money to the taxpayer, provide the best possible services and keep decision making local. We cannot accept Worcestershire involuntarily becoming an extension of Birmingham in the name of devolution.
The Bill’s proposals are modelled on city experiences. Worcestershire is not the same as Birmingham, Manchester or any other big city. We have different needs, different challenges and different priorities. Forcing a city template on to rural areas sidelines communities, strips away their voice and sacrifices the fabric of rural life. Once again, rural and semi-rural residents are treated as an afterthought. Counties shaped by their rural character, such as Worcestershire, are rightly proud of their identities and traditions. If this Bill is to touch our communities, it must first recognise their distinct needs and be rethought to respect them.
Jo Platt (Leigh and Atherton) (Lab/Co-op)
I refer Members to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The fight to rebuild trust in politics must begin in our communities. In Leigh and Atherton, people want to feel proud of the place that they call home. They want visible investment and the power to shape their future, and that is why I welcome the Second Reading of this Bill.
This ambitious Bill is an important step in our devolution revolution, representing one of the greatest transfers of power from Westminster in a generation. It is the first UK Bill in history to include the word “empowerment” in its title. For too long, devolution has meant power being shifted between Whitehall, mayors and councils without making meaningful contact with local people. This Bill offers a meaningful step forward, giving our communities the tools to take ownership of the spaces that matter most.
As a Labour and Co-operative MP, I welcome the introduction of the community right to buy. In practice, this means that when assets of community value come to the market, communities get first dibs. Where we have lost such local assets, it has meant not just a loss of service to the community, but a further erosion of trust in local democracy. I am therefore in no doubt that giving communities a stronger voice in local decision making helps to restore trust in politics from the bottom up.
In my constituency of Leigh and Atherton, Leigh Spinners Mill and Leigh Works stand as shining examples of what happens when local people take the reins. Once derelict but now community-owned, they have become an anchor for regeneration. The mill and Leigh Works support jobs, culture and wellbeing. Across the country, people have seen beloved community spaces forced to close their doors. Thousands of community centres, youth clubs, libraries, pubs and leisure centres have closed over the past decade. With this Bill, Labour is rebuilding the fabric of our communities. Giving local people the power to buy community spaces means more assets owned and shaped by the people who use and love them. We are helping communities to unleash the energy, passion and creativity that exist in every community.
Many Members have pointed to Greater Manchester as a blueprint, and it does show what is possible when devolution is done right. Since 2015, we have built 85,000 homes, launched the Bee Network and helped more than 100,000 residents into work. I have been a strong advocate for devolution for many years. My work as a local councillor at Wigan council and then at Spinners Mill reinforced my belief in giving power to local authorities and the communities that they represent. We must seize this opportunity to put power back where it belongs, and to build a future where Leigh and Atherton and communities across the country feel empowered and proud of the places that they call home.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
We have all been told repeatedly that the Government’s plan for local government will improve local services and save the taxpayer money, but it is increasingly clear that the Bill fails to deliver on those points. This is a forced, top-down change from Westminster that will abolish effective local councils and strip local people of their ability to have a say on local issues.
In my constituency I have two district councils, East Herts and Broxbourne, as well as Hertfordshire county council. Under this “devolution” plan, they will be abolished and replaced by new unitary councils. I strongly opposed Hertfordshire county council forming a single new unitary council covering 1.2 million people, and I am pleased to learn that that has been ruled out, but the new unitary councils will still be far larger than the district councils that we currently have. I am sure that many other Members on both sides of the House will share my experience that large local authorities are often less efficient and deliver worse services than smaller, more agile ones. The biggest council in the country is Birmingham, with a population of more than 1 million, and I doubt that anyone here would call it efficient. While no council is perfect, I believe that councils work best when they are close to the people they serve.
On top of that, I have serious doubts that these plans will actually save any money. There is no way in which efficiencies will cover the extra cost of spending by these bloated new unitary authorities. The process of reorganisation is expensive and disruptive, and I have yet to see it notably improve the finances of councils that have gone through it. Indeed, many areas will be worse off as a result of it. Responsible Conservative councils such as Broxbourne which have consistently kept within budget and kept council tax low will be forced to merge with debt-ridden neighbouring councils and raise their council tax levels. I know that where unitarisation has happened, councils have gone on to set up delivery of services based on the old district boundaries anyway. The efficiencies expected by the Government have not emerged.
I believe that the Government are going down this path of creating big new super-unitary councils, because of their failure to make progress on their target of building 1.5 million new homes. The Government are getting desperate. Rather than building houses where they are needed in London, and rather than building houses where there is appropriate infrastructure or making developers deal with infrastructure first, they are abolishing local councils in order to force through huge arbitrary housing targets in all the wrong places—on precious green belt throughout the United Kingdom.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
Delivering a more representative system locally, as well as one that empowers local government, is necessary now, given the palpable long-term frustration with decision making that is perceived by communities to be exclusively dictated by those confined to Planet Westminster or—especially in Falkirk—Planet Holyrood. We know from experience that devolution works best when it is rooted in economic regeneration, with a real impact on ordinary people’s lives. I agreed with the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), who is no longer in the Chamber, when he said that Scotland is a cautionary tale. The cautionary tale for local government from 19 years of SNP government is about what happens when we do nothing, which is what the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will vote for tonight.
Local leaders can more effectively deploy policy levers in the collective national interest. For instance, the transport procurement policies of Manchester and Liverpool’s mayors have delivered hundreds of orders from Falkirk’s bus manufacturer. That was essential, especially while our own devolved Scottish Government had their eye off the ball and on shiny new Chinese buses. When local leaders with popular mandates have been able to take charge of industrial strategy and regeneration, we see confidence return to communities that for decades have felt left behind. Reflecting on the centralising tendencies of my absent SNP colleagues, I observe that they have persistently ignored, constrained and harmed local authorities in Scotland. I am still waiting for the council tax abolition that I heard about in primary 3.
If we are asking our constituents to invest trust in their local leaders, and to engage in local decision making with the hope that it can change something, we must also take a microscope to the health of our democratic structures nationally. Turnout has been going down, and we know why: we keep hearing from folk on the doorstep that they do not think their vote changes anything.
Dr Opher
With the removal of first past the post for mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections, is it not time that we gave local government the option of dropping first past the post, as Wales has done? Is it not also time for a national commission on electoral reform?
Euan Stainbank
That is the point I was just about to get to. In 2022, I was elected as a local authority councillor in third place under the multi-member system, and it did work. Many people would not have gone to a different political party, or would not necessarily have come to speak to the Labour representative, but it helped that they had diverse representation. I do think it is worth looking at that system, as I was about to touch on as a member of the all-party parliamentary group for fair elections. That is why the provisions in the Bill concerning voting systems are welcome and why, to echo my hon. Friend, we should consider a national commission on electoral reform—a commitment to foster a national conversation about how we should be elected in modern Britain, and to build consensus and a way forward.
Different voting systems are already used across the country—for example, for the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, for our councils and for mayoral elections here in England. Disillusionment did not start yesterday, and any change to a voting system will not solve the degree of disengagement that we have seen in communities, but it could allow people to see their views always reflected in the institutions that represent them, as we saw with Falkirk council under the multi-member ward system. Continuing to rely on a voting system nationally, when nearly two thirds of people want change, risks crystallising the disillusionment.
By formalising and extending devolution, the Government are today moving to strengthen trust at a local level. By engaging in a serious exercise about how we are sent to this place, we can go a long way towards renewing it at a national level too.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
It is a pleasure to speak on this important piece of legislation, and I declare my interest as a vice president of the Local Government Association. This Bill’s intention is to support further devolution—something that the Liberal Democrats are in favour of. However, the Bill fails to properly do so, and instead only reinforces the overly centralised approach taken by the last Government.
Alongside contiguous neighbours, Somerset was ready to move forward with further devolution over six months ago, when it was part of the joint “heart of Wessex” bid. Disappointingly, the Government chose not to include it in the devolution priority programme, despite the proposal matching the growth and economic objectives set out in the Government’s White Paper and encompassing nearly 2 million people. The deal would have provided greater powers for communities struggling under national policies and given rural communities confidence that their voices are being heard.
This Bill fails to adequately deal with the ongoing and ever increasing financial crisis faced by councils across the country. Despite the challenges, Liberal Democrats in Somerset have been getting on with the job of fixing council finances following the wild mismanagement of the previous Conservative administration. Just yesterday the council published a new 20-year economic prosperity strategy, which aims to build a thriving, fair and green Somerset economy. It is leading the way on low-carbon energy, aerospace and defence.
The Bill makes no reference to the unique nature of rural communities. For example, Somerset’s population is both older and ageing faster than the national average, which will increase the amount of care needed in the county. As chair of the APPG on rural services, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the additional financial challenges that rural authorities such as Somerset face. Over half of Somerset’s budget goes towards adults’ and children’s care. There is a shortage of social care providers, which will be impacted by the rise in employer national insurance contributions, and as with so many local authorities, the pressure on the delivery of SEND provision is only increasing. The Bill does nothing to stabilise the financial footing of rural councils; in fact, it fails to even mention rural communities.
We must also acknowledge that rural communities are often at the forefront of environmental issues, such as flooding. Last month, riparian ratepayers in Somerset were informed that the Environment Agency will cease main river maintenance work within the next six months. I am deeply concerned that this will put Somerset at increasing and unacceptable risk of flooding and environmental harm. How do the Government intend to implement all of this through devolution, given that the existing authorities are responsible for reinforcement, enforcement and regulation?
Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)
I welcome the Bill and commend the Deputy Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), for her leadership in bringing it forward.
For too long, decisions about our communities have been made far from the people they affect. This Bill signals a profound shift, putting trust back into local leaders, strengthening councils and ensuring that communities have a real say in shaping their future. It provides the foundation for a new settlement for England that values local knowledge and unlocks local energy. The return of the supplementary vote system for mayoral elections—a key feature of this important Bill—is welcome, and I associate myself with the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) on the wider issues of proportional representation.
The Bill places particular emphasis on neighbourhood working by recognising the importance of neighbourhoods and the grassroots organisations that sustain them. Equally important are the measures to strengthen community right to buy, which empowers residents to take ownership of the places that matter to them most, ensuring they can be preserved and improved for future generations. I pay tribute to the Deputy Prime Minister for her clarity in purpose in driving these changes. She understands that local government is not an obstacle to progress, but the engine of it.
Although the Bill is about empowerment, we must ensure that it does not undermine the principle of local choice, however inadvertently. Since the announcement of the Bill, I have had tens of emails and more than 100 letters on this subject. In May 2021, the people of Sheffield went to the polls in a city-wide referendum. They voted decisively—by 65%—to move to a modern committee system of government, replacing the old leader and cabinet model. That was a clear democratic decision. It was also guaranteed in law for at least 10 years, with the principle that any further change could be made only by referendum.
The provisions currently in the Bill would overturn that choice, forcing Sheffield back into a governance model that its citizens have explicitly rejected. That cannot be right. It would break faith with local voters, undermine the spirit of empowerment that runs through the Bill and send the wrong message about how seriously we take democratic decisions. If this legislation is to achieve its full potential, councils that have already chosen to have a committee system via referendum should be allowed to retain that system, just as with mayoral models. I know that local leaders agree with me on this, and I appreciate that Ministers have been meeting local leaders.
This is a bold Bill; it is one that we should be proud of and that I am proud to support. It rightly enshrines the central role of councils in shaping and delivering devolution. I just hope that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater on the issue of allowing local councils to maintain their chosen model.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
The Government talk about devolution, but that is not what is going on with the Bill, or with local government reform. Power is not being handed down by central Government, but being sucked up from district councils to unitaries and from councils to mayoralties, governing enormous and very diverse territories from distant towns and cities.
In West Suffolk, we face a Suffolk and Norfolk mayoralty —probably run from Norwich—and a new unitary council structure, with either one council run from Ipswich or three different councils. Given our place on the map, Cambridge is more important to us than Norwich or Ipswich, yet there is little in these proposals to help us to exploit the economic opportunities presented by better transport connections and business opportunities coming out of one of the most dynamic cities in the country.
Of course, questions about the tax burden and distribution of revenues are fundamental. Given the state of the public finances, any savings made through local government reform might be snaffled by the Treasury. Services provided by district councils might be cut to subsidise services funded by the county council, such as adult social care.
Council debt across Suffolk stands at £1.1 billion, but there is huge variation between the councils; in Ipswich, debt per person is nearly £1,800, while in West Suffolk, it is less than £50. There is a similar story with tax. Ipswich charges the highest council tax of any shire district in the country. To equalise tax across a single Suffolk unitary council would mean massive tax rises for people living in West Suffolk, tax cuts for people in Ipswich, which would retain services unavailable to my constituents, or a worst-of-both-worlds combination.
Suffolk’s councils have their different proposals, but ultimately it will be Whitehall that decides. I am pressing Ministers and those advocating a particular model for us locally for the clear answers that we in West Suffolk need and deserve. First, will all the money saved stay in Suffolk? Secondly, will people in West Suffolk pay more in council tax as a result of this change? Will we end up funding services for Ipswich that we do not get? Thirdly, will town and parish councils be given a greater say in the planning process? Fourthly, will town and parish councils have greater powers over things such as road safety and speed limits? Fifthly, will we get an absolute guarantee that there will be no merger between Suffolk and Norfolk police forces?
This whole process is too rushed and completely unsatisfactory. It was wrong to postpone our local elections this year. The proposed reforms have not been thought through and the consequences are not clear. There may be some upsides to reform and there may even be some upsides in principle to unitary councils, but unless we get convincing answers, I will oppose not just this Bill, but the changes to local government in Suffolk.
Dr Beccy Cooper (Worthing West) (Lab)
This devolution debate today is a continuation of the conversation that has been doing the rounds in Sussex since the announcement that we will be in the first wave of new regions to begin the devolution process. The Bill will allow us to unlock resources at a regional level and to use them to best serve the needs of our communities. It provides the framework for cohesive, strategic planning across Sussex for the housing and services that we need, generating good employment and the freedom to travel easily. Done right, it is an opportunity for greater democratic engagement and participation.
Let me turn to a couple of the issues that have been doing the rounds in this conversation in Sussex. The first is planning and transport. Businesses in Worthing West and across Sussex are currently gridlocked by failing east-to-west travel routes and by public transport that is too often unaffordable, unreliable or absent outside of our town centres. A regional transport authority with legal responsibility for buses, trains and active travel will be able to leverage investment and design services that actually meet the needs of our communities. We want travel planning that connects people and businesses, enables eco-tourism to flourish in our beautiful South Downs and lets residents move across Sussex without relying on a crumbling 20th-century system that is built around cars and that no longer serves us.
On housing and infrastructure, with this Bill we can align housing, planning and infrastructure finally to deliver the right homes in the right places across the region. In my constituency, almost one in four residents are now aged 65 or above, yet much of our housing stock is not fit for older age. The shortage of suitable homes limits our ability to attract working-age people to the area. Along with so many other areas, we face a dire lack of rented and affordable social housing. Only at a regional level can we plan housing that meets our needs now and into the future: homes that are accessible for our older population, affordable for young families, and supported by infrastructure to create thriving, mixed communities, networked and easily accessible across Sussex.
Finally, I will focus on the new duty on health inequalities. I welcome the Bill’s introduction of this duty, which is crucial for the rural and coastal communities in my constituency and across Sussex. The chief medical officer’s 2021 report was clear: coastal areas suffer a persistent “coastal excess” of ill health even after accounting for age and deprivation. Rural areas also face hidden deprivation that regional averages fail to capture: limited services, high fuel poverty, isolation and inadequate access to care. These are lives cut short and opportunities denied. The Bill will compel leaders in Sussex to consider health in every policy—transport, housing and skills—embedding public health in all decisions, and that is something that we can learn from at a national level too.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
The Bill brands itself as “devolution by default”, but in practice it could be seen as centralisation by stealth. Real devolution shifts power out of Westminster and Whitehall to the people in local communities, but the Bill risks doing the opposite. For instance, clause 4 lets Ministers draw and redraw local maps in order for areas to have a mayor. Clause 50 lets them bolt on new functions by regulation with minimal scrutiny, and clause 9 creates seven unelected commissioners answerable only to a mayor. It also fails to explain how it will all be paid for. Let us be clear, local government is in serious financial difficulty. East Sussex county council is on course to exhaust its reserves by 2029. Councils across East Sussex carry £500 million-worth of debt. Our inboxes are full of cases that should be handled by councils that no longer have the staff or the funding. Reshuffling deck chairs on a sinking ship will not save it. Without a sustainable settlement for social care and children’s services, structural changes will fail.
Some powers are welcome, if they are funded. Bus franchising can reconnect towns and villages but not on an empty budget. Requiring key route networks and local growth plans adds duties but at the moment without giving resources. A new local audit office could help clear the audit backlog, but it cannot be both regulator and auditor—no one should mark their own homework.
I was particularly alarmed to read clause 55; this issue has affected my community particularly heavily. The clause enables forced mergers into new unitary councils. In my area, Brighton and Hove city council has launched a surprise consultation to push its boundary east to absorb Newhaven, Kingston and nearby villages in my constituency. Newhaven is a distinct port town 10 miles from Brighton. Kingston, Iford, Rodmell and Southease are rural communities in the South Downs national park. I have already written to a Minister on this subject. They are not Brighton neighbourhoods, and residents do not want decisions made for them at Hove town hall.
The Government say that they want pace. The East Sussex proposal, supported by the county council and all five districts and boroughs, keeps the county boundary intact and lets East Sussex move forward together. Brighton’s farcical counter-proposal risks delay and confusion, not least by proposing to cut across the boundaries of two county divisions and a parliamentary constituency. Its consultation does not even consider a westward expansion where the urban area of Brighton and Hove naturally continues; it goes straight into cutting up East Sussex.
Here is the test for the Bill overall: does it move power and resources to people and places, or does it pull more strings into the Secretary of State’s hands? Does it strengthen scrutiny or sidestep it? Does it fix the finances or dodge them? At the moment, it falls short on all these counts. I hope the Minister can explain the answers to those challenges. Devolution should feel like power in people’s hands, not something being done to them.
Josh Simons (Makerfield) (Lab)
Our politics is not working. Too many people feel that what we do here has little relevance to their lives. They feel that their vote is less a source of power and a decision about our common future, and more an expression—the only way they have to demonstrate how bad the status quo has become. Often my constituents ask me, “Who is in charge of this? Who do I hold responsible for fixing it?”, and so often it is shockingly hard to know or even find out.
Our state and our political system have become so confused and centralised, with so many competing boundaries of responsibility, that power slips through the cracks and evades the grasp of elected politicians. To fix that, we must go back to first principles. This Bill is motivated by a fundamental principle: that in our democracy sovereignty flows up from the people to Parliament, not down from Parliament to the people. The people are sovereign, so the way we govern ourselves—our constitution—is not the unique property of Members in this Chamber. It is something that all of us own as citizens; we are represented as well as representatives.
That matters, because it changes how we should think about the Bill. The control that the Bill aims to give people is not new, and it is not something that this place has the unique authority to give or withhold. The Bill aims to restore a kind of local control that has for too long been gradually eroded, and its motivating principle is that, through voting, people should be able to change our political system. The right-to-request powers enshrine this principle in law, enabling strategic authorities to be ambitious in requesting the powers that the people who live in those areas need to thrive.
I know that Andy Burnham, mayor of the towns I represent in Wigan, will be ambitious in using that power for technical education, tourist taxes and employment support. As the Bill develops, I hope that consideration will be given to the responsibility to treat the requests with the seriousness that they deserve. Greater Manchester is a shining example of how this works, and it is the fastest-growing local economy in the UK, at double the UK rate. In taxi licensing, we also have an example of how power can drain from elected officials, as local people cannot hold to account the authorities and police forces responsible for their safety.
The Bill is part of a broader agenda that I strongly support: restoring power to people chosen by the public, instead of independent agencies, experts or bodies of rights and treaties. To my mind, when our politics is not working, we politicians have a responsibility to think boldly about how to make it work better. What we need is nothing less than a moment of constitutional change and fresh and creative thinking about how to reform our system. That is what I hope the Bill begins to do.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
Bringing decision making closer to local people and making it more accountable and more reflective of local needs is a laudable aim, but that is not what the Bill will do. Rather than bringing decision making closer to hard-working local people, it will cement the damaging present system of oversized unitary authorities and dubiously useful mayoralties. If we want our communities to have responsive local government with easily accessible political leaders who deliver on the desires of residents and are accountable at the ballot box, we should not be pushing for larger local government boundaries. If anything, we should be reducing their size.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
In Scotland, we have so-called devolution, but the reality on the ground is that the Scottish Government are centralising more and more power. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Bill creates the potential risk of that?
Robbie Moore
I absolutely share that concern, and I will give my hon. Friend an example of what we face across the Bradford district; the people across Keighley and Ilkley have long known the dangers to smaller communities when such amalgamations occur. In 1974, their well liked and well remembered councils were abolished and absorbed into a larger Bradford council unitary authority, which is one of the largest in the country with a population of 565,000; the average size of a unitary authority is about 250,000 people. Since then, Bradford council has consistently prioritised its namesake, extracting ever higher council tax and costs from outlying areas such as my constituency and neighbouring Shipley and funnelling them into city centre projects of no benefit to the people who have paid for them.
Andrew Rosindell
My friend is making some excellent points. The best example, which is from when this started, is the creation of Greater London in 1965. Ever since then, areas like Romford have been paying money into central London and losing our local control, local identity and local democracy, and it has been costing us an absolute fortune. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is a lot of red tape and bureaucracy and the wrong direction to go in?
Robbie Moore
I absolutely agree. The Bill is not about local democracy; it is about taking the power for decision making away from local people on where their council tax should be spent. That is why I am advocating that the Government should stop the Bill from progressing.
Bradford council is made up of 90 councillors, with Bradford having a greater number of councillors on the council than Keighley and Ilkley combined. That may be reflective of their rural population, but it is completely airbrushing out the distinctly different needs, desires and priorities of areas such as mine. That is why I will advocate continuously for us in Keighley, Ilkley, Silsden and the Worth valley—and indeed the Shipley constituency—to have our own unitary authority outside that of Bradford.
Mayoralties have been arguably a greater challenge. When a constituent has an issue, Madam Deputy Speaker, you and other Members of the House know that they should not have any difficulty in contacting their parliamentarians as our constituency offices are on the high streets and our emails are always open. We have personal and deep connections to the local communities we represent and are familiar with the businesses and the people that make up those communities. But mayoralties operate over regions with hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of residents within them. If a constituent tries to contact their mayor, it is highly likely that the correspondence will never cross the mayor’s desk. Mayoral regions are simply too large for one person to seriously represent the community level.
Aggregating decision making at the strategic authority level makes exactly the same mistake. If a community wants to make an objection, it will have to do so no longer to its local council but to a strategic authority: a body not tied by history, sentiment or even geographical area to those communities, but instead under direction sent by the Government.
If we were serious about devolution, we would follow the lessons experienced by Keighley and Ilkley and make local government work at a community level. We would empower not administrative monstrosities but parish, town and smaller, more regional councils. That is why I will continue to advocate for my area to be taken out of the Bradford unitary authority and to create our own unitary authority. I advocate reversing the local government amalgamations made in the 1970s, not doubling down on them. The Bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and should not be supported.
Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)
I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have always been, and I remain, a vocal advocate for devolution and reorganisation. I got to witness the type of joy and hope I want every community to feel when I worked in Greater Manchester during the establishment of the first devolved mayoralty. I have had robust debates with councils and residents of all political persuasions on how local government reorganisation should best work in Lancashire, particularly when a sense of place and home is so important to most of us. The prospect of what we know to be our place changing somehow can be unsettling, but if we are brought along and engaged throughout, we can usually start to see the opportunities too.
I will focus my comments on the most local level of our democratic structure: the role of town and parish councils, which I believe should be used to even greater effect if we let it. My constituency of Ribble Valley is significantly parished in its rural areas, with parishes such as Broughton and Balderstone, while more suburban areas such as Lostock Hall are not but have active community groups such as the Lostock Hall Village Team. I therefore see the strength of both formal and informal community leadership.
In clause 58, the Bill rightly creates a clearer requirement for local authorities to create neighbourhood governance structures. In a statement to this House in June, it was suggested that those could be called neighbourhood area committees, led by ward councillors. However, I am concerned that the Bill does not fully appreciate the role that town and parish councils currently play and that the accountability of such neighbourhood area committees does not seem to be enshrined.
I will cover a couple of my concerns. First, if the committees are led by ward councillors, such councillors are political in their nature whereas parish councillors are usually apolitical. We therefore need to consider the ramifications of changing the focus of those local committees. Secondly, how do we ensure that every area is advocated for by a committed representative? How do we tangibly protect areas whose ward councillors are not active or who do not create a neighbourhood governance structure? Does that remove the ability for involved residents to form groups outside that? We all know of councillors—rare as they are, I hope—who stand for political reasons or otherwise and then do not drive things locally.
Even though parish and town councils only cover 36% of the population in England, they cover some 90% of its geographical area. Some may feel that such a distinction means that parish councils are not so influential and significant in our country’s governance, but that view does a disservice to the land that we live in and on and are sustained by. As politicians, and as residents in a democracy, we are responsible for the land around us and its resources. Indeed, some of the biggest roles for parish and town councils are around planning, the environment, flooding and ensuring that local areas—the buildings, the fields, the roads and not just the people—are managed well.
Although to some this section of the Bill may feel small and fairly niche, if we do not pay attention to the conversations happening in the pub or the community centre and to the people there who understand their local area better than anyone, we will struggle to understand what people want and need. Let me be clear: this Bill is monumental. But let us build on our fantastic existing structures, especially those town and parish councils that cover 90% of our great country, as has always been—
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
There are ideas in this Bill that devolve powers that we Greens can support. A layer of strategic government with funding and fundraising powers could empower areas of the country, such as Sussex, to improve daily life for our citizens and could strengthen democracy. However, it is worrying that the process for doing that so far and the ways in which decisions are moving forward on the reorganisation of local government have not listened to people who want to maintain their district and borough councils and have not properly engaged local people in devising new proposals rather than just commenting on them. If this is done without consent or respect for local areas, it will not be democratic or empowering.
Clause 57 is very unfair in grandfathering in existing mayoral arrangements for local councils but not preserving any committee systems—not even those chosen recently by referendum. On fair voting, the Bill is inadequate. For the new elected mayors, the Bill specifies a supplementary voting system that is better than first-past-the-post, but, as other Members have pointed out, that should be used next year in Sussex. Also, for the new authorities where new councillors are being elected, there is a genuine missed chance to have a fairer voting system for councils too.
The Bill is dangerously light on the democratic scrutiny of new mayors and combined authorities, and poor on standards in public life. There should be transparency duties on mayors to disclose their lobbying meetings, as Ministers do and all MPs should. Mayors will also be able to appoint commissioners for different areas of their powers, which will be powerful positions that are likely to be well remunerated. Yet the Bill appears to be silent on any higher standards of accountability, transparency or conduct for such people. Mayors and commissioners should all come under the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, as other people in this place do. There are big missed chances in the Bill in terms of new duties for poverty and inequality, climate, nature, healthy air, land and water pollution and health, particularly in relation to the impacts of transport and housing policy. On health determinants, the Bill mentions prosperity but not poverty or inequality; nor does it mention the huge chance to improve health by cleaning up filthy air pollution. Why not?
Greens will be arguing for all these goals and duties and more to be put in place firmly and clearly in the Bill, and for them to be matched with powers, funding and the ability to raise and use investment for homes, transport, education, justice, social justice, public health and all these other things to close the gaps that have so shamefully grown under successive Governments and continued Labour austerity. This Bill could help to deliver great things, but it will take many big changes, much work and much listening to good ideas from this part of the House for the Government to achieve that.
Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
I also welcome the shadow Secretary of State to his new role. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill presents a great opportunity for Southend East and Rochford and for Greater Essex. The Bill is about giving local people the right to make decisions about the place they call home. At its heart, it is about empowering our communities. Community does not just happen. When I was growing up, we had youth clubs, football teams and thriving heritage buildings. We had a strong sense of community. Over the past 14 years, many of these institutions have been forced to close. Devolution has already brought so many opportunities to areas that have seen more devolved power. Families in Southend East and Rochford and in Essex deserve that same level of opportunity.
Mr Alaba
I will make a bit of progress.
Widening devolution is a chance to finally reverse this trend. It introduces a new community right to buy, giving community groups a formal right of first refusal to purchase assets of community value, and it extends the time period to 12 months for communities to raise funds and negotiate a purchase price for said assets. It protects grassroots sporting facilities as assets of community value, which they are. It ends upward-only rent review clauses in commercial leases. This will allow rent to increase and decrease at the rent review, based on the current market rate. This will prevent vacant shops and help to regenerate high streets. Finally, it provides measures for accountability to ensure that mayors from all parties deliver the houses, transport and infrastructure that communities need.
The Essex economy has been held back by powers stored in Westminster. If Greater Essex had the same levels of productivity as the south-east, our local economies would be 17% bigger. It is time to unlock this economic potential and for Greater Essex to carve out its own industrial strategy and finally become the economic powerhouse I know it can be.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
Devolution should mean giving power back to people and communities. Decisions ought to be taken as close as possible to those they affect, but this Bill imposes a top-down model from Whitehall with sweeping new powers for the Secretary of State, mayors and their unelected commissioners, rather than the real empowerment of councils and residents. My own constituency of Stratford-on-Avon is a good example of why this matters. In rural south Warwickshire, our needs are very different from the urban north. We face unique challenges such as unreliable public transport, which leaves local residents with poor access to key services. Our fire and rescue services have been reduced. That is why I support the two-unitary council solution for Warwickshire, reflecting the reality of our place and respecting the local identities.
Further, we must not overlook the vital role that parish and town councils play in communities such as mine across Stratford-on-Avon. From creating neighbourhood development plans to supporting local groups and looking after our village greens and recreation grounds, they do outstanding work, and with the right backing, many stand ready to deliver more for their communities. Councils are already stretched to breaking point, with deficits running into the billions. For those authorities already in the deepest difficulty, devolution without proper funding is little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Unless Ministers face up to the scale of the challenge and provide sustainable resources, no new governance structure will succeed.
Although bringing back the supplementary vote is a move in the right direction, the Government have missed a real opportunity to restore trust in politics through fairer elections. If the Government recognise that first past the post is not fit for mayoral elections, why is it fit for parliamentary and council elections?
I welcome the strengthening of the community right to buy scheme, which will help safeguard valued local assets, particularly in rural areas, where protecting much-loved assets and community hubs, such as our pubs, is so important. The Government must go further on this, especially when assets are kept empty and derelict by landlords.
In conclusion, the Bill could have been the moment to show that national Government are willing to put power in the hands of communities. Instead, by centralising rather than devolving, the Government have let the moment pass.
Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am in my 18th year as a member of Thetford town council and I serve as a director on the Charles Burrell Centre committee, a community benefit society in my hometown. I have served on the town council, the district council and the county council—all three tiers of local government—so Members will understand why I have a keen interest in the Bill, but it was my background in community that led me to get involved in politics in the first place. The clauses in the Bill specifically around community empowerment are exciting and long overdue.
In my constituency of South West Norfolk, where I was born and raised, I have seen the impact of community power at first hand. When my former school, Charles Burrell high school, closed in 2013, we were devastated. It was partly the emotions that come from losing a school of more than 60 years, but it was also that the physical building had been home to so many community groups and other organisations. For many, it was so much more than just a school. As a community, we set about working to save the building. At some 85,000 square feet of former secondary school with 12 acres of land, it was no easy undertaking.
Few thought it would work, but on Saturday just gone, myself and hundreds of local residents celebrated the Charles Burrell Centre’s 10th birthday. Over those 10 years, we have witnessed local people take responsibility for the site, turning it into a thriving community hub of more than 60 organisations, charities, statutory bodies and small businesses. It now creates jobs, supports families and acts as a vital anchor for the community, with an annual turnover of half a million pounds. None of that would have been possible without trust in local people.
On strategic authorities, I wonder if the Minister could speak to my concerns about opportunities for rural communities. Strategic authorities draw on metropolitan, large urban areas, but I have three market towns and 72 villages in my constituency. Although individually their economic potential would be small by comparison, collectively our rural communities have so much potential and could significantly support the Government’s growth agenda, but they need support. How those rural communities link up and obtain that support as part of devolution, and how they work with the strategic authorities, is key. I hope the Minister can highlight how rural areas will fit in.
I want Narborough in my constituency to have as much focus as Norwich. I want Ickburgh to be on the page when we are talking about Ipswich. I particularly welcome community right to buy, giving local people the strong say they need on community issues. Sadly, for too many community projects, getting good ideas off the drawing board is still far too difficult, and I hope these priorities and others can support projects like the Charles Burrell Centre, which is now under the excellent management of Nicola Welham, supported by a fantastic staff and volunteer team in Thetford.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
This Bill has missed the opportunity to introduce a fair voting system. The outdated first-past-the-post system distorts the will of the people while ignoring millions of voices across the country. It is no wonder that so many people feel disconnected from politics. This Bill could have been an opportunity to restore the disconnect, but it fails. Devolution must go hand in hand with reform that ensures that every vote counts and every community has a voice.
The Bill will not result in that ambitious shift of power from Westminster and Whitehall to communities and individuals. Sadly, it is a missed opportunity for reform. Will the Minister ask the Deputy Prime Minister to commit to considering PR more carefully? You never know, Madam Deputy Speaker, it might help the Labour party to hold on to a few more seats at the next general election.
Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)
I cannot understand how anyone could speak against the Bill. It presents a real opportunity to do something different in our local communities. Northampton has been under a unitary system for five years now, after the Conservatives bankrupted our county council, and no one there has ever said to me, “I wish we had more councils and councillors.” People want simplicity, and that is what the Bill delivers.
The Bill also delivers accountability. My hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) talked about the personal accountability of councillors. In my area, the former Conservative leader had to stand down because of domestic abuse charges, and a former Conservative cabinet member is in court on abuse charges alongside men who are charged with abusing children, so I would say that more accountability for our local councillors and politicians is very important.
The Bill drives growth. I speak to investors who want to come to the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor. They have heard the Chancellor talking about the opportunities in our region and think, “There is no single voice that I can speak to, but I can go to West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire or anywhere else around the country with a big mayoral authority and find someone who is championing growth.”
Mike Reader
They may well come to London. Meanwhile, in the Ox-Cam corridor and the south midlands region, we are struggling for a single voice that is speaking out for our area. That is what devolution will deliver for us.
Devolution also saves costs. I am sure that all Members have read the detailed analysis in the Library briefings, but PwC also estimates that it will save between £500 million and £700 million a year for taxpayers. It would be absolutely bananas to vote against something that would reduce people’s tax bills.
There are some great local benefits for Northampton. I will not talk about devolution, because the Minister knows my strong views on the issues that I face. One that I will not let slip through here is e-scooter licensing. We have had a long-running e-scooter trial in Northampton. Every single month, people complain to me about scooter-litter. It is important that local authorities be able to better control those licensing agreements and hold the scooter companies to account for ensuring that scooters are in the right place.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
We in London also face a proliferation of e-scooters and e-bikes. The last Conservative Government absolutely failed to take any action on that. Does my hon. Friend agree that it will make a huge difference to Londoners that Transport for London will now have the power to hold those companies to account and clear the pavements?
Mike Reader
I could not agree more. I cannot imagine how anyone can deal with the myriad companies working across London. Having just one in Northampton is challenge enough—although it is a good company.
Local ownership is central to the Bill, and community right to buy will be fantastic. People have talked about pubs, but a number of different community organisations that have come to see me in the past year—the Nigerian Community Association, the Albanian Cultural Association and our local Ukrainian school—are looking to take derelict local properties and turn them into great community hubs. The Bill would give them more powers to take on those community assets and create great places in Northampton.
The Bill protects small businesses. For retail businesses on Wellingborough Road, Kettering Road in the town centre or one of the shopping parades, the removal of upward-only rent reviews will mean that shop owners have more security and protection under this Government.
Overall, I am very excited about moving power out of Whitehall and into local communities. Honestly, having listened to the debate for a good three hours, I cannot understand how anyone could possibly vote against the measures.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
It might surprise the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader), but in my constituency people want good local councillors —particularly the Liberal Democrat ones, who are working hard.
We Liberal Democrats passionately believe that power belongs in local communities, not concentrated in Whitehall. Although we welcome the drive for further devolution, the Bill sidelines local councils by handing yet more authority to regional mayors. Bath council knows all too well the frustration of having a regional mayor who does not listen to all the local authorities they represent. For years, Bath council wanted to bring buses under local control, but we were stuck with a Labour mayor who refused to listen and spent millions on a birthday bus vanity project, rather than delivering the change my constituents were crying out for.
The Bill will enable mayors of strategic authorities to nominate up to seven unelected commissioners to deliver policy, accountable only to the mayor. These unelected officials add a layer of unaccountable bureaucracy that communities do not want and councils do not need. Real devolution means local communities at the heart of decision making, working collaboratively with the mayor. Clauses 21 and 22 do not even clarify on which “relevant local matters” mayors must convene with local partners—surely that cannot be right.
Also absent from the Bill are visitor levy powers for local authorities. Bath council has long been advocating for the ability to introduce a modest visitor levy. We in Bath are proud of the role we play in supporting the visitor economy, but the system needs to be fairer, recognising the costs as well as the benefits of such high levels of tourism. The Government should give local authorities these powers through the Bill, to safeguard our hugely important and valuable tourism industry.
Also missing from the Bill is the introduction of public accounts committees to oversee and hold mayoral strategic authorities accountable, much like the Public Accounts Committee does with Government expenditure. Robust local scrutiny would reduce the dependence on upward accountability to central Government and represent real progress in the existing local council and mayoral scrutiny arrangements. If the Government do support the principle of local public accounts committees, the Bill should provide a timescale for their implementation.
We Liberal Democrats support the aims of the Bill, but it clearly falls short of real devolution. What we have is a Bill that misunderstands the whole point of devolution—namely, decision making from the bottom up, not the top down.
Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)
I really welcome this pivotal Bill. When I was deputy leader of Southampton city council, I saw at first hand how local decisions made by local people were transformative for the community, but I also saw over 14 long years of Conservative government how we were held back by a broken system that turned councils into supplicants, in constant competition with our neighbours, forced to put our begging bowl out for crumbs from Whitehall’s table. That ends with this Bill, and I really welcome the change that it represents and the measures it contains. I also welcome the fact that Southampton, along with other councils in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, is part of the devolution priority programme, allowing us to take advantage of these powers from next May.
The political benefits are clear, and the promise in our manifesto is being delivered, but the process matters, so we have to get this right. What I am interested in is how these powers improve the life chances of my constituents. My message to all council leaders, including in Southampton, is that we must be clear about what we want to do with these powers. I note that the Conservative police and crime commissioner, who is now running to be Mayor of Hampshire, has said that her big priorities are closing hotels for asylum seekers and stopping houses being built to avoid upsetting Tory district councils. That is certainly a vision, but it is disappointingly narrower than what this moment requires.
For me, there are three basic tests that regional devolution must meet to make this worth it: first, it improves employment and skills prospects, particularly for those most marginalised from the labour market; secondly, it progresses investment in and integration of our transport network, specifically low-polluting public transport that is well connected and affordable; and thirdly, it galvanises house building, so that working people can afford to live and work locally—that is especially vital in the south, where housing demand is acute and nimby Tory and Lib Dem-led councils are failing to deliver for local people. As an aside, I also welcome the return to the more representative supplementary vote system.
I appreciate that local government reorganisation is a separate process, but in Hampshire our local leaders are being asked to endorse new council areas alongside a mayoral authority. I support the proposal backed by 12 out of the 15 councils in Hampshire—run by all parties—to establish five unitary authorities across the area and have signed a joint letter to support that. I urge Ministers to not simply take the easy option and stitch together pre-existing organisations.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
As someone who also represents a constituency in Hampshire, I agree with my hon. Friend. In terms of the letter we have sent, would it not make more sense for boundary changes to be part of the process, as opposed to an add-on at the end?
Darren Paffey
I thank my hon. Friend and near neighbour for making that point. Absolutely, boundary changes must be looked at sympathetically by Ministers. I hope to get that reassurance in their comments, because what we stand to gain in the short term from a quick and easy decision, we will lose in the long term if councils find themselves saddled with nonsensical boundaries.
I have two other quick requests, the first of which is on mayoral councils. Giving mayoral councils a statutory footing would provide a powerful forum for central Government to meet devolved government and iron out policy issues. Secondly, will the Minister set out the Government’s ambitions and timescales for local public accounts committees? A lot of colleagues have talked about restoring trust in politics, and I think that openness, in particular on public moneys, can be delivered in that way.
In closing, there is a lot to be excited about in the Bill. I am pleased to see this Labour Government fulfilling another manifesto commitment and bringing real change for our communities.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
I have cut my six-minute speech down to three. I am a supporter of devolution and devolved power, community empowerment and local decision making. In my seat, we have a combined authority and, as I mentioned earlier, the benefits brought by the West Yorkshire Mayor in transport, with a new bus station, and in crime and policing. However, my community, even after being part of the combined authority for so long, is still not clear on where exactly the responsibilities of the council stop and those of the mayor start, or how they work together. I therefore stand here with some deep concerns.
Instead of empowering communities, the Bill risks recentralising power and bypassing local ward councillors and local actors who truly represent our diverse communities. In Kirklees, we have a cabinet system: eight councillors, none of whom is from Dewsbury and Batley, make major decisions that have an impact on every single resident and constituent in my constituency. Moving to a mandated cabinet system across the country is short-sighted, undemocratic, biased and discriminatory.
The Bill’s design places sweeping strategic powers in the hands of elected mayors and their appointed commissioners, who are often unelected. That is not genuine devolution; it is deception dressed up as localism.
The second issue is a lack of funding and financial transparency. A core failing of the Bill lies in its fiscal ambiguity. There is little detail on sustainable funding. Strategic authorities may depend heavily on mayoral precepts, levies or council contributions, risking instability and underfunded local services. On transparency, while the creation of a local audit office is welcome, this reactive measure attempts to patch a broken audit system where hundreds of authorities still face unaudited accounts, without addressing underlying systemic weaknesses such as wasteful procurement practices, a lack of transparency and unequal distribution of spend across wards.
Community voices are too often marginalised. The Bill does not prevent councils from letting vital community buildings be deliberately left in disrepair, then deciding to close the buildings because they do not have the funds to repair or run them.
In conclusion, this Bill is not devolution; it is a shift of power from local councils to centrally influenced mayors, with an opaque financial model and tokenistic community tools. The Bill must be updated to restore genuine local leadership; to guarantee long-term, transparent funding; to ensure that procurement and audit practices remain accountable and community-informed; and to embed real neighbourhood-level governance with proper funding and citizen engagement, planning and influence.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
English devolution is a mess. It is a postcode patchwork of opaque systems, varying powers and unclear lines of accountability. That is not just an historical failure, but profoundly dangerous, because when the public cannot navigate their democracy or do not know who holds the pen on planning, transport, housing or skills, they understandably disengage. Accountability is lost, and in that vacuum politicians can get away with anything.
I will give the House one clear example: in Hartlepool, the Tees Valley Mayor has imposed a mayoral development corporation with very little consultation—certainly not with the public. Planning powers were stripped from the council for large areas of the town, supposedly to be exercised by an appointed board. We fought hard to secure some form of democratic representation on that board, yet of its 14 members, only four hold elected office and only one is there because they have elected office. In any event, the mayor quickly outsourced the majority of those powers to a private company in Manchester, so people who have never walked our streets are now making the majority of the decisions shaping them.
Andrew Cooper
Does my hon. Friend agree that mayoral development corporations need to be brought under the remit of the new local audit offices that are proposed in the Bill, placing the power to audit them beyond reasonable doubt?
Mr Brash
I agree that far greater powers are required to hold mayoral development corporations to account, and that may be one way of doing it.
The changes are not just about planning powers: publicly owned assets are being transferred from the council and other public bodies. When Labour councillors demanded that those assets, which include Hartlepool’s civic centre, would be returned to public ownership if they were not developed or if the corporation was wound up, that demand was refused. When we asked whether the council could resist this change, the advice was stark: we could not, there was no veto and it could not be stopped by the council. When the council voted against a mayoral development corporation just down the road in Middlesbrough, it was imposed on the town anyway.
Let me be clear that I am not opposed to the principle of development corporations. I was willing to support the one in Hartlepool in the spirit of cross-party co-operation, but the outcome has become confused, with zero accountability and residents left unclear about who to turn to, especially as more and more houses in multiple occupation pop up across our town centre, put there by an unelected, unaccountable company. This is not power in the hands of the people.
Devolution was supposed to mean decisions made closer to communities, but too often the reality is the opposite: power hoarded and pushed further away from the very neighbourhoods that are supposed to be empowered. That is why I support the We’re Right Here campaign, which asks that power does not stop at the mayor’s office but flows to the people themselves. It is championed by Hartlepool’s own community leader, Sacha Bedding. It is a way forward and I hope that Ministers are listening. We must ensure that there is accountability for mayors. They can be the vehicle for delivering for the public, but the power itself can lie only in one place: with the people.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
That brings us to the Front-Bench spokespeople. I call David Simmonds.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
It has been a wide-ranging debate. I particularly thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and my hon. Friends the Members for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune), for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson), for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas), for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) and for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) for their contributions. The range of issues that they and other Members covered starkly highlighted the wholesale inadequacy of the Bill in relation to the scale of the challenges that our country and our communities face.
There are big issues facing local government, which deals with some of the most difficult tasks faced by any of our public services. We know that the cost of social care is rapidly growing and will consume a greater share of the available resources. Since this Government took office, there has been a collapse in the delivery of new housing. It is down 17% in the country as a whole and there has been a 66% drop by large social landlords under Mayor Khan here in London. As we have seen in the news today, the Government’s chums in the unions have voted to extend their strikes until March 2026. The people of our second city are left with their waste uncollected and populations of rats.
Wendy Morton
As an MP for a constituency neighbouring Birmingham, I see all too often the impact of the strikes. Does my hon. Friend agree that this issue is absolutely shocking? The one thing that residents expect from their local council is a regular collection of their household waste, and often garden waste and recycling as well. Birmingham city council is failing the residents.
David Simmonds
I thank my right hon. Friend for highlighting that issue; she has been a champion for the voices of those affected by it. While I understand that Ministers have come to the Dispatch Box time and again and said that they must wash their hands of it, the unions said in their statement today that there was “no point” negotiating with the council, because it lacked the authority to resolve the issue. The Government need to roll up their sleeves and get involved.
While our second city struggles with these challenges, here we have a piece of legislation about tinkering with structures. Not only that, but, as we learned just a week ago, it is an entirely uncosted plan. The Department has not undertaken any assessment of the cost-benefit of the measures contained in this legislation. That comes against the backdrop of the decisions of this Government which, as we know, are making the financial situation of our country more perilous by the day. In the first few months of this financial year alone, the Government borrowed £60 billion more than they raised in taxes. Borrowing costs have hit a 27-year high—a level seen only in the early days of the last Labour Government in 1998.
This Bill opens the door to a host of tax-raising powers. As we go through the pages and pages of new powers for Ministers and the Secretary of State to direct local authorities in one way or another and to instruct communities to accept this or that, we see the prospect of local authorities, which are already left a net £1.5 billion worse off by the Government’s rise in national insurance contributions, facing the maxing out of parking charges, huge increases in borrowing and big rises in business rates and council tax.
The £60 billion black hole that this Government have created just in this financial year will need to be bridged somehow. The Chancellor will be back to tell us how in a few weeks’ or months’ time, but I think we can see a clue already that local communities and local authorities will be the route by which those costs are raised. When we read what this Bill has to say about neighbourhood governance, the threat is very clear even at parish council level. Those parishes—the smallest unit of local government, but one with precepting powers—will be one of the local kitties that the Government expect to raid to finance the consequences of their economic mismanagement.
When we think of Sir Humphrey’s famous advice that it was always best to
“dispose of the difficult bit in the title”
of the Bill, because it did a lot less harm there than in the text, we can see that when this Bill talks about devolution, it devolves to the local level the responsibility for those tax rises and service cuts. Can the Minister tell the House how many libraries will close to pay for this Bill? How many road projects will be set aside? How many more communities, such as those referred to by the Labour leader of Shrewsbury, will lose their regular recycling and bin collections to pay for it? How high will council tax go?
What is the limit that Ministers will set on the tax rises that the Bill will drive? What is the maximum parking charge or fine that Ministers think it is reasonable for councils to have? What level of costs will local businesses have to face? When we debated the Bill on business rates that sits behind many of the financial elements of this Bill, Ministers said that they wanted to tax Amazon, but they ended up taxing our local high street stores and our pubs. On average, local pubs alone have to pay £6,500 extra a year, and that was before the £60 billion that this Government have borrowed in the last few months.
I am going to finish with a direct plea to the Minister, for whom I have a great deal of respect. He led his party in local government—he was its champion—and for many years, he was a local councillor too, earning a huge degree of respect in this House and in that wider family as a result of the work he did. At the Government’s favoured population level for new unitary authorities, this Bill abolishes 90% of all the councillors in England’s shires at the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen. That is 90% of the voices of those local communities—people such as Chris Whitbread, who stood up for his community against this Government over the Bell Hotel in Epping. These people have been the voices of their communities on migrant hotels, on protecting their green belt and on air quality. They are the people who stood up for their local communities on issues such as the grooming gangs, which we heard so much about earlier from the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips).
This Bill could have been transformational—a chance to step up that voice of local communities. I am sorry that the Minister lost his battle to let those communities keep their voices, but he still has time to change course, to support our reasoned amendment, start again, and build a cross-party consensus on the future of local government. Let this not be the funeral oration for local democracy in England.
The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution (Jim McMahon)
I thank hon. Members from across the House for their contributions to today’s important debate. The sheer number of Members who wanted to speak demonstrates how important these issues are, and the passion and enthusiasm shown by Members of this House makes absolutely clear their care for their communities, as well as their desire to see local economies thrive and for the benefits of growth to be felt by every community across the country.
This Bill represents a generational shift in power that will see community empowerment enshrined in law and local leaders and mayors with skin in the game, trusted to get on and do the job they have been elected to do in a new relationship of equals with central Government—one built on a shared commitment to people and place, mutual respect and co-operation. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill does exactly what its title says. It effects a top-to-bottom redistribution of power in this country, putting decision making in the hands of our regions, towns, cities and communities and delivering real change for working people in the places they call home, bringing growth and opportunity and empowering local leaders and our mayors to make the right decisions alongside their local communities. As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister said at the start of the debate, this is a landmark Bill that will help us build a modern state based on a fairer, stronger partnership between central and local government.
For too long, power and opportunity has been centralised in Westminster and Whitehall, holding back growth across the country and denying millions of people the opportunity to realise the potential they have within them. Our new approach to devolution and empowerment begins the work of fixing that—powering up our regions through devolution by default and the right to request, as well as new powers, resources and freedoms, and introducing measures to fix local government and its fragile audit regime through sustainable structures and governance. It also gives real power to communities through the community right to buy local assets, rooted in our high streets, neighbourhoods and sporting grounds, and it gives them a greater say in local issues, with frontline ward councillors given the respect, power and tools they need to make a difference in their communities through neighbourhood working arrangements in every council across the country. When we said this was a top-to-bottom transfer of power, we meant it.
Before I turn to the main issues raised in the debate, I will first address the reasoned amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), and also maybe touch on some of the points made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). Anybody would think that the Conservatives had not been in government for 14 years, absolutely smashing local government to the core. Anybody would believe that councils were not falling over like dominoes, going bust on their watch, and that the fragmented, deal-by-deal, backroom-negotiated devolution we have had so far did not take place on their watch over 14 years. Let us forget the past, though, and look to the future.
The reasoned amendment raises concerns about local government reorganisation, which—as we have heard from Members across the House—is a big and important issue. It also talks about housing delivery and claims that the Bill means higher bills for local residents. I can assure the House that those concerns are misplaced, and frankly, the Opposition know that. First, the Bill will not affect the process for the 21 areas already undergoing reorganisation. Those 21 areas have responded to their invitation to reorganise already.
Jim McMahon
They absolutely had a choice. It was an invitation that 21 counties have responded to, demonstrating without a doubt that the appetite and interest for reorganisation was there within communities, and they responded in that way.
This process will deliver strong, sustainable unitaries, capable of leading their communities, shaping neighbourhoods and convening local public services to deliver better outcomes for local residents. This process is separate from the Bill. In fact, the devolution priority programme areas of local government reorganisation will be submitting their final proposals to Government on 26 September. All other areas will submit their final proposals on 28 November. Before this Bill even gets out of Committee, local government reorganisation will have final proposals for the 21 counties in the two-tier area. The idea that the Bill is bringing an end to the two-tier system is for the birds. By the time it reaches Royal Assent, the work will have been done and the consultations will be taking place and well under way. The Opposition know that, of course, because they used exactly the same process of reorganisation so many times when they were in government to reduce the number of councillors, reduce the number of councils and end the two-tier system in counties across the country.
To the Opposition’s credit, ending the two-tier system is a proven model, because once local government reorganisation has taken place in an area—by the way, I have not heard anybody calling realistically for a return to the old system—savings can be made. There is a world of difference between those and the savings that Government will take, as central Government is making no savings from local councils. That change gives the freedom to move money up and down that two-tier system to where the real pressures are being faced: adult social care and SEND in particular. If we do not take action after 14 years of inaction, the system will fall over, and we will not allow it to fall over on our watch, however bad the inheritance might have been. The Opposition know all that, because they laid the groundwork and were the architects of the current system.
This Bill also gives ambitious planning powers for mayors to unlock housing and infrastructure, working alongside parliamentarians and local councillors, with powers to intervene in major strategic planning applications and to grant mayoral development orders.
Jim McMahon
I am afraid that with the time we have, I need to canter through.
The Bill also allows mayoral development corporations to be established and for a mayoral community infrastructure levy to be charged, so that we can unlock much-needed housing and infrastructure to get Britain building once again.
Thirdly, the Opposition claim that this Bill introduces a new precept and will raise bills for working people. I remind them that the mayoral precept has been in law since 2017. In fact, it was a Conservative Government who brought it into law, giving all mayors the power to introduce a precept, so we will not take lectures from them on those powers. I will say this, because I believe in devolution: pound for pound, local people—through their local councils, their local mayors and their combined authorities—see the benefit of that investment in a real way in their neighbourhoods, their communities and their towns. For large parts of Government spending, for different reasons, they do not get that in a tangible way. The accountability that then comes alongside it is important.
Finally, the reasoned amendment tabled by the Conservatives claims that this Bill fails to empower local people. As the House has heard, that is far from the case. This is a generational change, moving power away from Whitehall, with the tools needed at a local level to get things going through community right to buy, neighbourhood governance and all the things that were being asked for. We urge all colleagues to vote against the reasoned amendment in a few moments.
This Bill sees the system of devolution move away from an ad hoc, inconsistent and deal-by-deal model, replacing it with a model that is clear about what places can access, when they can access it, and under what conditions. Our new system confers functions on classes of strategic authority to allow us to deliver our commitment for devolution by default and to streamline those functions, so that all parts of England can be clear about what powers they can access.
Members have raised the supplementary vote a number of times. The Government have no plans to change the electoral system for the UK Parliament or for local council elections in England. The Government believe that while the first-past-the-post system has its place, the SV system is the right thing to do for those executive positions where an individual holds that executive power, and the mandate from local people is important. That has been raised a number of times, and I hope that puts that to bed.
On local authorities, this Government have been clear that we will fix the foundations of local government and create a system that is fit, legal and decent. Changes to governance arrangements are one way that we are simplifying local government. Alongside our intention to strengthen the role of frontline ward councillors, this will provide the tools that will make it possible to act on the local issues that people believe are important.
By abolishing the committee system, we will simplify local authority governance arrangements and ensure that all councils operate an executive form of governance. I have heard the representations from Sheffield Members and others, and meetings will take place to discuss that further, but abolishing the committee system will provide clarity and accountability for local people, and importantly will strengthen that direct line of democratic accountability. We have accepted the continuation of the 13 legacy directly elected council mayors, while introducing measures to prevent the creation of any new ones.
The subject of neighbourhood governance has also been raised. The Bill sets out a clear ambition for all local authorities to hardwire community engagement and neighbourhood working into their governance. I do, of course, hear the calls on behalf of town and parish councils, and I share Members’ commitment to that local level, but if all we have are town and parish councils operating at a local level and no neighbourhood governance in the principal councils, we will miss the opportunity to hardwire localism in everything that councils do. We believe that we must have that hardwiring so that local people feel genuinely empowered. That is the only difference, however: this is completely compatible with town and parish councils working in partnership. When that is effective, they work in unison for the benefit of the local community, which is what we want to see from now on.
A significant amount of attention has rightly been paid to the subject of assets of community value. As we have all seen, community spaces such as pubs, cultural venues and places of worship are the life of our communities. They bring people together, foster a sense of community pride and support local economies. However, 14 years of the previous Government saw a total dismantling of that social infrastructure. People will be far too familiar with the sight of high streets being boarded up one by one, and with community centres being sold off, libraries being lost and parks being forgotten. Places that once defined a locality have been stripped away by 14 lost years. Too many of those critical assets are being lost, which is leading to soulless high streets and less vibrant local communities.
That is not because of a lack of will in local communities. It is because they do not have the tools and the powers to protect those assets and take them on. With the Bill we are starting the work to build back strong communities, which is due in no small part to the significant campaigning of the co-operative movement and the MPs here in the House who have made the case clearly that, in the end, ownership matters. We will give communities the tools and the real power to take on the assets that they love, because that is the right thing to do.
On all these issues the previous Government could have done far more, but what did we hear over the course of today’s debate? We heard Opposition Members say, “You are going too far—it is a power grab”, and in the same breath, “You are not going far enough, and you could have done more.” The truth is that this is a generational shift in power which will see a break-up of the stranglehold that Westminster and Whitehall have retained for far too long against communities across the country. This will be done with local communities, not to them, and indeed that is what has happened so far. Whether we are talking about our approach to fair funding and repairing the foundations, our approach to local government reorganisation or even our approach to devolution, this has all been done in genuine partnership with local leaders who are working together.
What I find so astonishing—and there is a night-and-day difference here—is the almost soulless response from Opposition Front Benchers who decry all these measures, omitting to say that their own local councillors are leading the charge at a local level. The leadership that has been shown, even by Conservative council leaders, puts those Opposition Front Benchers to shame. I do not know how many visits they make around the country, but I cannot imagine that their local representatives value the interpretation that has been presented from the Conservative Front Bench, whether it is about elections, devolution or reorganisation. We are not asking Conservatives Members to be as good as the Government, but we are asking them to be at least as good as their own councillors, and to stand with them instead of standing against them. I urge all Members to support this landmark Bill.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting)
Tuesday 16th September 2025
(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
Public Bill CommitteesEnglish Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 16 September 2025 - (16 Sep 2025)
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a couple of preliminary announcements. Hansard colleagues would be grateful if Members could email their speaking notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk. Please switch electronic devices to silent. Just to be a real Grinch, tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings. Date Time Witness Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 9.55 am District Councils’ Network National Association of Local Councils Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 10.25 am Local Government Association County Councils Network Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 10.55 am Catriona Riddell & Associates Ltd British Property Federation Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 11.25 am Power to Change The Football Supporters’ Association Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 2.40 pm Tracy Brabin, Chair, UK Mayors, and Mayor of West Yorkshire Ben Houchen, Metro Mayor of the Tees Valley Donna Jones, PCC and Mayoral candidate Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 3.10 pm British Independent Retailers Association UK Hospitality Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 3.40 pm National Audit Office Public Sector Audit Appointments Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 4.00 pm Grant Thornton UK Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 4.30 pm IPPR North Professor John Denham, Director, Centre for English Identity and Politics, University of Southampton Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 4.50 pm Better Planning Coalition Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 5.10 pm Locality Tuesday 16 September Until no later than 5.30 pm Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
We will first consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication and a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions before the oral evidence session. In view of the time available, I hope that we can take these matters formally and without debate. Copies of written evidence that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room and will be circulated to members by email. I will first call the Minister to move the programme motion standing in her name, which was discussed yesterday by the Programming Sub-Committee of the Bill.
Ordered,
That—
1. the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 16 September) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 16 September;
(b) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 14 October;
(c) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 16 October;
(d) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 21 October;
(e) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 23 October;
(f) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 28 October;
(g) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 30 October;
(h) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 4 November;
(i) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Wednesday 12 November;
2. the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table:
3. proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 4; Schedule 1; Clauses 5 and 6; Schedule 2; Clauses 7 to 9; Schedule 3; Clauses 10 to 20; Schedule 4; Clauses 21 to 23; Schedule 5; Clause 24; Schedule 6; Clause 25; Schedule 7; Clauses 26 and 27; Schedule 8; Clauses 28 and 29; Schedule 9; Clause 30; Schedule 10; Clause 31; Schedule 11; Clause 32; Schedule 12; Schedule 13; Clause 33; Schedule 14; Clause 34; Schedule 15; Clause 35; Schedule 16; Clause 36; Schedule 17; Clause 37; Schedule 18; Clause 38; Schedule 19; Clauses 39 to 42; Schedule 20; Clauses 43 to 45; Schedule 21; Clause 46; Schedule 22; Clauses 47 to 50; Schedule 23; Clauses 51 to 55; Schedule 24; Clauses 56 and 57; Schedule 25; Clauses 58 and 59; Schedule 26; Clause 60; Schedule 27; Clause 61; Schedule 28; Clause 62; Schedule 29; Clauses 63 to 70; Schedule 30; Clause 71; Schedule 31; new Clauses; new Schedules; Clauses 72 to 79; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
4. the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Wednesday 12 November.—(Miatta Fahnbulleh).
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Miatta Fahnbulleh).
Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Miatta Fahnbulleh.)
The Chair
Before we start hearing from the witnesses, do any Members wish to make any declaration of interest in connection with the Bill?
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I am a member of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
I declare that I used to be a parish councillor and, until March, a district councillor for Stratford-on-Avon.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
As per my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I am a director of Localis think-tank, which has contributed evidence. I am also a parliamentary vice-president of the Local Government Association and for London Councils, which has also submitted evidence.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
I am a former councillor and I know lots of the witnesses from my previous role leader of Broxbourne council.
Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)
I declare, as per my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, that I am a parish councillor.
Mrs Elsie Blundell (Heywood and Middleton North) (Lab)
My husband is a sitting councillor on Rochdale borough council.
Vikki Slade
Apologies for having a second go, but my husband is also a sitting councillor and I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
In case we do not get to it this afternoon, Donna Jones, one of the witnesses, is a personal friend of mine.
The Chair
Thank you all for your forthright honesty. We will begin by hearing oral evidence from Councillor Sam Chapman-Allen, chair of the District Councils’ Network, and Justin Griggs, head of policy and communications for the National Association of Local Councils. I do not want to try to stop you before you have even started, but the panel will conclude at 9.55 am.
Examination of Witnesses
Sam Chapman-Allen and Justin Griggs gave evidence.
The Chair
Would the witnesses like to say a few words about themselves?
Justin Griggs: Good morning. I am Justin Griggs, head of policy and communications at the National Association of Local Councils. We work in partnership with our 43 county associations to support, promote and improve England’s 10,000 parish councils, which are the community tier of local government in England.
Sam Chapman-Allen: My name is Councillor Sam Chapman-Allen. I am the chairman of the District Councils’ Network for England, representing 169 district and unitary councils, the single biggest arm of local government, delivering 45% of all planning permissions across the country. I am also the leader of Breckland council in Norfolk.
David Simmonds
Q
Sam Chapman-Allen: To start off, at the DCN we are absolutely in favour of devolution as long as it is meaningful for our local community. I think the threat and the concerns that we have so far with what is presented in the Bill is that district councils, which are responsible as the planning and housing authority, have no seat round the table of the new strategic authorities that are being established. If we want to work in partnership with this Government, delivering 1.5 million homes, you need those planning authorities around that table.
Beyond that, many things are missing. If we look at what is being devolved from Whitehall and those Whitehall Departments, it is very short in its forthcomings. Some of those powers are just about recentralisation. If we are going to achieve what devolution should be, which is a bottom-up approach where local residents get to shape what their local communities look like, and the centre truly devolving, you need to make sure that those constituent councils—which are the housing authority and the planning authority, and are in control of economic growth—have a seat round that table to drive that agenda forward.
Justin Griggs: At the National Association of Local Councils, we have long advocated for a shift of power out of Whitehall and into our communities, but it is important that that devolution goes beyond the regional, sub-regional and principal authority levels, and into communities themselves. That is why we welcome the ambitions, taken together, that the Government have set out in the White Paper and the Bill. They provide some helpful recognition of the important role that parish and town councils play in their communities—as local leaders, with skin in the game, who know their places best, and providing a wide and growing range of hyper-local public services, such as using neighbourhood planning to plan for housing within their areas, tackling the cost of living crisis, stepping up to support communities during the covid pandemic and working with their communities on climate change.
However, it is important that the Bill goes further and takes more steps to strengthen communities, and parish and town councils. It is helpful that there are measures in the Bill that seek to strengthen the relationship between strategic authorities, unitary authorities and parish councils. That could very much be strengthened. But there are a number of other areas that the Bill could be strengthening to support parish and town councils to do more for their areas, to work with mayors and strategic authorities, and definitely to support colleagues in principal authorities to deliver public services in what is a very challenging financial environment.
David Simmonds
Q
Sam Chapman-Allen: The reason why my members are able to successfully deliver 45% of all new homes across the country is localism. It is being close to those communities and able to work across every mile within our villages, towns, cathedral cities and coastal communities. But it is about taking our communities with us, to understand where those houses need to be built, what the challenges are and how we overcome them together. When you begin to introduce strategic authorities at a large scale, which sometimes seem very distant, you have to have that piece in between it to allow people to have a local voice and representation.
How can a mayor, sitting in a strategic position, be supposed to deliver on housing and planning, when the local authority, which is responsible for housing and planning, does not have a seat round that table? That is the challenge and the risk. This Government have a clear mandate of 1.5 million homes. To achieve that, they need all those councils round that table. We need to make sure that the public have that ability—democratic accountability at a hyper-local level—driving forward not just housing but also wider place-shaping.
David Simmonds
Q
Sam Chapman-Allen: You will appreciate how busy your inboxes and mailsacks are, with the casework that you receive daily from your residents. When you begin to remove councillors, that casework does not disappear; it just becomes a bigger challenge for a single councillor. The risk is as we begin to get bigger those mega-councils, and we begin to think about how to ensure that those councillors can represent their communities. Does it become a full-time job? Does it then preclude other people from being able to stand to become community champions?
The reason why local government and district councils work successfully, in the same way as London boroughs and Manchester metropolitan councils, is because they are hyper-local. There are circa 200,000 to 350,000 residents per council, and they have local councillors representing a couple of thousand people. As we move forward with mega-councils, the risk is that a single councillor will be representing some tens of thousands. The independent think-tank Localis has done some analysis of the current proposal for a 500,000 threshold. We could see 90% of councillors across shire areas removed overnight. That would be a democratic deficit and an absolute catastrophe.
If we look back through the pandemic, as Justin has alluded to, community councillors were out every single day, just as you were as MPs, supporting the most vulnerable, making sure that communities could bounce back and, more importantly, giving support to local businesses to make sure that they could bounce back as well and grow from strength to strength. My concern is that if we begin to move ourselves to a distant model, there will be a democratic deficit and unaccountability, and the ability of a councillor to know that every resident, street, business and community leader will be lost.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
Q
Strategic authorities are made up of constituent local authorities, and at their best, where they work, it is based on partnership. Can Councillor Chapman-Allen give the Committee examples from among his membership, where strategic authorities already operate, of that collaboration among the constituent authorities, which will always have a key role, working in tandem with the mayor to deliver for communities?
I also have a question for Mr Griggs. The role of neighbourhoods and the connection between communities and the places where elected representatives serve is fundamental to what we are trying to do with the Bill. The part of the legislation on neighbourhood governance is looking to bolster and strengthen that. What are your views on how that will create new opportunities not only for community partnership working but, critically, for community voice and power?
Sam Chapman-Allen: Thank you for your question. To start, I think the 500,000 figure as the initial threshold has caused confusion. I think that many of the submissions that will be received in the devolution priority areas next week and then in the rest of the country in November will show that many councils are submitting models of 500,000-plus. Let us put that into context: they will be some of the biggest councils in the western developed world. I think that will ensure there is a democratic deficit.
In relation to strategic authorities and constituent members, the only model where all district councils, or all principal councils, are members are in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. If you look at what is taking place there, you will see it is a really successful model. Yes, there is a little bit of grit every now and then, but that is why scrutiny, governance and accountability are so important. We will not always agree on everything.
If we look at a model in which all principal councils are members—I cite Greater Manchester, with Andy Burnham and his 10 councils within that area—they all share responsibility together. All of them within that locality are the responsible authorities for housing and for planning, and they are working together to drive the agenda forward around the real challenges that localities face. They have had some real successes, and I do not think anybody should take that away from them. I know that you have Lord Houchen giving evidence later; he will give exactly the same example of where you have those principal councils able to pull the levers to get stuff done.
Justin Griggs: First of all—
The Chair
Sorry to interrupt, Mr Griggs, but you are quite quietly spoken. Could you please speak up?
Justin Griggs: Yes, Dame Siobhain, I will definitely speak up a bit.
First, congratulations Minister on your appointment; we look forward to working closely with you. I will try to channel my remarks, and also pick up on what Mr Simmonds said about the democratic deficit and the distance that there will now be because of the reorganisation in respect of new unitary strategic authorities and in neighbourhoods.
It is undoubtedly the case that if we did not have a structure called parish and town councils across 92% of England, bringing together 100,000 people to improve their areas—parish councillors put 14.5 million hours into serving their communities—we would have to set one up. It is right in the White Paper and in parts of the Bill to seek to lean into that, because decisions will be taken much further away from places. That is why it is our view, and it has certainly been the case in previous rounds of reorganisation, that it is right for the role of parish and town councils to be strengthened and empowered and to be recognised and respected partners to our colleagues in the principal authorities and in the strategic authorities.
On Sam’s point, we wholeheartedly agree with the importance of collaboration. Where the Bill could go further—we would be keen to work closely with the Government on this—is around mechanisms for more partnership at the mayoral level, linking in much more closely with communities and neighbourhoods through their parish and town councils to provide a democratic voice. They work very closely around agendas for infrastructure, housing and skills in their areas, because they will be the places that are most affected. They are local leaders with skin in the game and they know their places best, so they will be well placed to work with them.
This is where a number of mechanisms can come in that are well tried and tested across other parts of the country that have reorganised, such as the development of charters and protocols to set out how to better work closely together, and parish liaison officers working closely with council associations and local councils across a sensible authority footprint. They are the people who know parish councils best and can work as a trusted partner with the principal authorities to build their capacity and capability.
The Chair
Order. I am sorry to intervene but unfortunately we are having some audio problems and need to stop until they can be resolved. It should be a few minutes.
The Chair
We are back in public session. I apologise to members of the Committee, our witnesses and members of the public that we have had to relocate because of sound problems. The plan is to add the missed time to the end of the sitting, so we will end later than 11.25 am. We will allocate the correct amount of time to this panel, as a number of members of the Committee would very much like to ask you questions.
Manuela Perteghella
Q
Justin Griggs: That links back to Mr Simmonds’s question on the democratic deficit and moving decision making further away from communities, particularly in rural and sparsely populated areas where unitary authorities will be much further away. The point was made earlier that there will be fewer councils and fewer councillors, and those 100,000 parish councillors will become even more important.
As I explained in my previous answer to the Minister, that relationship can be strengthened in a number of ways, building on the good work that has been done in other parts of the country that have gone through local government reorganisation. That is where our network of county associations has been pivotal in working with principal authorities on their plans for reorganisation, being part of joint implementation teams, and co-designing how new structures and new partnerships can work. Certainly, in places without parish councils, they should be established. As I said earlier, you would need to set them up to give people a voice and an influence on decisions that affect them, and to be true partners with principal authorities.
The Chair
I am sorry, but this panel will finish at 10.14 am. Seven more Members want to ask questions, and we have six minutes.
Manuela Perteghella
Q
Sam Chapman-Allen: There should be more powers in the Bill for councils. They should have more tools, and it should be much more attractive to get involved in local democracy. We should not underestimate or overlook the people who already put themselves forward. The general power of competence, for example, that the Bill provides for strategic authorities is not extended to all councils. Parish and town councils are out of step with the rest of local government. That would be one measure.
There are ways in which the allowances system could encourage more people to come forward and stand for election. It is ludicrous that people with caring responsibilities at parish level are unable to reclaim an allowance to cover caring costs. A number of things, such as remote meetings and strengthening the standards regime, are missing from the Bill. If they were added, they would support local communities and local democracy.
Maya Ellis
Q
Justin Griggs: One of the ambitions that the Government set out in the White Paper and the Bill is to simplify local government structures and make them much more consistent. In 92% of England, if you leave your house, the first place where decisions are taken for you is in the stewardship of your park and open spaces, and in the supporting local organisations. You would not have that in many parts of England under local government reorganisation.
Those structures should be set up, and it is very much in keeping with other phases of reorganisation. Cornwall, Shropshire and Northumberland are fully parished. It would very much go with the grain and good practice of what has happened previously. It is really helpful—credit to Sam and many of his members—that many district councils are conducting community governance reviews to take a look at neighbourhood and community governance in their areas, where there is interest and appetite to set up new councils, so that they have a structure and a voice for taking action.
On the ingredients of how neighbourhoods can work, it is really helpful that the Government have set out that they see neighbourhood governance and models such as neighbourhood area committees as not undermining parish and town councils, but recognising their role and how they should be hardwired into representation on those committees. That goes to the heart of how we need to get all tiers of local government—strategic authorities, unitary authorities and parish councils—working collectively to benefit their residents.
Sam Chapman-Allen: It is important that the Secretary of State and Whitehall do not dictate what those local government and neighbourhood arrangements look like. It is for local places, local residents and local councillors—whether town, parish, district, unitary or county councillors—to decide what those types of neighbourhood models look like, bringing everyone together from the voluntary sector to the public sector, and the private sector if required, to deal with the challenges in that place-based locality.
Vikki Slade
Q
Sam Chapman-Allen: I come back to my previous response: it is for local places to decide. Everywhere will look different. Casting ourselves back to where we are in Norfolk, we have the fantastic cathedral city of Norwich and the two massive coastal ports of Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn. They are working out whether they need to establish a town or parish council, or whether the new unitary council can pick up that type of role—what is appropriate for them.
That civic place base is really important, with all the history and regalia that goes with it, but the most important bit is how those residents identify and interact with their local councillors and their local town hall. It is not for me, as chair of the District Councils Network, to tell them; I do not believe it is for Whitehall Departments either. It is for those local places to work out. That is what makes this Bill so special. It is for everybody in local communities to derive that. That is why it is important that local communities get to decide the structures, the size and scale, and the neighbourhood arrangements.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
Q
The Chair
Order. Sorry, Sam, but if the question is much longer, there will be no time for an answer.
Sam Carling
Sorry. Would you favour adding provisions to the Bill for strategic authorities to take over licensing powers to deal with that issue?
Sam Chapman-Allen: None of my 169 members has ever asked for taxi licensing to be removed from a local principal council up to the strategic authority. If that is the Government’s intent, I am not hearing it. The most important bit is that those principal councils are constituent members, so that they can pull that respectable, responsible lever to get done what needs doing.
The Chair
I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. I thank our witnesses on behalf of the Committee and apologise for the disruption.
Examination of Witnesses
Bev Craig, Kevin Bentley and Matthew Hicks gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Councillor Bev Craig, Labour group leader and vice-chair at the Local Government Association; Councillor Kevin Bentley, leader of Essex county council and Local Government Association senior vice-chair; and Councillor Matthew Hicks, chair of the County Councils Network. This panel will finish at 10.44 am.
David Simmonds
Q
Bev Craig: Good morning, I am Councillor Bev Craig. I am a Local Government Association vice-chair and leader of the Labour group. I am also the leader of Manchester city council, a city of 630,000 people. In my spare time, I am also the Greater Manchester combined authority deputy mayor for economy, business and international issues. In response to your question, the first thing to say is that, across the Local Government Association, we have been calling for devolution from Whitehall to communities for quite some time. We have spent a lot of time thinking through what accountability looks like in that context.
As we move from combined authorities to strategic authorities, it is important to make sure that the Bill reflects not only the competencies of local authorities within new strategic authorities but points of collaboration. For example, in the Greater Manchester system, each of the 10 local authority leaders holds a portfolio. That is perhaps a key difference from the London model, where deputy mayors appointed by the Mayor of London hold a portfolio.
From experience, looking across the country, we think it is really important to bind organisations that have different competencies in different areas into the same shared goal in a place. Many of our members have raised with interest what will happen in the move to majority decision making, rather than consensual decision making. From the LGA’s perspective, we have been quite keen to keep that under review. As it currently stands in Greater Manchester, it is consensual decision making that leads us into a place. A model that binds in local authorities from the beginning is really important. Let’s be honest, in my place, we are the ones building homes. My local authority and I are contributing to growing the economy, and Greater Manchester benefits when we work as one.
Kevin Bentley: I am Kevin Bentley, the senior vice-chair of the LGA and leader of Essex county council. Also, Matthew is actually the leader of Suffolk county council, not Sussex county council. There is no such authority as Sussex county council, unless something dramatic has happened overnight that we are not aware of—that would be rapid devolution.
I absolutely agree with what Bev has said, and we already have that form of scrutiny with police and crime commissioners, and it works well. That works on a model where constituent parts and people who are not necessarily in leadership roles actually have the ability to scrutinise. In the same way, we have scrutiny panels that could hold the mayor to account, which is important. Every action has a consequence, and every action should be challenged on behalf of the public. I absolutely believe there should be good scrutiny of mayors, and I think any mayor would welcome that good scrutiny.
Matthew Hicks: I am Matthew Hicks, the leader of Suffolk county council and chair of the CCN since last Wednesday. Sorry I could not be with you today—diaries are still clashing a bit.
I agree with my colleagues, as I think it is critical that we look at the mayoral commissioners and ensure they are subject to effective and proportionate scrutiny and accountability. Mayors can be voted out every four years, but genuine democratic accountability is really important. I think having structures in place on scrutiny, overview and audit will be key.
David Simmonds
Q
Kevin Bentley: It is a constant conversation. With the high needs block, you are talking about a system that needs to be changed rather than just an issue at the money end—that is perhaps another conversation for another panel. It needs to be addressed soon for the sake of society.
The debt question is a live one. The LGA and constituent councils within the DPP are talking to the Government about debt. Of course, there is good debt and bad debt. Asset debt means that a council is doing things, which is very good, and there are other debts that are not good. We are aware of the councils in that situation. It is a constant conversation. My view has always been that we cannot allow any new authority to start with a major deficit that it cannot cover. We must have that serious conversation with the Government, and we are having those conversations. Has enough attention been given to it? I would like to see more.
Bev Craig: That is a fairly consistent point across Local Government Association members. A significant underfunding of local government has built up over the last 14 to 15 years. There is a big job in taking local authorities back from the brink, which is a conversation for another panel. It is one of the reasons why we will continue to make the point that a well-resourced, well-run local authority can transform and change communities, so they need to be resourced in a way that they can do so.
Matthew Hicks: I echo that. From the CCN’s perspective, SEND is one of the biggest issues, and the growing DSG debt is a huge issue. The Government have said they are going to look at that imminently, and we would absolutely welcome positive changes. That debt is growing, and it is almost unspoken. It is critical that we understand that debt, but also understand the impact if we were to have fewer unitaries. That debt would be transferred to those new unitaries. How would very small unitaries cope with that?
The Chair
I understand that Councillor Craig has to go fairly soon.
Bev Craig: As long as we finish on time, I can make a quick exit.
The Chair
We will definitely finish on time, subject to any more technical difficulties.
Maya Ellis
Q
Bev Craig: With the pattern of devolution over the last few years, you are right that a number of combined authorities have cities as the driving economic force at their heart. That would probably do discredit to some of my colleagues who see themselves as already operating in more of a rural space.
The expansion of the competencies of strategic authorities within the Bill is quite important, as that is how you get the balance that matters for a place. We should also be mindful that size is not a barrier to democracy, and it does not create a deficit—that holds just as much for strategic authority size as local authority size. I run a city of 630,000 people, but my ward has 18,000 residents and I can still do a very good job on their behalf. A change of boundaries does not necessarily change someone’s association with a place.
An adjustment of some competencies still allows a new mayoral model to give a focus to place. The priorities will be different in rural and urban areas, but that is where having strong local authorities wedded into that helps some of that strategic planning.
Kevin Bentley: I absolutely agree because it already exists: Essex and Suffolk are both examples. The population of the Essex local authority area is 1.5 million; it is 80% rural and the rest is urban, so it already exists. In these matters, size must be appropriate to deliver services, but this is not 1974; it is 2025 and we operate differently and deliver our services differently. That needs to improve.
The previous Government delivered a lot of devolution very successfully, and the current Government are carrying that on with alacrity and speed. The bottom line is that it is important that people have excellent services delivered at best value. Modern-day local government does that in the best way it can, but the two-tier system does not allow it to be better. We are running on a 1974 model. It is time to change that.
In terms of local democracy, the neighbourhood delivery committees that we and the Government have proposed in the business case going forward will do something that has never happened before, with decision making going to local people in very local areas. That does not happen now and has never happened before, but it is going to happen with the Bill.
Matthew Hicks: From the CCN’s perspective, devolution is clearly a good thing, which we have pushed for and wanted for a long time. It is now moving forward at pace. The bottom line is that it ensures that decisions are made closer to local people, closer to communities and closer to the businesses they affect. The end result is a much more effective and better targeted authority, better public services, stronger growth and stronger partnerships in the private and public sectors, so it is positive across the board.
Kevin made a point about the partnership boards, which will also play a really strong part. In rural areas such as Suffolk where the population is 760,000, the large geography of the county allows us to deliver that more locally, even though we are a large rural area.
Paul Holmes
Q
My question is for all three of you: has there been a change of emphasis on that target from the early conversations that you had with a Minister, albeit a previous one? Do you think there has been a change in Government emphasis on the size, and how has that added to the confusion and the challenges of setting up these strategic authorities as the Bill goes forward?
Kevin Bentley: Yes, I certainly thought that was a hard target. Most colleagues thought it was a target to hit. It changed. It is important that we listen to people; lobbying was done around that and the Government listened to people. Those who do not change their mind never change anything, as Churchill would say, so it is important that the change took place, but it did cause confusion about what they meant.
For me, evidence leads the way. When we went into this in Essex, I was very clear that the evidence would tell us the shape and size of unitary authorities, and we would not set the number of unitary authorities and then make the evidence fit. That is what we have done. We are certainly doing that in the business case, and I believe other colleagues have done the same thing. It did cause confusion, and there was a lot of head scratching in the system to see whether we could test whether it was below, on, or above 500,000. To me, rules are there for the guidance of wise people, and the evidence leads the way.
Bev Craig: In my recollection, the Minister was always clear. Some of the questions arose with the conveying of that from colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. At times, the sector felt desperate for a literal prescription, because until that point that was the kind of relationship we had had with Government. It had been quite some time since the Government had come to us and said, “Hey, come and be creative in terms of how these needs reflect your place.”
The 500,000 figure has helped people to understand that the programme of reform does not work if what is created is even more local authorities, each with 180,000 people. So we have taken on the guidance but it has become more clear as we move through the programme that this is indicative rather than prescriptive. I think the reality is about having sensible footprints, where services can be delivered at an economy of scale that helps services to perform well, can work with the strategic authority, and still speak to a sensible place that people can identify with. That is complicated; if it were easy, we would have done this before 1974.
Matthew Hicks: The size of the new unitary models really does matter; it is critical. Half of the members of the CCN are unitary authorities, and we see the benefits that this has brought, including large recurring savings, which is a big consideration. It also puts in place more sustainable structures. Back in February, the CCN supported the guidance in the invitation letters; we saw this as a means of reorganisation, with the numbers and the scale being about right for a sustainable long-term future.
I do think that some elements have been undermined by inconsistent messaging over recent months. The stated ambition for new unitary councils was that they would cover a population of about half a million or more. We saw similar issues coming up around social care and using existing council boundaries. There have been mixed messages around the building blocks of the new unitaries.
That inconsistent and slightly unhelpful messaging has led to a situation that will probably make life harder for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, because we are now seeing a significant increase in the number of business cases coming forward, and that will make it more difficult for MHCLG to scrutinise. If we look at Suffolk now, we are going to have one application for three unitaries of 250,000 each, which is really very small, with new boundaries. So I think the mixed messaging will create more work for MHCLG, because it is important that it looks at the detail and the data, and that its decision is based on evidence, not just politically driven.
The Chair
Sorry, I don’t want to interrupt, but I have seven Members who want to ask questions and we have about 13 minutes, so perhaps that could give some guidance.
Paul Holmes
Q
Matthew Hicks: We certainly felt in the beginning that Suffolk, with a population of 750,000, was right in the middle of the range and would be an ideal candidate for one unitary.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Kevin Bentley: Thank you, and welcome to your new role; I am sure we will be seeing a lot of each other the coming months, Minister.
In Essex, there are 15 councils. If you want to look at councils of any shape or size, come to Essex; we pretty much have them all, and a lot of them, as well. And while there are four different business cases coming from Essex—and you would expect that, as it is a huge county in terms of population and people have differing views—each has been done thoughtfully and carefully. The overriding message is that the 15 councils are made up of all political parties and none, and there is common cause. No one has fallen out. There is no argument. There is no row going on at all. We meet regularly in something we call the Essex leaders and chief execs meeting—I am talking about Essex here; I will talk about the LGA in just a second—and certainly our experience is of collaboration.
We may have different views from the Government for them to consider, but the understanding that we need to do things differently is really there. That goes for all political parties. We understand that the current system cannot carry on, because it will just run out of money if we are not careful. We are already seeing that.
The one thing to say is that everyone across the sector should be allowed to have their view and decide what is right for their area. When I started as a leader, the one question that I continually asked myself, and still do today, is, “What does this mean for the public and does it improve their lives?” Unless you can answer that question affirmatively, you should stop. So far, for me the answer has been yes—yes, we can do it better than we currently do it—and I think colleagues are in the same position.
It is also important that our colleagues in local government across the country consult not only with each other but with the public to ask whether we can do this better. If they believe we cannot, okay, but I think they will find that we can. The most important thing is to not lose sight of why we are doing it. It is for the public and the people of this country, not for politicians and councils.
Matthew Hicks: I would echo that. For us, it is about building on the experience of others who have been through this. We have been out to places such as Cumbria to ask for advice on what they learned and what works well. We have learned how others delivered on business cases or struggled to deliver on some of the items they included.
Ultimately, for us, this is about a new and more positive relationship between local government and our residents and businesses; it is about doing things differently. With the two cases in Suffolk, ultimately, everyone has the interests of our residents at heart. The big issue is how you analyse the data that people are using, and the forecasting. That is where we are seeing the major variants, but the delivery and what we want to deliver are not too different.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Bev Craig: That is an important question. The difference for Greater Manchester was that we asked for devolution. That started the journey across the north of England initially, but it went out across the whole country. It has come off the back of a generation of co-operation in Greater Manchester, so it was built into a system. When the Greater Manchester authority was disestablished in the 1980s, my predecessors carried on with the meetings and kept that model alive.
I will come on to accountability, but what helps is that people do not identify with local authority boundaries. We represent people who, in their normal lives, say that they are from a place. A colleague might say that they are from Middleton and they are proud to be from Middleton, but when they are on holiday and people ask where they are from, they say “Near Manchester.” There is something about creating a place that people can identify with; that has been really strong. When you look at models where mayors have been successful, it is because they have tapped into a place identity. That links to my point that rural areas can still have place identity.
On accountability, in the Greater Manchester model of combined authorities, which moved to strategic authorities, we all have a role to play. Think about the role of the city. It is a major economic driver for not just Greater Manchester but the north of England as a whole. The whole region needs Manchester city centre to do well, in the same way that Manchester city centre needs the rest of Greater Manchester to do well if it is to have people with skills, good education, homes to live in and places to celebrate that they enjoy spending time in. That is why, through our model, we all hold portfolios. I am just as interested in getting Atom Valley in the north of the conurbation to be a success as I am in growing my life sciences sector in the city centre. There is something about getting people to take responsibility.
When we look at the competencies, that is why the LGA argues for clarity in the Bill that local authorities will still have a stake in some of the areas that we might think mayoral strategic authorities lead on. I say this with kindness, and I often say it to my Mayor’s face: he can give the parameters of the homes that we build and he can help fund them, and I will put on his logo and picture if we need to, but fundamentally it is Manchester city council that is out there building council homes. That is why we built more council and social homes last year than at any point over the last decade and a half. It works when we work together.
To clarify the role of commissioners in the context of the Bill, where they have been useful in Greater Manchester has been in an advisory capacity. We have been able to draw in people like Dame Sarah Storey as an active travel commissioner. She does not need to be a deputy mayor or take away my authority as a leader of a place, but she brings something that is additional. We must not lose sight of the fact that devolution models work with systems and Bills in place to deliver them, but actually it is about collaboration. There will need to be investment in the time that leaders of a place spend together if you are to get that relationship with the mayor to work.
Kevin Bentley: The identity question was raised before and it is important that we say political boundaries might change but communities do not. Identity of communities will always remain strong, whether you are in a district or county council. I represent 1.5 million people. That could be a disparate place. If you want to say, “Which is the most important to your leader?” they are all important, because they all have their own identities.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
Q
Matthew Hicks: I have only been in post a week, so I cannot give you an answer as to whether those discussions have taken place in the past. Certainly I know we have looked at the Cornwall business case and Cornwall has always been well represented and a strong voice at the CCN, putting its case very strongly, and I am sure that will continue in the future. However, I cannot answer that question today.
Vikki Slade
Q
Bev Craig: As we touched on earlier, sometimes a conflation of resource and organisation. It is important to draw the distinction that we are not here today to put forward the LGA’s position around the resourcing component, but it is important that we still see that outside the Bill. From an LGA perspective, we would be looking for more clarity on competencies as people move into strategic authorities, and really important is thought around what capacity and support is given to councils as they move through their transition. There are other things that we will continue to push for—for example, thinking about the role of civic and cultural competencies in strategic authorities and how they play into place. Fundamentally, in the Bill we want recognition that local authorities play a key role in delivering all of this, and without collaboration there will not be success.
Kevin Bentley: If I can leave you with one word, it is implementation. Although it does not feel like it, drawing lines on a map and putting the evidence forward is the easy part. Doing it is something very different. We learn from the experience of others and we look at others. This round of devolution is very different from what has happened before. We are creating new large authorities and devolving and disaggregating services upward to those authorities, so we must resource implementation properly. I would like to see a much firmer line on resourcing—not telling us how to do it, because I think we know locally how to do it, but making sure there is resourcing for us to do it. We have to remember that while we are doing that, with shadow elections for us in 2027, we still have to deliver the day job. That is about people and certainly in upper tier authorities, it is about some vulnerable people.
My only concern throughout all of this, and I am and always have been a great devolutionist, is that we do something or miss something and somebody falls through a crack and is left behind. None of us must allow that to happen. I know we will not and we will work very hard, but we need the proper resourcing to make that happen. This is fundamental change and is very unlikely to happen again for the next 50, 60 or even more years in the future. We have to get it right. Our successors will not thank us if we do not.
The Chair
I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions to this panel. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our witnesses.
Examination of Witnesses
Catriona Riddell and Ion Fletcher gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Catriona Riddell, the director of Catriona Riddell & Associates Ltd, and Ion Fletcher, the director of policy for finance and regulation at the British Property Federation. We will end this panel at 11.14 am.
David Simmonds
Q
Ion Fletcher: Good morning, everyone. My name is Ion Fletcher. I am the director of finance policy at the British Property Federation. Our members own, develop and invest in both commercial and residential property across the UK.
In high-level terms, our members have had a good experience with devolution so far. Having combined authorities with responsibility for planning, transport and place making, and strong convening powers, means that our members are able to invest with confidence, knowing the strategic aims for that area. We hope to see that replicated with strategic authorities. We can get into more detail—Cat is better placed to comment on the reorganisation and the impact on planning.
We feel that the way that upward-only rent reviews were introduced into legislation without any meaningful consultation is not good policymaking. We feel that it will not do much to help the high street and it could have a negative impact on new investment and development.
Catriona Riddell: Hello, I am Catriona Riddell, a strategic planning specialist. There are two components to this. First, it is about the fact that fewer than 30% of local plans are up to date. That is partly because all the decisions and all the financial, technical and political risk sit with individual local planning authorities. It is right that there is a separation of decision making in the way that we had before 2010 for 40 years.
If that decision making is now through the new strategic authorities, that is probably the right place for it in terms of the new spatial development strategy, which I know sits with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. However, there is no point in strategic authorities having the responsibility to prepare those strategies if they do not also have some responsibility to deliver them. The range of delivery mechanisms set out in the Bill will help that.
For example, in the last few weeks, the Mayor of the North East combined authority announced a massive housing development in Newcastle on a site that has been derelict and unviable for many years. She has used her convening and financial powers to bring together Homes England, local authorities and others to bring forward development on that site. On the delivery side, the powers and funding that the mayors will have to make sure that spatial development strategies and local plans are implemented will be really important
In terms of local government restructuring, it is fair to say, as everybody has already this morning, that resources are thin on the ground. They are getting thinner the longer this goes on. People want a resolution. They want to move to the new local government structure as soon as possible to make sure that the resources within the local government family remain.
But, again, before 2010, for 40 years planning resources were done in two ways. The strategic level is where all the specialist skills sat, and then the planners and others were within the local authorities. They worked as two parts of the same team. We do not have the specialist skills in local authorities anymore; they have to pay to bring that back. A lot of specialist skills are rare anyway, so they are difficult to get. Having some teams and general support at the strategic scale will be invaluable to local authorities going forward.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Northern Ireland went through a very similar reform about a decade and a half ago. I am interested in your assessment, because most people would look at that property market and think it works well. There was a transition, and it has ended up in a position that, most people would argue, is not just benign and effective but consistent with what we see in other countries. I am interested in your views, and then I will have a question for both of you.
Ion Fletcher: I think that Mark would also say that the way it was announced was not great; it should have been done with prior consultation. One of our main concerns is about how one of our members was recently in Malaysia and Singapore, and his investors were asking him questions about it: “Where did it come from? Why was there no consultation?” It has been noticed overseas, and by people who are deploying capital into our towns and cities. It was not something that was trailed, either in the Labour manifesto or in any of the discussions about devolution. In fact, it is a bit odd to find commercial leasing provisions in a Bill that is mainly about local government reorganisation and strategic authority powers.
There is also the focus on the high street. Upward-only rent reviews are not what is keeping shops empty at the moment. That is more to do with business rates and a lack of demand for space. Most high street shops are on leases of five years or less, so upward-only rent reviews are not going to be an issue; they do not have those clauses in them.
The real value of upward-only rent reviews to investors and developers is that they provide predictability of income. If you are thinking about undertaking a new development project or refurbishing an existing commercial building, having the confidence about the level of income that you are going to get gives you much more security, and it de-risks the project. It makes it more likely to happen. At the moment, there is a shortage of development going on—there is a bit of a development viability crisis across both residential and commercial property—so adding more uncertainty in the form of unexpected policy changes does not help.
In relation to your point about international comparators, yes, Ireland went through this, as did Australia about 20 years ago. There is a transition period. The industry can and would find ways to adapt, but the point is: what problem is it really trying to solve? Is the disruption that it is going to cause in the meantime—the transitional costs, for example—worth the candle?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Ion Fletcher: England and Wales is an international outlier in that; it is also an international outlier in the strength of the rights that it gives to occupiers to renew their leases. Generally speaking, where countries offer occupiers the automatic and statutory right to renew their commercial leases, it tends to be restricted to particular sectors. That is not the case in England and Wales. You have to look at it in the round.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Catriona Riddell: What is set out in the Bill is going to help to develop things more quickly. We have just talked about viability; that is such a massive factor in everything that we do at the moment. In relation to strategic planning and spatial development strategy, I think the Minister for Housing and Planning, Matthew Pennycook, has referred to it as a spatial investment framework. If you look at it as that, and not as a big local plan, and if it does that role, that is going to set the precedent. It is going to say: “This is where we want to invest.”
They are also long-term plans; they are 10, 20 or 30-year frameworks. Again, that is to start building investor confidence in these areas. What is needed, in terms of building investor confidence, is leadership and that is where the strategic authorities can help. Some of the planning mechanisms in the Bill are really important, but actually, it is more about the wider powers, such as the convening powers and the duty to talk to your neighbouring mayor—the sum of the parts has to add up to a national picture. We do not have a national spatial framework in this country, so the sum of the SDSs has to add up to that national picture. I think the softer powers in the Bill that mayors and strategic authorities will have to bring together stakeholders will be really important.
I would say the measure needs to go further. My understanding of the convening powers is that they are largely about bringing local authorities and the public sector together, but one of the biggest challenges we have is around the infrastructure side of things—with utility companies, such as water companies and electricity companies, that engage at the very end of the process. We need to use these mechanisms—the convening powers—to bring them into the plan-making bit about the spatial development strategy from the start, so that there are no surprises at the end and nobody says, “We don’t have enough water or electricity to plug into these new homes that we have already permitted,” because that is what is happening all over the place. This is about getting the system working up front, much further upstream, so that the decisions on planning applications are much easier further down. The strategic authorities have a huge role to play in that.
The only other, minor change I would mention is on national parks. I think that once we have gone through local government restructuring, all local planning authorities will effectively be a constituent member of a strategic authority. National parks will continue to be local planning authorities. They have plan-making powers and development management powers. At the end of this, they will be the only planning authorities that will not actually be part of the strategic authority, so I guess we need a shout-out to national parks and some thinking about what their role should be in this.
Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)
Q
Ion Fletcher: That is a really good question. Yes, as currently drafted, the Bill applies to all commercial tenancies, regardless of whether they are on the high street or in an industrial park, a data centre or a laboratory.
Upward-only rent reviews have definitely been highlighted as an issue among high street small businesses and in the hospitality sector, and I have a lot of sympathy for businesses that have been on high streets and going through a lot of change and turbulence over the last decade or so. At the same time, they have not really been raised as an issue by occupiers in logistics parks or in office buildings. I guess the main reason is that property costs are a far smaller proportion of their total cost base than for retailers and hospitality businesses.
Larger businesses also tend to be well advised and are aware of the trade-offs that come with upward-only rent reviews. They can allow property owners to give a longer rent-free period, for example, or a bigger contribution to fit-out costs. There is definitely merit in thinking about how the Bill might be more closely targeted at those areas where there is perceived to be more of an issue.
Mike Reader
Q
Ion Fletcher: Apart from the targeting point, it is interesting to think ahead to what is likely to change about the way commercial leases are structured. What is quite common in other jurisdictions is that they are more closely linked to an index like inflation or construction costs, or they are stepped, so there are pre-agreed rents up front. I think that is what we are likely to see.
We also need to be mindful of the use of caps and collars. It is quite common in other countries, and even in the UK for some types of longer leases, for the rent to be tied to a particular inflation index that has a cap on it, so if inflation goes above 4%, the rent will not increase by more than that. Similarly, with a collar, if deflation were to happen, the rent would not fall into negative territory. I think there is huge value in having that sort of approach. It is fair to the occupier, who gets a cap on inflation-linked increases, and fair to the property owner, who gets a floor if inflation goes negative.
Mike Reader
Q
Catriona Riddell: In the engagement process, that will be another role for the strategic authorities. We have seen increasing use of tools such as citizens’ assemblies. If I were helping to set up a strategic authority, I would say that every strategic authority should have its own fully representative citizens’ assembly, not just for planning but to test out its policy and approach.
We have oodles of experience in how to engage. I have been involved in structure plans and regional spatial strategies. It is difficult to engage on high-level frameworks. That will be one of the challenges, because there are no site allocations in the frameworks, but there will be specific growth areas. The frameworks will have to provide the spatial articulation of the local growth plans, which is another of the challenges. They will have to set out where the economic priorities should be, and how they should be addressed in those areas. It is quite difficult to engage local communities on those matters.
Stakeholders will get engaged but engagement is going to be really important in how these plans are tested. Advice from citizen panels and things like that are really good methods because they get to build up more knowledge so that they are not starting green every time. You could use them from the start of the process, all the way through, and they are far more representative than the usual engagement: the consultation responses that we get through the planning process.
Ion Fletcher: Some really interesting stuff is going on with digital citizen engagement tools. At a strategic authority level, Liverpool City Region combined authority used Commonplace, a digital engagement platform. It helped the authority reach a far broader and more diverse audience than might otherwise have been the case.
Catriona Riddell: What Liverpool did is probably the right thing. “Spatial development strategies” is a very technical term. It is not an attractive proposition for local communities, so the combined authority went out and talked about place: how places are going to change and grow, and what the priorities are around climate and health—health was a big aspect of the authority’s emerging spatial development strategy. We need to change the conversation so that it is not technical.
Mrs Blundell
Q
Catriona Riddell: Yes. I am all for democratic accountability, but we have to make sure that it does not hinder the job that has to be done. There are different ways of working with local councils, rather than necessarily having them sitting on boards. More proactive engagement and co-operation will work better. Local government, generally, is good at that and the strategic authorities are going to have to get really good at that as well. They will have to learn how to engage with local communities, and how to use their democratic representation with the likes of housing associations, and in lots of other activities around housing.
One element of the Bill worries me. The Greater London Authority has been around for 25 years, and it is a massive organisation. It is struggling with its housing role, and a lot of the measures in the Bill around housing will replicate what the GLA has. I worry that even the established strategic authorities are fairly small and they will have to take on a very big role for housing delivery, and specifically for affordable housing. I am concerned that they might be biting off more than they can chew. Some of the housing delivery roles that are expected by the Bill might be a step too far, at least initially.
Manuela Perteghella
Q
Catriona Riddell: If we get spatial development strategies right, they should be the ringmasters of sustainable development, as I call them. Their job is to provide spatial articulation for local growth plans, local nature recovery strategies, local transport plans and health strategies—the range of powers, strategies and plans that strategic authorities and local authorities have. SDSs will have to take into account local nature recovery strategy priorities.
The challenge we have is that the local growth plans and local nature recovery strategies are being prepared in advance of SDSs. Of the draft local growth plans that I have seen, there was maybe one that had any spatial content at all, and I think it is similar for local nature recovery strategies, so there will have to be some catch-up. SDSs are there to bring all the different plans and strategies together, to set out what that looks like across a place and to use local plans at a more detailed level. Do not forget that SDSs and local plans are part of the same development plan; they are two parts of a plan for an area, so they have to work together.
Paul Holmes
Q
Mr Fletcher, you are absolutely right to say that this, as well as local government reorganisation, was not in the governing party’s manifesto. I therefore think that it is right that we try to make the policy work as best we can through scrutiny mechanisms such as this Committee. In London, there are structural and spatial planning powers and business powers that are currently operable and invested in the GLA and the London mayoralty. For example, the GLA has a scrutinising mechanism and a housing role, and the mayor has business retention powers and spatial planning powers.
We have seen housing delivery fall under the current administration in London, and we have seen recent announcements that London is essentially a no-go investment area for many relevant organisations. Given the—I would argue—perceived failure in policy delivery in London, what lessons can we learn when the Government are attempting to replicate a structure in London that is not working elsewhere?
Ion Fletcher: In general terms, it is helpful that London has its London plan and its spatial development strategy. The London plan was also the first to acknowledge the important role of build-to-rent housing—housing developed and managed specifically for rental purposes—and was a pioneer in protecting logistics in industrial space, so it does have those positives.
The other side of the coin is that the London plan, in the view of our members, has become too long and too repetitive of policies that already exist either at a national level or at a local borough level. One of our members recently did some analysis and worked out that you could consolidate or eliminate roughly half the policies in the London plan in the latest iteration, so there is definitely scope for simplification. The lesson I would draw is that the new strategic authority should be focusing on the strategic stuff rather than getting too much into the development control side of things, which ultimately adds uncertainty and cost to the planning process.
Catriona Riddell: I totally agree. The national decision-making policies that will soon come forward will help to strip out a lot of what is in the London plan. The idea behind spatial development strategies—this new model—is that they will be very high-level, they will not be very long, and they certainly will not be the London plan model. There is still a difference in terms of governance and decision making in London, and there still will be after the Bill. The decision making for the spatial development strategy in London—the London plan—sits with the mayor. I think a two-thirds majority of the GLA is needed to overturn that, whereas under the strategic authorities it would be a majority vote in most cases. There is a difference with the mayors under the Bill, and other places will have less power.
One of the challenges for London and many other parts of the country is that the planning system has been overburdened with a lot of red tape and regulation that sits not within planning, but within building control or other regulatory systems. That has been one of the big blockages for the market in London. There is no doubt that that has had a knock-on impact right across the board. Stripping out some of the regulation that does not sit within planning, and making planning simpler, will help. I think the London plan has changed things significantly; in its 25 years, it has shown that it has actually been able to deliver. I do not think that it is the London plan that is the problem; it is the delivery end of things, which the mayor is facing at the moment. That is where the challenge is.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Catriona Riddell: I am a very strong supporter of the Bill’s “health in all policies” approach. Mayors and strategic authorities will have to demonstrate how they will improve health inequalities and others through everything they do. Many will know that the planning system is embedded in health; that is how it came about. We have been trying very hard to make sure that local plans and the new spatial development strategies address health. That is not just about infrastructure, but about healthy places generally.
As you know, it is a real challenge at the local level to plan for health infrastructure up front. Most of that will still be done at the local plan level, not the SDS level, but the SDS level will have to look at strategic infrastructure around health. If any major new health infrastructure is needed, that will have to be embedded into the SDS. As with all the work of strategic authorities, it is not just about a planning responsibility; the strategic authority will be working with the health authorities, and they will need to have a role in how the SDSs deal with health. The Liverpool city region is a great example of working with health authorities and others to embed health into the spatial development strategy that it is preparing at the moment, so it can be done.
It is much more difficult to find the answer for local infrastructure such as doctors’ surgeries and GPs. I know there are examples where land has been left aside for doctors’ surgeries, but GPs and others have not moved forward to make it happen. I guess there are more challenges in health infrastructure outside the planning system, but getting them at the table up front, in terms of in spatial development strategies and the flow-through to local plans, is absolutely the right thing.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Catriona Riddell: I was not talking about powers; I was talking about resources. I was talking about creating shared teams at the strategic level to support the local authorities individually. It is about sharing skills and having teams at the strategic level with the specialist skills that individual local planning authorities cannot access easily; it is not about taking powers away from local authorities.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Catriona Riddell: No, because you do not have the strategic authorities.
Lewis Cocking
But you could do what you have described without the Bill; you do not need a strategic authority for it. If local authorities want to group together and do that under the county model, they could.
Catriona Riddell: Yes, and I have been involved with several local authority groupings that have tried to do that. The challenge is that resources are tight, and individual local authorities want control over what they do. They find it really difficult to have that shared resource unless it has a separate footing or is part of a separate organisation.
It worked well in the old structural plan days when that resource sat within the county council—but the county council was a strategic planning authority and was funded to have these responsibilities. You need to have the funding for it, which is really difficult. I know from many experiences, including in Hertfordshire, that it is difficult to pool that resource without that structure. Having them sit within the strategic authorities is probably the right place. It protects that resource for the future as well.
The Chair
I am afraid that that brings us to the end of the time allotted for questions. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our witnesses.
Examination of Witnesses
Nick Plumb and Robbie Whittaker gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Nick Plumb, policy director at Power to Change, and Robbie Whittaker, a member of the Football Supporters’ Association national council. This panel, and our morning sitting, will finish no later than 11.44 am.
Vikki Slade
Q
Nick Plumb: At Power to Change, we think that the Bill’s provisions on community right to buy are a positive step forward. Power to Change has been calling for this for several years. To illustrate why the right is so needed, the key piece of data on the current regime on assets of community value and the community right to bid is that of every 1,000 assets that are listed as assets of community value, only 15 end up in community hands. The expansion of the definition of assets of community value to include economic as well as social benefit is a positive step, as is the introduction of a community right to buy as opposed to a community right to bid.
Some of the questions lie in the implementation. We think that there are potential challenges with this new right if you are asking councils to maintain a broader list of assets of community value and trying to get the new right to live up to the expectations that communities are rightly bringing forward. One thing that Power to Change has been calling for since the end of the community ownership fund is continued community ownership funding to support groups, particularly at the early stage at which groups might have a great idea for an asset but are not quite sure how to take it forward. A combination of revenue and capital funding is really important.
One of the lessons of the community ownership fund is that communities have a real ability to raise funds themselves. One of the great stories of the fund was that Government money leveraged lots of other investment, whether that was through private loans or by community share raising, where groups go out to the community to raise money from local members. Any future funding model for community ownership to sit alongside the community right to buy could be quite mixed. It could involve grant, loan and, importantly, revenue funding support and training. I know that there is mention of that in the Bill, and I am pleased to see that.
There is one final point to add, on the economic contribution of community-owned assets. Power to Change recently did some work with the 11,000 community businesses across England and found that they contribute roughly £1.5 billion in direct gross value added to the economy, which is equivalent to the solar sector, so they are important economic actors. Importantly, the economic contribution of community-owned assets sticks locally: we found that roughly 56p in every £1 circulates in the local economy, due to local supply chains, compared with roughly 40p for large private businesses. With the agenda around local growth, I see a successfully implemented community right to buy as a key driver of local growth outcomes.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Nick Plumb: I want to make a couple of points. It was a really interesting conversation this morning on neighbourhood governance from colleagues from parish councils and local government. Power to Change is a member of the We’re Right Here campaign, which has been campaigning for community power legislation such as some of the measures in this Bill. We are keen that the neighbourhood governance measures that are introduced through the Bill allow for local variation and for a whole range of different organisations that exist at a neighbourhood level to be a part of that neighbourhood governance arrangement. We think that one of the risks with the area committee model is that it is a prescriptive top-down model that says, “This is the way to do things,” rather than saying, “What exists already in a neighbourhood, and how do we build on that?”
One of the ideas that Power to Change has been working on and testing in place is a community covenant. We have been testing that so far in Market Drayton in Shropshire through a partnership of 20 local organisations—everyone from the local authority to community organisations to representatives from town and parish councils—on the idea of a family and neighbourhood hub. So far, the results from that work are really positive. There was some initial scepticism about a new way of working, but one of the council officers has fed back that the new approach is a real gift that has helped them to move much further and faster with their communities than they would have done if they were just doing things from the council down.
One of the calls from us through this legislation is to try not to be too prescriptive with neighbourhood governance but lean into a model that puts people on an equal footing and gives people an equal seat at the table. I will not spend too long on this, but my other point is that it is great that we have a piece of legislation with “community empowerment” in its title, and I think that community right to buy and neighbourhood governance, if done right, go some way. Power to Change and the We’re Right Here campaign would like to see community right to buy as one of several community rights. We have been calling for a community right to shape public services, which would entail involving the people who receive services from the state in the design, delivery and development of public services. That would build on provisions in the Localism Act, such as the right to challenge, and it would make that a much more expansive right.
We would also like to see a community right to control investment, which would involve certain bits of investment from central Government sitting at that neighbourhood level. Both of those rights really lean into some of the Government’s existing agenda. The plan for neighbourhoods is a real example of that. There are some questions still to be answered on what that looks like, but it could involve trusting neighbourhoods to take hold of money and think, “How do we improve our lot together?”
The right to shape public services is very in line with some of the test, learn and grow work that is happening in the Cabinet Office. We would see the community empowerment element of the Bill really living up to its name if it was the beginning of a set of community rights rather than the community right to buy tick and done.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Robbie Whittaker: Thank you, Minister. We are certainly very encouraged by the proposal to create a new designation of a sporting asset of community value. It builds on what we have traditionally had before. It is something that we have lobbied for because we think—as we would—that sporting institutions have a valuable role to play in local communities, particularly in promoting empowerment of the kind that Nick was talking about.
One of the interesting benefits of this proposal is that in the last year, as you will all know, we have created an independent regulator for football, which is going to bring profound change for a relatively small number of clubs—only 116 clubs at the very top of the English pyramid. The proposal in the Bill potentially attracts a far larger cohort of clubs further down the pyramid, which are not necessarily as commercially attractive to buyers from outside the country. Therefore, the right to buy is actually a realistic aspiration that some of those communities can have.
We are increasingly seeing valuations of football clubs at the top end of the pyramid that take them beyond the reach of local community or fan groups. But that is not the case lower down. The extent to which you can create an opportunity here for local communities and people who follow relatively small clubs to feel that it is a pathway that they can go down and sustain is very welcome.
I echo what Nick said about community ownership funding, or some equivalent thereof; the existence of that fund played a large part in the creation of the phoenix club at Bury. You may remember that Bury AFC failed spectacularly in 2019, and has caused a lot of angst within the football community ever since. The existence of that fund was quite crucial to enabling a new club to emerge in Bury that was able to play at the ground that had been used for around about a century.
The Chair
Your answer, Mr Whittaker, made me consider whether I should declare that I am an AFC Wimbledon season ticket holder and a member of the Dons Trust.
Manuela Perteghella
Q
Robbie Whittaker: That is a difficult question to answer, because as you go down the size scale of sports clubs, the extent to which they are able to mobilise to take advantage of opportunities is different. However, where people in the local area can do that, there is no reason why the legislation should not be flexible in allowing it to happen. I do think that it is a horses-for-courses thing. One of the things that I have learned through my involvement with the FSA is that no two areas or clubs are alike, and no two sets of local circumstances are necessarily alike. It is an area where the legislation should probably give flexibility without mandating any particular approach.
Maya Ellis
Q
Nick Plumb: That is a really good question, thank you. I have a couple of points on this. To make clear our starting point, I think we are at a point where there is real distrust in democratic institutions, and a democratic deficit, which I heard other witnesses speak about this morning. We need a dynamic view of accountability—one that, yes, works with existing democratic structures, whether that is at the local authority or parish council level, but also recognises that there are lots of different ways in which people exercise their agency at a neighbourhood level. Often, that might be participation in local groups, charities or community organisations. We did some polling recently that looked at neighbourhood governance options, which found that roughly 57% of people are supportive of councils working with existing community organisations. That drops to 19% when we are talking about new democratic institutions such as parish councils. There is something to think about when it comes to the current state of people’s trust in institutions and how we build on what is already there.
The other side of the accountability question is recognising that there needs to be some oversight of what this neighbourhood governance looks like. One of the things that Power to Change, the We’re Right Here campaign and the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods have been calling for is an independent commissioner for community power. That would exist to recognise challenges from the community around neighbourhood governance and whether it was working well, responding to people’s queries about whether neighbourhood governance models such as community covenants were being introduced. It would also recognise that if those things were not working well, an independent commissioner could step in and say, “This is not working,” and find a different way. For us, it is about that diversity and recognising that parish councils are great in lots of places, but there is only 40% coverage at the moment across the population of England. In some places, the roll-out of new parishes might be the right thing to do; in others, it will not, so it is about how we work with the messiness of neighbourhood institutions.
The Chair
If there are no further questions from Members, I thank the witnesses for their evidence. That brings us to the end of the morning session. The Committee will meet again at 2 pm in Committee Room 8, where we are now, to continue taking oral evidence.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.—(Deirdre Costigan.)
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Second sitting)
Tuesday 16th September 2025
(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
Public Bill CommitteesEnglish Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 16 September 2025 - (16 Sep 2025)
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Tracy Brabin, chair of UK Mayors and Mayor of West Yorkshire; Lord Houchen, Metro Mayor of the Tees Valley; and Donna Jones, Hampshire police and crime commissioner and mayoral candidate. We have until 2.40 pm for this panel.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Q
Tracy Brabin: Thank you very much for inviting me to give evidence. It is a real pleasure to be here. I am very excited about the way that mayors can help you as you take the Bill through Parliament. When I was a Member of Parliament, I sat on Bill Committees going through Bills line by line, as you are. It is great that we can have our voices heard.
The opportunities for the Bill are exceptional. It gives us a statutory footing for mayoral strategic authorities and clarity around the framework for devolution. We have seen from the leadership of the Government that devolution by default is the theme. One challenge when we have not had clarity is that some Departments have bought into that memo and some have not. The Bill gives us the statutory framework so that mayors who are new and are coming on to devolution understand the three tiers.
The Bill gives us that great opportunity for clarity, but also elements such as the right to request. You will know that a number of established mayors and mayoral strategic authorities across the country are further along than newer mayoral strategic authorities, have certain powers and are already delivering faster growth than the rest of the country. The Bill gives them the opportunity to request further powers, freedoms and flexibilities. For example, as UK Mayors, we have a consensus on 16-to-19 skills, on careers, and on a visitor levy that would give us the opportunity to have an income stream—£20 million for London and potentially £1 million to £2 million for my own region—that we could reinvest in our regions.
The challenges are always about potentially not being brave enough and pulling back from devolution. We have a country that is so centralised. If we continue to do what we have always done we will get the same results. I think this is a revolution of devolution, and I am really pleased to see the enthusiasm and determination of so many Ministers and Members of Parliament to get it over the line.
We are also here to help you go further. This is only part of the process. As we say among the mayors, this Bill is the floor, not the ceiling; it will be iterative as we go forward over the years. We are here to support your thinking and help with understanding.
Donna Jones: Thank you very much for the question. I have only got positive things to say. This was started by the previous Government and has been continued with gusto by the Labour Government, and I am very grateful for it and welcome it. When the new mayoral combined authority in my area, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight—two counties; 2.2 million people—is created in May next year, it will be one of the largest in the country straightaway.
We should have had a devolution deal 10 years ago. I remember negotiating, when I was the leader of a city council, with Greg Clark, the then Secretary of State. We had the deal on the table from the Treasury and it covered about 50% of the geographical area that I currently represent as police and crime commissioner. We lost out. The Secretary of State was shuffled into another Department and it fell by the wayside. That was a great pity, particularly for the health inequalities that we have across my sub-region of the country, and for the businesses that I believe have lost out on inward investment and opportunity—the opportunity cost really is the biggest thing. When you look at the most recent pot of money that the Government announced, in March this year, the roads infrastructure fund— £15.7 billion—I have calculated that my area probably would have got over £2 billion of that money for roads, and we desperately need that.
We need a seat around the table that Tracy is chairing and at the Council of Nations and Regions meeting as well. We need a mayor to be championing and spearheading my sub-region. The final positive thing for me is the opportunity in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, two of the largest parts of the south-east of England. Over the last decade, on average, our gross value added has been about £800 per head under that of the rest of the south-east. We have opportunity, but we do need some investment and we need someone to be spearheading.
I do not really want to be negative, but I am going to identify one challenge. I think it will dissipate over time, but to start with, for whoever becomes the mayor of Hampshire and the Solent, it is going to be a bit of a sales job, because the public are saying, “It’s another layer of government.” On the whole, there is a lot of misunderstanding around the opportunity that is coming. However, over time, when you are able to demonstrate the programmes you have delivered, the investment you can secure and the positive things that can come out of working closer with the Government, I think the public will very quickly come around to the fact that they really do desperately need a mayor for Hampshire and the Solent.
Ben Houchen: I will pick out a few points. First, to directly answer the question, I think the planning powers coming through the Bill are going to be hugely helpful. Giving mayors a strategic role in that, including in setting the spatial framework—I appreciate that we used to have spatial frameworks and we are coming full circle back to them—and having democratic oversight invested in a single individual, or what people see as a single individual, anyway, is really important. Obviously, we will have to get the permission of the majority of the councils within the combined authority area, but having that focal point is really important.
The drawback of the planning powers is that they are going to be very slow to arrive. The current indication from the Department is that by the time the legislation has passed and all of statutory instruments have gone through, we will not get the powers until maybe July, potentially September, next year. That is a long time to wait for powers that I think we can all agree are going to help with our growth and progress as a country.
The other thing that is still to be clarified is how we will be able to exercise those powers. There is still some grey around what types of planning permissions we will be able to instigate ourselves, through mayoral development orders, and what we will be able to do to call in. In effect, we are getting similar powers to the Mayor of London, but at what threshold? In my area, Teesside, being able to call in maybe 10, 20 or 30 houses would be significant to drive through development and growth, but we are not sure whether the threshold is going to be set at 20 or 30 houses or at 100, 200 or 300 houses. Some clarity on that is going to be really helpful. The reason we need the clarity is that we are all in the process of having to set up the teams within the organisations, and recruit the planners and the experts. That really needs to start now, and without that clarity it is quite difficult to take that step forward. But planning is substantially the best power within the Bill to date.
I personally think—as a mayor, I would say this; I am sure Tracy would agree with me—that more mayoral powers give us directly elected mayors more democratic oversight and accountability with the public. The other side of that coin is that there is a rebalancing of powers at the combined authority, slightly away from the collective of the councils that we have in our combined authority cabinet, and towards investing direct powers in mayors. I absolutely do come down on that side, not just because I am mayor, but because there is a way in which you can make quicker progress by investing more mayoral powers, whether in the establishment of development corporations, in some of the planning powers or in various other things in the Bill. We saw it a little bit at the end of the previous Government, but we are seeing with this Government an acceleration of those powers. Again, it really depends which side of the fence you sit on whether that is a positive or a negative.
Single pot has been parroted as a huge success. I think it is a good success and a good step forward, but I am mindful that we should not over-celebrate something that is not the success that it is sometimes portrayed to be. There are still a lot of restrictions on how you can move the money around. Sometimes it is communicated as, “We’ll have a pot of money and it will be for us to decide how to move those pots of money around.” Actually, within the rules, there is a percentage of money that can be moved from one pot to another. Even within that, sometimes, there are so-called retained projects; in particular, for example, with transport money, the Department for Transport keeps its claws in by saying, “Okay, it’s your money, but we’re going to keep oversight of this project,” and if it is not happy, in effect it has a veto on taking it to the next stage.
It is a good step, but it feels, throughout the Bill, that we have taken half a step from where we want to be. That is not a criticism—the Government have done really well in getting the Bill to where it is. This goes to the point about the right to request. Nobody wants to have taken the strategic decision about what devolution should be, so the Bill is a bit of a halfway house to move devolution on a bit. I think we need, as a collective, and as a UK Government, to decide on the future destination of devolution. The Government have only been allowed to get to where they are because that question has not been answered and, to be frank, it was not answered for three or four years under the previous Government either.
The Bill is a good step forward, but there are lots of things to be cautious about. I make those points because if we want to go as quickly as the Government have said—and I completely agree with their rhetoric around growth—it could have gone a little bit further, a little bit more quickly.
Tracy Brabin: Not every mayor has the potential for the integrated settlement at the speed at which they feel they are ready. That is a challenge. For Members’ understanding, the organisation is funded from top-slicing of projects, so there is a real desire from mayors to have dedicated funding to run the organisation—for example, your legal or HR departments. Everything is top-sliced from projects. That is not necessarily the most sustainable or strategic way to fund an organisation.
David Simmonds
Q
The Chair
Pithy answers, please.
Tracy Brabin: The mayoral precept is democratically held by the mayor for the public. It would be for transport projects; it would be allocated to something specific. For example, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, uses it for young people’s travel. The Bill widens the opportunity to use the precept, but none of the public would be happy if you were paying off debts. It is fundamentally for betterment of and investment in communities, in the way that the police and crime commissioner precept is held to deliver better outcomes, whether that is more police community support officers on the street or initiatives around violence against women and girls. It is democratically held by the mayor. We have not introduced it as yet in West Yorkshire, but others have.
Donna Jones: I will be very brief because I am conscious that there are lots of Members on the Committee. The referendum limit is the prohibitor. Essentially, a mayor, like a police and crime commissioner and a council, can precept to the level that they want, but you have to have a referendum if you are going over that limit. Although the Government are right to want some checks and balances, so that you do not get areas that are really out of kilter with others, a referendum is prohibitive: it becomes very political, and it is very costly to do. Therefore, I think there should be a simpler mechanism if a mayor wants to precept above the Secretary of State’s agreed level. Perhaps that could be with written consent from the Secretary of State, as opposed to a referendum.
Ben Houchen: I am not a fan of mayoral precepts generally. I have not raised one, and have promised ever since I was elected not to raise one. Some transparency could be brought to the legislation. You have mayoral precepts, you have transport levies, and there is lobbying from a number of mayors around tourism taxes and so on. From a constituent point of view, forgetting the rights and wrongs of it, all that could be consolidated into a single precept, rather than having a separate transport levy, which can be quite opaque, particularly where you have new combined authorities. Some of those taxations are merged into combined authorities, and who has actually raised the levy can be quite lost. It ultimately all comes into the combined authority once it is established, but the Committee could take away the question of how that could be consolidated to streamline the precept. From the public’s point of view, the mayor has the ability to raise a mayoral precept; there is no reason to have a transport levy as well. For transparency’s sake, that should be clarified as a single levy, if you are going to have one.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
Q
Tracy Brabin: I will be pithy—and congratulations on your role, by the way; I know that we have a champion by our side. What is important is the way that we can collectively come to a consensus on the Mayoral Council and say, “The mayors are agreed that this is the next step,” and then the Government have to explain why we cannot have it. There is also an opportunity for individual mayors to have something of value that relates to them and their region specifically. The key to that, Minister, is surely for it to be as straightforward and efficient as possible, rather than hoops and processes.
As mayors, one of the things that we are discussing at the moment is taxi licensing. Just to give you the numbers, 49% of private hires operating in Greater Manchester are licensed by authorities outside of the 10 local authorities. We know, from Baroness Casey’s work about violence against women and girls, how that is a weakness in the system when it comes to the safety of young women. As mayors, we are looking to the council to help us to understand how we can do that more efficiently, but that may be something that affects only some urban metro mayors and not others. It is about how we can collectively ask, which is a really fast-track process, but then there will be individual conversations.
Donna Jones: I really welcome the right to request. Following on from what Tracy just said about mayors and their unique geographical areas, in my patch, I—or whoever is successful next year—will have the largest island, aside from Ireland itself, of course, that we represent in part of England: the Isle of Wight. That piece of water creates a lot of problems for the Isle of Wight in terms of the supply chain and the skills market; things are a lot more expensive on the Isle of Wight.
One of the things that I am really pleased about is that the Government are looking, through the Bill to establish Great British Railways, which is coming forward, to give mayors greater powers around the planning, performance, improvement and project management of rail networks in their areas. I argue that that should be extended to ferries, particularly for my area. The Isle of Wight has three main transporters: Wightlink and Red Funnel are the two car and foot passenger ferries, and Hovertravel is a hovercraft that runs until 6.30 pm every day. For a lot of people who live on the island, it is cost prohibitive to travel off it and back. If it is not included in Committee or picked up by you, Minister, I will be requesting the right to have a regulator power over the ferry companies that operate across the Solent, because of course they need Crown permission to operate across that piece of water.
Following on from Tracy’s point about the uniqueness of certain geographical areas, I think that there are other good things, such as lane rental approval. I love the idea of that. Utility companies are given permission by the highway authority to dig up the road, and it goes on and on. That has an effect on transport, pollution and people’s travel to work time, and it has a knock-on effect on economic growth in the area, putting people off travelling to or from work or taking up jobs. We have to look at that. Giving mayors the ability to effectively tax or fine companies every day they go over the set period of two weeks, or however long it would be, is absolutely key. I could go on—there are some brilliant things in here—but I welcome what you are trying to achieve.
Ben Houchen: The right to request is an interesting one. There is a bit of an academic argument about the Government wanting to standardise mayoral powers so they are same across the board, but then the right to request, if done correctly, would allow for differentiation. There is an issue about whether we are looking for a standard model or whether we want more of a patchwork. That is for members of the Committee to think about, but it is important: at the nth degree, if you have differentiation through the right to request, you could have areas with hugely different powers. That is going to create political problems, with people feeling like one area has more control than another.
Administration from a central Government point of view is also difficult. Irrespective of devolution, there is always a clawback into central Government. That is probably right, rather than giving us carte blanche over everything, but it goes back to the strategic question about what you want to happen. The ultimate right to request—this is where you are going to have proper devolution that allows for earned autonomy over time—is the relationship between combined authorities, the Department and the Treasury. The key question that needs to be answered is how you get the combined authority to have an accountable officer within the organisation. Where I think combined authorities should get to is being treated as geographical Departments. We should be treated in the same way as a Department, bidding into Budgets and spending reviews, with our full, eclectic mix—from housing to transport and everything in between—and we should be accountabledirectly to the Treasury.
The only thing holding that up is the internal civil service mechanism of having an accountable officer outside Whitehall. That sounds flippant, but it is a difficult thing for the civil service to deal with; once you deal with that, it negates the need for a right to request or anything else, because over the years organisations will mature with that direct relationship with the Treasury.
It also gets into some key niggles that I know other mayors care about: “Why do you therefore need organisations like Homes England?”. If you get into the right to request, you do not need them. At the minute we are already doing half of what Homes England does. The Government have again gone into this halfway house of strategic partnerships, instead of taking the bold leap they should have taken: where you have mayors, you do not need Homes England, so make them the financially accountable body and ensure there are ties back in to central Government for oversight and value for money. Something more strategic could be done, but for me it goes back to the point that the Government did not want to address the strategic question of where devolution is going over the next five or 10 years.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
Q
Tracy Brabin: Thank you for that question; I know your mayor has raised that with me. The strategic overview is really helpful, because some councils might have different processes. Uniformity across mayoral strategic authorities can only be helpful. I would say that the majority of mayors feel that that is a solution to some of the problem, where we have seen cowboys from way outside people’s patches, not necessarily with the same expectations on their vehicles or safety and so on, and we do not know who they are. It is important to have that clarity for the safety of the public.
Sam Carling
Q
Tracy Brabin: I suppose the same question could be asked of the police and crime commissioner. The deputy mayor for policing and crime, Alison Lowe, is not directly elected by the public; she is accountable to me. I am the one directly elected, and we hold the chief constable to account. That is democracy. The outcomes from that individual will reflect on the impact that the mayor is having, good or bad, so that is about public scrutiny as well.
It is also helpful, if you are a strategic or combined authority, to have a good mix of partners. In West Yorkshire, we have three opposition members, so we are open to scrutiny and to challenge; that is where you can get the clear water of what is going on.
Donna Jones: On licensing and the taxi point, when I was leader of Portsmouth city council 10 years ago, we were one of the areas where Uber exploded first. We were a growth area for it on the south coast, but I think its registered office and its licensing for drivers was up in Wolverhampton or somewhere, so it was miles away and had no bearing on what I was trying to deliver in Portsmouth, in terms of signage on taxis and the uniformity we were trying to achieve.
On safety, and the point Tracy made about what we have been calling for as police and crime commissioners, I was calling three years ago for CCTV to be mandatory in taxis. What you could do, through Parliament, is to mandate that through separate taxi licensing regulation and law. Strategic authorities could play a part, if the licensing authorities remain, like local planning authorities, at the lowest level with the unitary authorities—as it will be after local government reorganisation. The strategic authorities could then have the right to call in or set some strategic licensing powers that the licensing authorities beneath them have to implement. That could be a way to address it.
Ben Houchen: On the commissioner point, I echo what Tracy says: ultimately, the democratic power of that is vested in the mayor. It is for the mayor to appoint, or not. That goes further than just commissioners, with the changes in the Bill around the establishment of mayoral development corporations, the appointment to the boards of those and the fact they can, if they choose, take planning powers, compulsory purchase order powers and so on. You are in effect appointing a board that the mayor appoints—nobody else appoints it; it does not have to be democratically elected, with the exception that there has to be a councillor from the authority where that development corporation is established. We have had some experience of that over the last couple of years in Teesside, as I am sure you are aware.
Ultimately, if you are not happy with that, or with the strategic direction that the mayor is setting for the board to follow, while individuals are not necessarily directly elected, the mayor is accountable. Therefore, if people are not happy with the commissioner, that can be shown through the ballot box at a mayoral election. Whether it is the night tsar or someone else—I apologise; I forget the one you said was appointed in Peterborough—ultimately, it is for the public to decide whether they are happy with how the mayor conducts matters and uses the powers given to them via the Government and Parliament.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
Q
Welcome back, Mayor Brabin; I wanted to ask about some of the evidence we heard earlier from the District Councils’ Network. There was a concern that the legislation could undermine some of the traditional links between the public and their parish and town councils. I will ask for a brief answer, because I am aware that there are other Members who want to ask questions. For the two existing mayors, can you give an example of how you have managed to encapsulate the views of town and parish councils to help to guide you through your mayoral term, and whether there are any lessons that could be learned? Donna, have you started to think about how you will encapsulate that and make sure that people are listened to on a ground level politically?
Tracy Brabin: We have not been subject to much of that larger reorganisation, but we are determined to listen to the voices of others, whether through mayor’s question time, going out to the public, where councillors and individuals can ask any question, or “Message the Mayor” on the BBC, where anybody can ring in and ask any question. That also includes working with our voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, whether that is on the mayor’s cost of living fund, or working with smaller organisations on the impact in their communities, towns and villages. I would hope there would be a consensus in West Yorkshire that people felt heard.
I know for a lot of people there will be a sense that there is potentially a power grab and powers are going in the wrong direction. I absolutely believe that this is localism in its pure sense, because these people are elected by the public—275,000 people voted for a Labour mayor in West Yorkshire. You have that mandate. We have skin in the game. We know our communities, businesses, further education colleges, universities, innovators and entrepreneurs. We can definitely deliver for villages, towns and cities in our patch.
Ben Houchen: The honest answer is that, with the development of combined authorities and regional mayors, and a lot of reorganisation going on at county council level, as well as lots of unitaries—Teesside was one of the first unitary areas, many years ago—there are a lot of people looking over their shoulders at what reorganisation might mean. I say this as a previous town councillor and a former unitary councillor: I am not hugely convinced of town and parish council involvement at a regional level. There is a more fundamental question that should be asked around the modern need for town and parish councils in their current form. That is obviously well above my pay grade, and I am sure you will be considering that at some point in the future. It is not something I personally foresee getting much traction or involvement at a combined authority level.
Paul Holmes
I thought you might say that—thank you.
Donna Jones: I have represented my two counties, with 2.2 million people, for four and a bit years now. It is tough, because I have two large geographical counties; it would take me three and a half hours to travel from north to south of my patch, and I know colleagues have the same issue. If you are doing your job well and you are delivering, the press—the media, radio and TV—is your best friend. The power of being able to work with the press to get out the good news of what you are doing is very impactful. For mayors who have police under them, if the police are delivering and helping, that is another way of getting messaging out there.
On parish and town councils, I think that in my area, the rub will come with local government reorganisation, which thankfully is a year or two behind devolution—or planned to be one year behind it. I am trying to very clearly separate the two: this is about spending and more power to our elbow in Hampshire and the Solent, and that is about how we save money through local government reorganisation.
If I was still a unitary authority leader, facing the prospect of moving from 15 councils in my area to perhaps four or five, I would be consulting on parish and town councils, if we did not have them in the area that I represented. When you have four very large unitary authorities across a county such as Hampshire, which has 1.8 million people, the nucleus of your council becomes much further away from the village or town that you live in. Therefore, from a democratic perspective, getting things at that lower level to give real buy-in will be key.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Q
How do you understand those different areas? In my area, Wessex, there will be four counties, with two different police authorities and two different fire authorities, and the authority itself. It will all have to line up eventually. I am really concerned about how you can improve services for your residents, because that is what this is all about. It feels very remote when services such as police and fire might be very different in the New Forest compared with the centre of Portsmouth, the North York Moors or one of the cities.
Tracy Brabin: If I could just make the case for mayors and police and crime commissioners, we have had so many amazing opportunities because of those two responsibilities—the teaming and ladling of responsibilities and moneys, and being able to have a strategic police and crime plan. Crime does not just come from bad people; it comes from poor housing, a lack of skills and opportunity, and a lack of transport to get to jobs and training. The ability to bring together those responsibilities in a Venn diagram gives us really great outcomes.
One example is using money from the apprenticeship levy share scheme that would have gone back to Whitehall. We have kept some of that money in the region, including £1 million from Morrisons, to train up 15 PCSOs to go on my bus network and in bus stations, so that we can target my safety of women and girls plan. That opportunity is a gift. I know that the Mayor of South Yorkshire called an early election in order to get those powers, because he saw the opportunity. I also know that Kim McGuinness, who has been a PCC and is now a mayor, is desperate for PCC responsibilities, because she knows the benefit.
To your point, the challenge is coterminosity. I know that the previous Home Secretary was very focused on trying to identify how to get not just savings, but efficiencies, in coterminosity. Bringing fire into that makes a fair bit of sense. In West Yorkshire, we already have a really decent relationship between fire and police, so I am not sure whether having additional powers would make a substantive difference, but I will say to the Committee that mayors need to be in local resilience forums. Following the horrendous attack in Southport, the public, the Government and the press went to the mayor, but the mayor is not privy to all the information in the first instance. The resilience piece is really important, and I know the Bill is going to address that.
The Chair
Donna Jones, we have five minutes left for this panel.
Donna Jones: I will be very brief. While I was effectively advocating for my own job to go, I support what Tracy is saying, because it is about representing the public as best we can and spending taxpayers’ money wisely.
I will give you an example of why there is support for police and crime powers, as well as fire, going into a mayor’s office. One of the biggest frustrations that I have had as a police and crime commissioner has been the lack of ability to convene. I can convene with good will, so I can ask people and bring them together, but I get all different levels from different councils. Sometimes I get the director of children’s services or the director of adult social care coming to my strategic violence reduction meetings; sometimes I get the community safety manager.
Community safety partnerships are hit and miss in a lot of councils—you will know that from your patch. Some district councils see the benefit in community safety, and they still have their community wardens; in others, the emergency planning manager is doubling up as the CSP manager. PCCs have historically paid money towards the CSP manager and the functions that they are delivering, knowing that really, they are just propping up the council’s emergency planning management team, and there is not really a CSP at all. It comes together when, sadly, a baby has died or there is a need to convene a domestic homicide review. That still sits at the district council level, which is an oddity to me.
A whole load of things are aggravating factors. On the serious violence duty, for example, my requirement is to make sure that everyone who has a duty under that is fulfilling it, but I do not have a direct duty myself. I have to make sure that all the councils are doing what they need to do. Each year, I am given a pot of money from the Home Office to do the strategic needs assessment, and then I co-ordinate that and pass it back to the Home Office, on behalf of prisons, probation, the police and all my councils. Some councils turn up and play a part in that; some do not.
Giving the mayor the public safety commissioner role, so that what the councils are currently doing can be pulled through the mayor, and so that the mayor has the right and ability to convene and make sure that people are working and fulfilling their duty to collaborate, will be a game changer. It will make communities safer. However, police moneys are ringfenced, while fire money is not—that is a matter for you.
In relation to local resilience forums, I completely agree. Baroness Jane Scott, who was Minister in the then Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, did a pilot about having sub-committees sitting under the main LRF executive, which is politically led, to brief MPs and council leaders on the highest risks that the council chief execs are working on with all the statutory agencies. We were not one of the selected areas, but we have decided to go ahead and set one up in my area and, as the police and crime commissioner, I am currently chairing it.
Ben Houchen: There has been a huge Government push, in recent months, to try to get the co-ordination and coterminous boundaries to match, because this Government have definitely doubled down on the idea that mayors should be both police and crime commissioners and in charge of the fire authority.
It probably does not surprise many people in this room that I am one of the exceptions among pretty much all the mayors that are currently elected. Again, for me, it comes back to the strategic point. It is not particularly about the police; it is about the role of the mayor and the role of the combined authority. I personally believe—and I would say this, would I not?—that one of the reasons many of the combined authorities have been so successful is because we have a very narrow remit, which is largely economic regeneration, investment and job creation. That obviously links in to things such as transport and skills, and there is therefore a logical argument to take that further to health, policing and fire and so on.
I would go a different way. If it were me—as I have said, it is not me and it will not be me—I would not give us such broad powers. I would not give me police or fire. What I would give me is more powers over the things I already have a remit for. I would go deeper, rather than broader.
I would therefore try to build into a Bill the need and requirement for better consultation and co-ordination with other democratically elected leaders. The LRF is a perfect example of better co-ordination. The mayor should be on the local resilience forum—that is just a miss, because we are brand new. It does not mean that we have to take over the local resilience forum and be in charge of it all; I think the concept goes beyond that. Obviously, I would say that, as a small-state Conservative, because the more powers you give us, the broader, the more bureaucratic and the less effective we become. Keeping us narrow, but giving us more powers in relation to what we have control over, rather than just broadening it out, will give you better outcomes from us. As I say, I know that I am the exception to the rule in that opinion.
Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)
Q
Tracy Brabin: I am the Mayor of West Yorkshire because there was not a one Yorkshire, so I would say that it is for local people to decide.
Donna Jones: The Government have made a commitment to have all of England in a devolved deal by 2029. If the Government want to deliver on that mandate, which they ran on in the general election, I think that they have no choice but to intervene.
Ben Houchen: I think we are now at a stage where Government need to force it.
The Chair
I am afraid that that brings us to the end of the time allotted. On behalf of the Committee, I thank all our witnesses for coming and answering the questions. We now move on to our next panel.
Examination of Witnesses
Andrew Goodacre and Allen Simpson gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Andrew Goodacre, chief executive officer of the British Independent Retailers Association, and Allen Simpson, deputy chief executive of UKHospitality. For this panel we have until 3.10 pm.
Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)
Q
Andrew Goodacre: Looking at it from a wider view, we are largely supportive of devolution and what is in the White Paper. If I put the retail lens on it, though, especially independent retail, which are the businesses that we represent, they will always ask, “What is in it for us?” There is a fear among those businesses that if you look at the national growth strategy, neither retail nor hospitality really feature in there as one of the eight key areas for investment and growth. I have not seen all the local growth plans. I have looked at the north-east and the west midlands one—that is where we are based—and largely those growth plans are aligned to the national growth areas. I understand that: the mayors, the areas and the regions want to create jobs that are skilled and well paid, and that grow the local economy by focusing on industries of growth.
You could argue that retail, and high street retail especially, has seen itself decline over the years as customer behaviour has changed, so I understand where the direction is, but there has to be a fear. If I was a shop owner now looking out, I would be saying, “Okay, I hear where you’re going to spend money. How does that work for me? How does that make a difference for me in my high street in Coleshill in the west midlands, near where I live?”—or in Solihull, or anywhere else in the UK that they might be?
If you look at the north-east plan, I do not see high streets mentioned once—I have only scan read it; someone may be able to point me in the right direction—and in the west midlands plan, I see priority high streets mentioned. Priority high streets are where they are planning to invest and create jobs, so they recognise the need to invest in high streets in the areas where they are creating jobs. I am not sure where that leaves the others. If you look at it purely from a retail point of view, there has to be a fear that the focus on high-tech, highly skilled jobs and on creating in the local economy will create pockets of success, but it will also create pockets of neglect as well, if we are not careful.
Allen Simpson: I agree with that. The element of a local growth plan that I think is really positive is the word “growth”. Quite often, when we ask local communities what they want, we are talking to them about whether they do or do not want housing, but encouraging local communities to think about what sort of growth they want is really valuable.
I think you are right about the tendency that exists. Often, if you ask local political leaders what sort of growth they want, they will start talking about wanting to be a fintech hub. In an old life, when I was at a devolved organisation that used London mayoral money to drive economic development, I quite often used to get asked by people around the country how they could create a fintech hub in Devon, Dorset or wherever. I used to say, “You’re probably not going to. You’re likely not going to succeed, but there are industries that you can develop.” That might have been agritech, agricultural tourism or food supply chains, depending on where they were in the country.
Your point about encouraging local communities to think about the role of hospitality and retail in driving quite visible growth is really powerful. There is something about the distribution of the value of growth that we would encourage local communities to consider. I happen to know your patch quite well—I am from Maidstone, so it is a world I know. If you look at the areas around the Kent coast, for example, which have done well over the last few years, the characteristic of the growth strategy has been to use hospitality, leisure and experience as a way of driving other forms of growth. Take Folkestone, for example, and the work around the Harbour Arm there, or Margate, or 20 years ago, Whitstable. With growth strategies that, first, ask how you make a place liveable and attractive, you find that you crowd in other forms of growth, which may be within the eight industrial sectors.
I am very in favour of local growth plans, because they help to encourage local communities to ask what sort of growth they want and to be pro it. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and if you ask people what sort of growth they want, you get an answer about what growth they want. If you ask people what other sorts of development they want, often you get an anti-development answer.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
Q
Andrew Goodacre: I am really lucky in the role that I do. I get to visit places around the country. I have become involved with initiatives. Recently, there was an initiative from Visa, which sponsored the “Let’s Celebrate Towns” awards. I was judge for one section of the awards, which was about high streets that had been regenerated. Local areas had to put themselves forward, and we considered elements of the regeneration—partly digital, and partly how they have integrated transformation into their world and understood their target market. I have visited three of those places since in the last two months.
In fact, last month, I was in a place called Oakengates in Shropshire, near Telford. I visited Enniskillen in Northern Ireland, and I visited New Malden, a suburb in south London. Those are three different areas—three different socioeconomic places with different background foundations. What they all have in common is local pride, local involvement and local people making decisions. Not all of them are councillors or politicians, or sit on a local authority. New Malden was about a focus group looking at ways they could improve their status, being between Wimbledon and Richmond—often the forgotten part. They have created a fantastic cultural experience, because they have a large Korean population that is integrated very well into it.
If you go to Oakengates, it has a very simple local high street. It has a huge retail park near it, but it works well. The local council and local people work well with the local authority, and they receive funding. It has free car parking as a policy—no wonder there is a 94% occupancy rate on the high street against an average of 86%. Enniskillen has a business improvement district, which is funded by rate payers, although it is slightly different in Northern Ireland. Again, local people are proud of their high street. When I walked up and down, I saw only one empty unit.
It is about local people with pride in their area who really understand what they are trying to achieve. Each one has a different mission. New Malden wants to become a food centre and a tourist attraction in that respect. Enniskillen wants to build on the fact that it is the only island town in Northern Ireland and is worth visiting; it has so many fantastic local features. Oakengates wants to be a local place for local people, and not forgotten about despite the huge retail park next to it.
I see plenty examples of local people, if they are given a chance and the right involvement and engagement, being able to make the right decisions for their areas, because they really understand what they need. Sometimes they need help and guidance, and it is not always perfect. I am sure that if I really thought about it, I could think of some bad examples, but just recently I have had the privilege of seeing three where it works.
Allen Simpson: Great examples. I mentioned Folkestone as an example of somewhere that has regenerated incredibly strongly. That is, to some degree, non-replicable because one thing that has driven Folkestone’s success is a wealthy local man who has ploughed a lot of his personal wealth into regenerating his community—largely, from what I can see, for social purposes. Bootle is an interesting case study of a specific national Government grant being used locally to drive high street regeneration, with the intention of bringing in other sorts of business behind it. That has been quite successful. There is another example up in Aberdeen around the dock area, where a mixture of local businesses and—I think I am right in saying—council grants have reduced the cost of access.
A universal trend seems to be peppercorn renting, to the extent that an ex-industrial, brownfield site will be brought online. This was true in Peckham when the cocktail bar, Frank’s, opened above the Peckhamplex. I was young at the time, so it was 15 or 20 years ago. Low rents have two benefits. First, they allow businesses to take a risk on opening in an area where it is unclear whether there is live spend available to them. Secondly, those opportunities are open to local people. That is an important point, because the wealth generated tends to be returned to the community in quite a powerful way. I come back to the point that if you can get that right—and there are lots of examples of where it has been less successful—you get other sorts of economic activity crowding in. If it goes well, you have to manage questions of gentrification and how you keep the character of the local area, but that is a second-order concern for a lot of areas.
The Chair
Can I just ask you to keep your answers fairly short? We have two very important questioners coming up. I call the Minister.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
The Chair
Before you answer, can I ask you to direct your answers to the speaker or the Chair, rather than to each other?
Andrew Goodacre: Running a high street business, whether it be retail or whatever else, is expensive, and the costs are going up all the time. When you talk to those business owners, they will tell you that the three biggest chunks are labour, business rates and rent. If your rent is only ever going to go up because the lease stipulates it and there is no negotiation around that, irrespective of what the economic climate might be or what has happened in the local area to perhaps take footfall away to a different part of town, your business is left with ever-increasing costs and no power to change it. That just does not seem right.
If there is pain because of a change in the area, the landlord, the property owner, has to feel some of that as well. At the moment it is only ever faced by the commercial tenant who has a difficult decision to make: either they go with the higher rent in the hope that they can compensate for it or they leave the business. They should not be faced with that choice, in fairness. These are hardworking businesses. People have probably been running those businesses for many years. There needs to be a more sensible, mature conversation taking place between landlords and commercial tenants. I think it does happen; I think there are good examples of it. But if we leave it to best practice, if we leave it to the industry and good actors dominating, we will be waiting another 20 years and sat here moaning about upward-only rents, so we do need to remove it.
Allen Simpson: Two quick points on rent reviews. The first thing is that upward-only rent reviews also drive up business rates because of the link between rateable values and rents. So the Government’s intention to reduce business rates expenses for businesses relies on addressing upward-only rent reviews. They do bake in inflation in the way that you say. There is an A/B test here, which is that the pubs code, of course, banned them some years ago. That has increased the amount of time that the average pub tenant stays on site. It has not led, that I can see, to any other negative outcomes, so there is evidence that it does actually increase tenancy rates.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Andrew Goodacre: We touched on good examples, and we should look to learn from them. On local engagement, you need local leadership, but they need help sometimes. That help could be internally from the next level of authority up, or it could be from an external body. One body that I thought was beneficial to high street regeneration at a local authority level was the high streets taskforce that was set up as part of the Institute of Place Management for Manchester Metropolitan University. It has now ended as a body, although in name it carries on because stakeholders—we were one of those stakeholders—would meet on a quarterly basis to discuss opportunities, challenges, good news and bad news on high streets and high street regeneration. We would share those ideas and share them back with the high streets taskforce, and they would help that local decision making.
Quite often what you find is that people know what they want to do. They just do not quite always know how to do it. A think-tank independently managed and run could help them with that “how” and the implementation of their ideas. If you do not bring it back as it was, something similar would really help that local decision making, because sometimes the pride is there, the passion is there; they just do not always have the nous to make it work in the way they hoped for.
With regard to high streets, I see it from a retail point of view, but I recognise the fact that high streets are increasingly dominated by experiential elements—cultural, leisure, more hospitality driven—and I have no issue with that. It does mean that we need better change of use of some of the retail sites that become empty. I know planning is part of this whole issue, so speeding up the planning process is important.
Ideally, I would like to bring homes back into high streets where the possibility exists. There are some large, empty buildings. I live quite near Stratford-upon-Avon and I still go past a VHS store that closed in 2016. It is still empty. I find it remarkable that a landlord can let a big place like that stay empty for so long. We have not looked at the opportunity of what more we could do with that, or what we could do differently with that. If we can bring homes and people back into high streets as places where people want to live, preferably with affordable properties for younger people, I think you would start to create local economies that would drive some of those high streets as well.
Allen Simpson: The question is what level you devolve at. Clearly, we are all nimbys. Nimby is an irregular verb—you are a nimby; I am concerned about my local environment. There are circumstances in which we need to find ways of treating high streets like strategic infrastructure. There will be asymmetric benefits and costs if you live close to a high street or, as people used to, above shops—that is less common than it was—versus being in the surrounding community. Sometimes local politicians do need help. We have seen an approach to that in London that the Committee will have views on.
I am very much in favour of hospitality zones, which have specific licensing approaches, where there is some form of recognition that you get to a “yes” more quickly. There is a specific question around Andrew’s point about bringing people back into former high street or commercial areas, in the City of London or elsewhere, around agents of change. I am very in favour of placing a burden on developers to fit the development around hospitality, rather than buying a flat next door to a pub and then being annoyed that there is a beer garden, for which I have zero sympathy.
David Simmonds
Q
Andrew Goodacre: That is a good question. What works well at the moment is the business improvement district model. Where it falls down slightly again depends on the people involved. A good BID represents the voice of local businesses, which are paying through business rates, because the levy is on the business rate, as we know. What I saw in Enniskillen at that time was a BID that really listened to its stakeholders, shared ideas with them and took back the feedback. One of the things introduced there was an Enniskillen gift card that could be used in any shop in that area—ideal for the tourist market that it is trying to appeal to.
We should establish BIDs; the problem with them is that they can be very indifferent, in terms of their make-up and the quality of them. Again, the funding often becomes a point of contention because you are adding to business rates, which is already a massive point of contention for most business owners. In a way, I would like to see BIDs funded in different ways, through the devolution White Paper. Their performance would therefore be a bit more targeted. Part of their performance metrics should be the ability for them to show that they have engaged, understood and taken forward what local business people want, in my case, within their high street.
Allen Simpson: An observation: if you are looking to drive growth, by definition you are looking to bring in businesses that are not there or do not exist, so to some extent your problem is how you consult businesses that do not currently exist. To some degree, it is less about having consultation with specific businesses and more about having an approach that is pro the foundation of businesses in a given area. Clearly, there will be examples where licensing rules could be better consulted on so that existing businesses can expand, but I wonder whether it is less about consultation and more about taking a proactive approach to growth.
Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)
Q
Andrew Goodacre: I think it would be a shame if we lost some of those brands that people have worked hard to create. I think the visitor economy is so important. The most successful independent retailers are in those visitor economies, because people often visit looking for something different that you do not see in a chain store of a large retailer. Creating that identity is something that I hear all the time from successful places. They feel as if they are part of an identity—they have something around them that says, “Yes, we can buy into this.” The riviera example is a good one. It would be a shame if that local effort—that local sense—was lost. I think Falmouth is another good example. Falmouth has created its own essence of Cornwall within that place. You should not lose that. They are so important. It seems counterintuitive that a push for devolution to create more power at a local level means that you would lose local identities. That would be counterintuitive, so we need to make sure that does not happen. Actually, those should be reinforced with better funding.
Allen Simpson: I ran Visit London for five years, so I worked on this a lot. My observation is that the money is not there. Unless you are London, Edinburgh or, to a certain degree, Manchester, which has a very high-quality marketing agency of its own, the money just is not there to do it. Visit Kent has just gone bust. The ability to market a region—sometimes, we devolve the responsibility but not the money with it, and I think that is an example. Equally, not everywhere can be branded. I am not going to pick on anywhere in particular or have one of my regular digs at Essex, but where there is a solid local brand, at the moment, we do not have sensible ways of doing that—just mechanisms to do it. Visit Britain works quite hard internationally to disperse people’s awareness of the UK outside of Edinburgh, York, Lincoln and London, but towards a domestic market, which I think is largely what you are talking about, the exam question is, “What is the pot of money handed down to local communities to do it?” because it is incredibly expensive doing marketing.
The Chair
If there are no further questions from Members, on behalf of the Committee, I thank both our witnesses for their evidence. We will now move on to the next panel.
Examination of Witnesses
Gareth Davies and Bill Butler gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Gareth Davies, Comptroller and Auditor General at the National Audit Office, and Bill Butler, chair of Public Sector Audit Appointments. For this panel, we have until 3.40 pm.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Gareth Davies: I will start, and then Bill can come in with some facts and figures on the current state of play with the firm’s contracts. First, it is important to say that, before I did this job at the National Audit Office, I was an auditor in local government, so in the past I have had a foot in both camps. Audit in the public sector is a fundamental part of our democracy; in local government, it is a fundamental part of local democracy.
Ensuring effective local accountability through independently audited council accounts, governance and value for money arrangements is a fundamental part of a healthy, functioning, tax-paying society. There is no doubt that we have run into some very serious problems with that in recent years, such as big backlogs of unaudited accounts. When those backlogs start to be cleared, at first we are seeing disclaimed audit opinions, which are essentially the auditors giving no assurance on those accounts. That is an unprecedented and unacceptable position to find ourselves in for a significant amount of public money. People have a right to expect audited accounts as a bare minimum when they pay their council tax and business rates, so this is a big system failure that needs fixing as quickly and robustly as possible. That is my starting point.
The obvious question is: why has this happened? Unusually, we have a natural experiment in the UK on this. No other devolved country has the same problem as England, with a failure of local government accountability and audited accounts. Everybody has had a pandemic and changes in auditing standards and so on, but only one country has dismantled its audit machinery and expected it to function nonetheless. Those changes were not implemented in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so we do not have to look far for the explanation. That is why I welcome the creation of the Local Audit Office in the Bill. It is the right measure to correct that problem. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient. We will want to explore what else will be necessary.
The reason it is necessary is that it brings back together the essential functions that make for a robust audit regime. That includes letting the contracts with the firms to do the work, specifying that work; holding the firms to account for delivery on time and to the right quality standard; supporting the firms with technical advice and help with tricky issues, many of which we are seeing across local government; and robustly speaking with local government about where problems need to be fixed.
It also includes working as a partner with local government to improve the quality of accounts, and make them less burdensome to local authorities and more useful to taxpayers and businesses. There is a big agenda beyond just the creation of the Local Audit Office—it is a necessary but not sufficient requirement.
Bill Butler: I should also declare an interest, although mine is slightly more historic than Gareth’s. I spent 35 years in local government audit before I escaped. As you can see, Chair, I have been dragged back. I hope I am not going to sound too much like an echo, but I agree with everything that Gareth said. The effective audit of public bodies, which are funded by compulsory taxation and not by voluntary shareholders, is fundamental to proper democracy, governance and the financial credibility of English local government.
The world looks down on the large number of disclaimed audit opinions. We should not underestimate what bankers in New York and the large accountancy firms are thinking. When they look at that, they cannot comprehend how we have ended up in this position. We therefore strongly welcome the commitment to reform, the changes in the Bill and the creation of the Local Audit Office.
We particularly like the fact that it will reestablish a co-ordinated local audit system, and bring together responsibility for audit appointments, the code of practice, audit quality and the performance of auditors, because local government audit is in a very bad position. The only option available that anybody could think of to tackle the increasing backlog of delayed accounts was to disclaim opinions. It is really important that we do not replace a backlog with disclaimed opinions. Currently, there are 273 bodies that have received disclaimed opinions—51% of the bodies in England and Wales that we are responsible for appointing to. That is up to ’23-’24. Of those, 236 are for two or more years, and 53—that is 11%—are for four or more years. In total, that means there are 716 sets of accounts in English local government for which there is no assurance from the auditors. Gareth did not mention this, but it also affects his opinion on the whole of Government accounts, which he has had to disclaim owing to the disclaimers in local government, which affect and knock on to the credibility of Government across the country.
We also think that there is a risk to the broader proposed local government reform because of the bad apple in the barrel. If you are constituting a new authority and you are incorporating an authority with a number of years of disclaimed opinions, sorting that out will get in the way of the effectiveness of those bodies at exactly the time when you want them to be focusing on their new responsibilities and opportunities. I will say the same thing as Gareth, but in a slightly different way: we cannot envisage a solution without the Local Audit Office, but it is not the solution. Bold action is required to cut through the Gordian knot that exists at present. The sector seems unlikely to resolve the underlying issues without, as Gareth has made clear, support both to those bodies preparing accounts and to those auditing the accounts.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Gareth Davies: The first would be skills and capacity. This sector has suffered from a loss of skilled expertise. Public audit is not interchangeable with company audit; it is a specialist field—you are auditing political institutions and reporting in the public interest. It is a different skillset, with some common areas with the rest of the auditing profession, and it attracts people who are interested in how public bodies become successful and how they achieve value for money, and so on. The pool of experts in that area has reduced sharply, so the system faces the challenge of building up that body of expertise and skills.
It is not just the auditors. In the past, the auditors did a lot of the training, and people then went on to careers in local government, the rest of the public sector and other sectors. It was a breeding ground for the finance function of local authorities. Individual local authorities cannot typically sustain large training programmes of accountants on their own, so having a regime that supports the development of that skillset is vital.
The other essential is getting hold of local government financial reporting and radically simplifying it, streamlining it in a way that can still be incorporated into the whole of Government accounts. That is always the caveat, and the reason for some of the complexity, but I do not believe that it is an impossible task. At the moment, the accounts are too easily dismissed as only of interest to the auditor because they are long, complex and quite difficult to follow in many places. There is no reason why we should put up with that. I know the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and the wider profession have started work on what professionals think would represent a high-quality, meaningful financial statement that would clearly explain to taxpayers how we have used their resources.
There is a danger that everyone focuses only on the council budget and ignores the accounts. That is dangerous, because the balance sheet matters as well as annual expenditure.
Bill Butler: I can save quite a lot of time by saying that I agree with all of that. This may happen on a number of occasions, and we have not shared briefs. If you start with those who prepare the accounts, that needs to be revitalised. It is moribund, and people are looking at the scale of this task and finding it difficult. Some of this can be the support that Members and Ministers can bring to bear in terms of its importance, because—again, echoing Gareth—it is not considered to be interesting and it is too easily put aside, but that is not going to get any better. There is a real risk that it will get worse unless preparers are properly supported, and unless it is clear what revisions are possible to make the accounts simpler and deliverable.
There are issues around how we encourage colleagues who work in the audit firms. That is a broader issue, because they are bound by the technical standards imposed across the firms by their relationship with the Financial Reporting Council. However, at the moment, that seems occasionally to act as a block to overcoming that risk. We need to be honest about the fact that that risk assessment is there and about what we can do around it.
As Gareth said, we have been looking, with CIPFA, at reforming local government accounts for some considerable time. The clock has now ticked down, I think. One of the things I hope for is that the commitment shown to reform so far carries on across these broader areas, not of all of which are susceptible to legislation, but all of which would be, I hope, susceptible to encouragement.
Gareth Davies: I would like to add one other thing, because an important bit of the full picture is governance arrangements in local authorities. I know that the Bill includes provisions on audit committees, but it is important that local authorities have robust audit committee-type arrangements. I am not prescriptive about exactly what form they should take, but meaningful engagement with internal and external audit and a connection to the governance of the authority as a whole through its political leadership are essential to good governance. That means having somewhere where difficult questions can be asked and answers gained.
In quite a few of the disasters we have seen in local government finance in recent years, it is the governance arrangements that are primarily at fault in not picking up on excessive risk-taking and lack of understanding of the nature of the risk being taken on, and so on. It is another example of where a more robust audit system will not, on its own, solve everything—although it will definitely help, because it will bring those questions to the audit committee table—but the audit committee itself needs to be a functioning, robust and effective part of the governance of the authority.
Bill Butler: If I may say so, these are not things that can wait for the Local Audit Office, which has a massive task to perform anyway. If we wait, these problems become intractable, and the organisation’s chances of succeeding, if it has any at all, are very low,. They are issues that need to be addressed now, while we have the opportunity and—I hope everybody agrees—a pressing need.
David Simmonds
Q
In a local authority, there is the collection fund, which essentially covers all the income that it is due to collect, then there are pension schemes, the dedicated schools grant, the housing revenue account and the parking revenue account, where there are slightly variable legal ringfences. All of those pose risks and many of them are impacted by elements of the devolution proposals affecting who will be responsible for decision making and what that revenue might underpin in terms of borrowing or day-to-day expenditure. Will you give us a sense, from your experience, of what the risks are, what the potential opportunities are and where changes are needed to, for example, the ringfences, and your views on the inclusion of the dedicated schools grant in the annual, legal council tax-fixing process, which might help or hinder the proper management of some of those financial risks.
Gareth Davies: Do you want to go first, Bill?
Bill Butler: Yes, then you can agree with me.
The Chair
We heard that!
Bill Butler: I think the nature of those statutory balances is actually one of the significant things in how we handle the disclaimers, because they are a part of the mechanism that is different from a balance sheet outside of local government. Of course, because they are statutory, that does mean that they are amenable to change.
On how they will affect the broader issues, it depends on where you are, because there are still quite a lot of places where there are no problems and where you can deal with it. The problem arises, as I alluded to earlier, when there is a bad apple in the barrel. We have seen in previous reorganisations that bringing on board a set of accounts and an organisation that is not on top of those things—where there is no assurance about where those boundaries have been set—poisons the water across the whole thing.
If you have one district coming into a newly constituted authority or organisation, the whole of the account will cause problems. That problem tends to be long standing in nature; the people who might have been able to help you resolve it have gone, and the attention is focused elsewhere. It is impossible to say, other than on a case-by-case basis, how that would impact things, but my view—our view, I think—would be that if those issues can be addressed and clarified now, that will lead to a better situation. If you have places with four years’ worth of disclaimers, finding a way through the statutory balances is will be fundamental to avoiding problems down the line.
Gareth Davies: All I would add is that, in a way, that is a good example of the accreted layers of complexity that now represent local government accounts. There was a strong argument for each ringfence when it was created, but when you stand back, the total picture is now very messy and complex. This is an opportunity to take stock and say, “Which bits of this actually serve our purpose now? Is there an opportunity here for simplification?”
As Bill says, some of these are statutory balances, which can be determined by Government, and that may be one way of accelerating the restoration of proper audit opinions, for example. Rather than the auditor agonising over questions like, “Where do I get the assurance over this statutory balance? It’s not been signed off for many years,” using the statutory process for determination of the balances might be part of the solution. Of course, there are all sorts of downsides with that kind of thing, but it is important that we are clear about how long it will take to get to a properly constituted set of accounts for a new organisation.
Bill Butler: Striving for something that is good, rather than pursuing excellence and achieving nothing, is fundamentally important.
David Simmonds
Q
Secondly, in respect of specific funds, in debates around devolution, it is often argued that, for example, there should be freedom to spend the proceeds of the parking revenue account beyond the current constraints—that the revenue, for example, should be used to prop up social care, or whatever it may be, in a way that it simply cannot within the current legal framework. Do you have any views about decisions or tweaks that the Bill should make to those arrangements, based on the risk and assurance issues you have outlined?
Bill Butler: Not from where I sit. It is a policy area that I would avoid, although I understand why you would ask the question.
Gareth Davies: Yes, I am required to avoid it. The reason I am here today is to discuss public audits, essentially, rather than policy decisions on those kinds of financial matters. Clearly, there is a point at which the two things meet, which is really where we are talking now, but it is not for me to give a view on what should or should not be in a ringfence.
David Simmonds
Q
Bill Butler: There is a standard basis for it standardisation and simplification so that you can move between sets of accounts. It seems hugely sensible. Interestingly, I can remember having similar discussions in the early 1980s, when I first qualified, with the then Department of the Environment’s technical advisers. We have made some progress. Yes, the inconsistency is odd. As Gareth said, it causes problems for auditors as well, because they move between places. It does not help the underlying problem that we have been discussing.
Vikki Slade
Q
Gareth Davies: I work with the current Public Accounts Committee in Parliament. In that set-up, it is an essential part of the effectiveness of the accountability system. I have seen how the Committee works, and it works extremely well on a non-partisan basis. It has a hugely dedicated membership pursuing accountability across government, so it is a very effective model in the House of Commons. Such a body is normally positive in local government in the context of combined authorities—that is where I have seen it mentioned most. As I said earlier, having an audit committee in every local authority is an essential part of good governance. Questions like, “Are we managing the risks to the organisation effectively? Are the controls that we think we have in place operating as intended?” are the meat and drink of an audit committee agenda.
Where a local public accounts committee might have an effect would be in looking across the public service landscape—say, at a combined authority or sub-regional scale, in Greater Manchester, in the west midlands or wherever. I think there is a gap there at the moment. One of my last roles before I stopped auditing local government was auditing the Greater Manchester combined authority; it was ramping up in scale at the time, and it was getting to be very significant, including some health spending and so on. As we know, it is the most developed of the devolved set-ups at the moment. I can see how, in that arena, a local public accounts committee would add real value by looking beyond the institution, which an individual audit committee cannot do, and by looking at value for money in the sub-region. If that is what we are talking about, it would be a body that we in the National Audit Office could engage with in order to follow the public pound from national policy making, through to sub-regional infrastructure and so on, and through to council delivery. All parts of that are important, including right at the individual local authority level.
Bill Butler: I have nothing to add.
The Chair
Do you agree with Gareth?
Bill Butler: I do. My only plea at the moment is that what we have got does not work, so that may be an aspiration.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
Q
Gareth Davies: My view is that they are part of the local government landscape. They should be properly audited as part of the local government landscape, and the strengthening that this Bill brings to local government audit needs to apply to those parts of local government as well. I certainly would not try to lift them out of the local government set-up and make them subject to the National Audit Office. We are absolutely national; it should be the Local Audit Office that has a remit for mayoral corporations. I think this is less about the structural picture than about strengthening the local audit arrangements so that every part of the local set-up is audited effectively, including those.
Andrew Cooper
Q
Gareth Davies: As we have said, it is not going to be quick or easy, but this is the right approach. It is just going to need substantial application of shoulder to the wheel and strong leadership of the new Local Audit Office, when that is created. That will make a big difference because it will have a loud voice in this area of work, and all the levers necessary to acquire the capacity required to perform to a high standard and to restore proper accountability. Even though we know that will not be easy, and we have explained why it is not simple, I think that is the right approach.
Bill Butler: This is getting tedious, but I agree with Gareth. It is a local issue. It is fundamentally important that we recognise that these are local democratic bodies and that the Local Audit Office, and auditors, need to operate independently from them and without unnecessary interference from anywhere else. The job needs to be done properly, and framework in the Bill for reforming local audit is exactly the right direction to go.
As I think we said, we need to address a number of environmental issues now to see that benefit. The risks you described apply to all 716 sets of unassured accounts. In my experience in this area, although audit does not always find a problem, I find it difficult to believe that there are not significant problems lurking where audits have not been completed. I hope there are not many. I would be delighted, but very surprised, if there were none.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
Q
Gareth Davies: It is about the person and their skills and approach more than any office they hold or party they come from. You need the right approach and the right skills to do a good job. I have seen elected politicians fulfil that role brilliantly. The reason I said what I said is that I am a bit suspicious of anything that says, for example, “We must have an independent chair who is not a member of the council.” The audit committee is there to be part of the council’s governance arrangements. If it is too independent of the council, it does not engage with the machinery of running the council or influence the decision makers sufficiently, in my experience. If it is entirely made up of members who, with the best will in the world, do not have the skills required to perform a role that sometimes has technical elements, that model also has weaknesses.
The best models I have seen consist of a cross-party committee of members who are very interested in getting value for money for the taxpayer and ensuring that controls are operating properly across the council, and in ensuring that the council is maintaining public trust; you need people with those kind of motivations, supplemented with some independent membership. The chair does not necessarily have to come from that independent membership, but it must be somebody who is prepared to read all the accounts and ask difficult questions about why a surprising number has appeared out of nowhere.
That is why I would not be prescriptive. You need a mix of skills around the table and the committee must be connected to the leadership of the council, so that difficult messages coming out of the audits are relayed to the decision makers, raised in full council if necessary, and certainly raised with the executive or the mayor. That linkage needs to be clear and fully operational for it to work properly.
Bill Butler: That is not different—
The Chair
We are going to finish.
Bill Butler: I will be brief. I have chaired quite a few audit committees, but not in local government. A good audit committee works. It ensures that the organisation operates effectively by being part of it, while everybody knows that if it has a problem, it will voice it and it will be trusted. That is what you are looking for in any audit committee.
The Chair
Thank you both very much for being the guardians of the public purse. That brings us to the end of the time allotted for this panel. On behalf of the Committee, I thank you again for your time and for all the work you do for us.
Examination of Witness
Mark Stocks gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Mark Stocks, head of public sector assurance at Grant Thornton UK. For this panel we have until 4 pm, unless we are interrupted by a vote—I am sorry about that, Mr Stocks.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Mark Stocks: I have done this for a rather long time. I was an auditor with District Audit back in the day, then with the Audit Commission, and I am now with Grant Thornton. I have seen quite a lot of changes. The division of the Audit Commission duties has probably been the most impactful change, because it has created quite a confused landscape in terms of what the priorities are. The National Audit Office maintains responsibility for the code, which sets out the basis of our work, but our primary regulator has been the Financial Reporting Council, whose focus tends to be on the accounts. Public Sector Audit Appointments sets out the fees, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales decides whether we can act as a key account partner. That is quite difficult to cope with.
Throughout my whole history as an local auditor, the accounts have been important, but it has been equally important that I spend my time on value for money. I have to look at the financial sustainability of authorities, as well as their governance and performance. That has changed, to be candid, over the last 10 years. The code changed, so we spent less time on value for money. Then it changed again, so we spent more time on value for money. However, our primary focus in the last five years has been on the accounts, which has led to a confused environment in terms of how local auditors have acted.
In terms of what the Bill does, bringing in the Local Audit Office is crucial. Somebody needs to speak to the Government about the issues that auditors are seeing and what is actually happening out there, because some of the pressures on local government are quite immense. To be candid, I need somewhere to go and someone to speak to when I am concerned about what I am finding—someone who can say, “Let’s do this, or we’ll speak to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.” The changes in the Bill are crucial for a functioning local audit in the future.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Mark Stocks: You only have the private sector. It provides all of local audit now. We are used to working with the PSAA, so I do not see any issue in working with the Local Audit Office. It will make it easier; we will have a single code and a single arbiter of what quality is for a local auditor. I think that will be easier for us, as the private sector auditors, than it is now. I would not want the Committee to go away thinking that there is no commitment to this from the private sector. It was a difficult procurement the last time round, but the PSAA did manage to appoint sufficient auditors and we remain committed—I certainly remain committed—to a successful local audit system.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Mark Stocks: It is still fragile. I thought Gareth and Bill were accurate in what they said. We need to have more capacity so that we are not reliant on just a few suppliers. For that, there has to be consistency in terms of message. We need to get to grips with local authority accounts. If I went and did a set of NHS accounts, they are perhaps 100 pages long. The average local government accounts are 200 to 250 pages long, so the work involved is immense. That is why it takes longer, so we have to get that right.
We need to start to deal with some of the risks in local government, to be candid. It is quite difficult to deal with the breadth of what local government does. If you add on top of that the financial issues that they face and the issues that are asked of them in terms of policy, that layers on quite a scope for auditors, which means that we have to bring in specialists to do some of the work. I do not think that will get any easier under the current landscape.
David Simmonds
Q
Mark Stocks: Local government accounts are complex. These are highly complex sorts of businesses, if I can use that phrase, that deal with any number of services. What we see now are local finance teams who are stretched, to be candid. There has been a lack of investment in them over the years. Gareth talked about trainees going from the Audit Commission into local government, but that does not happen now. There is a bunch of people who are around 50, who may be disappearing in the short term, so we have to sort out the strength of local government finance teams. As I said, we also need to sort out the complexity of the accounts.
In terms of the standards, all local government accounts are under international financial reporting standards, and that will not change. That is a Treasury requirement. How that is interpreted and what is important in those accounts is open to judgment. The emphasis from the LAO on whether it is more important for us to audit income or to audit property will make a difference to what local auditors do. I would always argue that it is more important to audit income.
It is very difficult to standardise anything that we do, because local government is not standardised. I can take you from a district authority that spends £60 million, most of which is housing benefit, to an authority that spends £4 billion and has significant regeneration schemes and companies. The skillsets that you need and the ability to standardise is very difficult. You have to have the right skills to do the work.
Manuela Perteghella
Q
Mark Stocks: The Local Audit Office cannot look like the Audit Commission. The Audit Commission took a particular tack in terms of what it did and the level of scrutiny that it put on local government. If the Local Audit Office follows suit, which this Bill does not allow it to, I am sure there will be problems. But the way the Local Audit Office is configured in the Bill is to make local audit stronger. As long as the Local Audit Office sticks to that, I do not think there will be too much of a problem.
The Chair
We will continue this session for 10 minutes. We have 10 minutes’ extra time—no penalties.
Mark Stocks: I have one final comment, if I may. The Member was asking whether the Local Audit Office was going to come into contention with local government. Some of the things we do are contentious, such as when we issue statutory recommendations and public interest reports. One of the things I have missed in the last decade or so is the support of a body when we do something as difficult as that, because, as you can imagine, it is me against the authority, even though we have the firm there. I would hope and expect the Local Audit Office to be part of the decision making around public interest reports and statutory recommendations, which I think will lead to some contention with local government, because that is the difficult end of what we do. However, we need to do that, because sometimes things go wrong.
Sam Carling
Q
Mark Stocks: That is a good question. There is a remit for a local public accounts committee, but only one, if we do that. The NAO provides all the information to the national Public Accounts Committee, so it is then about how you co-ordinate that across local auditors to deliver the information for a public accounts committee to hold local government to account. Personally, I think that should be a long-term aim and aspiration. I would worry at the moment about whether there is enough capacity in local audit to support a public accounts committee. At the moment we have just enough of us to do the job that we are doing.
Sam Carling
Q
Mark Stocks: I think it depends on how you view it and how much detail you want to get into. The contentious parts of local government are where things like regeneration schemes go awry, or where there are management decisions that lead to claims against the council in some form or another. Those tend to be national issues. I agree that to delve down into each one for an authority would be enormous, but looking at things in terms of thematics—how councils are coping with children’s social care, adult social care, regeneration or some of the Government policies—would I think be possible at a national level. Again, if you started to push it down into local committees, it is about who provides the information. That is always going to be the difficulty in having those committees.
The Chair
If there are no further questions, on behalf of the Committee, I thank you for coming to give evidence, Mr Stocks.
Examination of Witnesses
Zoë Billingham and Professor John Denham gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Zoë Billingham, director of IPPR North, and we welcome back Professor John Denham, professorial research fellow in the department of politics and international relations—that is a long title—at the University of Southampton and director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics. We will have until 4.40 pm for this panel.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Professor Denham: Thank you very much, Minister. It is absolutely crucial that the Bill underpins a really robust legal framework for devolution if it is to last—it cannot be for one Parliament. I will talk today about work that I have developed with Sir David Lidington—so that was a Labour Minister and a Conservative Minister coming together to say, “You need to have a consensus that lasts; otherwise, the Government changes.”
This is where I would say we are at the moment: there are many good things in the Bill, but there are some real areas of weakness that could lead to it being undermined quite quickly. It depends on financial commitments to integrated settlements and long-term funding, which are not even mentioned in the Bill. The Bill creates no forum in which finance can be discussed between strategic authorities and central Government. One of the ways in which that could be mitigated, at least to some extent, is to put the mayoral council on a statutory basis. Mayor Brabin said earlier today, “Well, the mayoral council is where we talk about new powers for mayors.” The mayoral council is not in the Bill. If Ministers decided tomorrow that it was not going to meet any more, it would not. It has no terms of reference and no secretariat. The mayors have no legal right to put items on its agenda.
I would give that as one example of where things could be embedded much more deeply. Parliament would have to come back and say, “We are going to abolish it”, in order to stop that meeting happening. If that sounds very radical in our system, every other European nation with a devolved system of government has a layer between the devolved level and central Government. I would suggest that it will be of benefit to Ministers, too. It is probably possible to manage relationships with a relatively small number of powerful mayors, but when there is one for every part of the country, there will be a cacophony of people demanding special treatment for their areas. The ability to corral that into a proper process would be an advantage.
This has to be embedded. Prior to this, regional arrangements lasted for about 10 years before Government lost interest in them. If you want this to be here in 30 years’ time, doing the Bill, but adding to it, is crucial.
Zoë Billingham: I absolutely agree that it is essential that devolution through this Bill should be put on a statutory footing. I would highlight a few things that I think achieve that entrenchment, in addition to the legal aspect of that. First, the broadening and deepening is absolutely essential, with the right to request in combination with that, so that strategic authorities can decide what further powers they wish to request from Government. I agree with John that the integrated settlement is a really important entrenchment to give places the flexibility they need to demonstrate how different places make different choices about how they spend public money. That will be essential to showing how devolution can deliver differently according to the needs of different places.
The moves towards votes at 16 and returning to a supplementary vote system for our mayors is absolutely essential to broaden the number of people who can take part in in local democracy. I would urge the Committee to consider going further in a few areas in the Bill, to build on that entrenchment from a statutory footing. Fiscal devolution has so far been completely omitted from the Bill. We at IPPR North have been looking at options, including a visitor levy to start with, to start the process of fiscal devolution that we think will really help to mature the model that we have today. Accountability is another key area. I know that you have talked in previous sessions today about LPACs, and we absolutely agree that we need to beef up the accountability of mayoral combined authorities—that is a two-way street, but I am sure we can get on to it later.
Finally, in terms of public support, the flip side, if you will, of further empowering and rolling out devolution to the country is demonstrating to the public what devolution can deliver for them. The evidence shows that in places that have more powers and freedoms, voting turnout and engagement with local democracy go up, so we think it is important not just for the economy, but for democratic reform.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Secondly, we need to ensure strong scrutiny and accountability for any institution. We heard in the last session about some of the challenges with local government accountability and scrutiny. I am interested in your views on what we need to do to strengthen that and the provisions in the Bill to build on that.
Zoë Billingham: First, to your point on the democratic engagement of mayors, I do think, and I stand by the evidence that suggests this, that the more powers that mayors get, the more they are able to demonstrate to the public how they can tailor and do things differently in their places, according to what the public want. That is essential for the responsiveness of democracy; therefore, I also think that votes at 16 and the return to a supplementary vote are helpful additional aspects to this Bill, in terms of demonstrating that the Government are serious about broadening engagement with mayoral combined authorities.
I would also pick up the proposal in the Bill for neighbour area committees. Something along those lines is essential. We know that, as currently drafted, the Bill is proposing full unitarisation of local authorities to a 500,000 population level, which is far larger than we see in local government in our European counterparts, for example. There is a question about how those unitaries engage with those communities, not on an ad hoc basis, but as an ongoing community conversation. I wonder whether, for instance, the neighbourhood area committees could be predominantly made up of community representatives and young people, so that they do not replicate the district level that the Bill proposes to abolish, but instead create an ongoing, democratic renewal at that local level.
Secondly, to pick up your point on scrutiny, this is essential. If you speak to local leaders, mayors included, they are absolutely game for it. It is not something that central Government are imposing; it is an essential part of both enabling the further devolution of power and resources, and ensuring that the current model is not undermined because there is not enough scrutiny in place for what is already there. I totally support the proposal for a local public accounts committee—we have built on that idea ourselves at IPPR North, looking at mayoral accounts committees, which bring together overview and scrutiny, and local public accounts committees.
We think that those committees need to represent place leadership; this is no longer narrow lines of inquiry about certain budgetary lines or solely about audit. It must be much broader. This is about place-based leadership, not only by the mayor and the mayoral cabinet, but by other public leaders locally who could be brought in front of such committees. We think that is a really important thing to go hand in hand with the future of devolution.
Professor Denham: May I pick up and develop a couple of those points? There is no doubt that the Bill has a danger of an upwards movement of power: things are being moved from local authorities to strategic authorities and mayors have more autonomy. I understand why that is being done, but the Bill needs to build in a healthy counterpoint to that. I, too, would go beyond the neighbourhood governance proposal, which sounds a bit narrow and a bit prescriptive, as though the same model will work everywhere.
Sir David and I proposed what we called community empowerment plans, and we proposed them even when we did not know there was going to be local government reorganisation. The strategic authorities should have a legal duty to set out how they will engage with local people across the whole range of activity—I should have declared an interest, in that I am the honorary president of the Hampshire Association of Local Councils—
Paul Holmes
Hear, hear!
Professor Denham: So I am familiar with town and parish councils, and there are some very good ones, including in Mr Holmes’s constituency. But they are not uniform everywhere within the area, so a single prescriptive approach is unlikely to work.
There has also been, in the last 10 or 15 years, a transformation in our understanding of deliberative, participative engagement with local communities by many local authorities. We need both the strategic authorities and the unitary authorities to set out, in a document that should be challengeable, how they propose to do that. I think that would be useful.
Secondly—I will embarrass her—Zoë has written the best policy paper on local public accounts committees, so I will not say any more about that, except that I agree with Gareth Davies in an earlier panel: the challenge here is not local council audit, but the whole of public spending across a mayoral area. I was delighted to see the new Secretary of State backing the concept of total place, which is something I was involved in as a Minister 15 years ago; but, if that is going to work, you cannot combine that with upwards accountability to departmental accounting officers.
Local authority scrutiny has very good people, but it is not up to the job. You have to create a new local institution, the local public accounts committee and, picking up on what Mayor Houchen said earlier, make the chief executive within the area the local accounting officer. So you have a complete audit model at local level that is not then channelled upwards through departmental accounting officers. I think that is what we need to work towards. Those two things would not only empower local people, but ensure that you have local scrutiny of what is being spent and what is being done with their money.
The Chair
Could that paper be sent to the secretariat and circulated around the Committee?
Zoë Billingham: Certainly.
David Simmonds
Q
And to come to the point that both of you have touched on, the Bill as drafted assumes power upwards to mayors, and it introduces a raft of powers—in chapter after chapter of the Bill—whereby the Secretary of State will direct the mayor and the authority, requiring them to produce various strategies. In a country that is already very centralised anyway, how do we develop and encourage local leaders to come forward in a context where there will be significantly fewer roles for them to fulfil, and where those roles will be significantly more constrained than they have been used to?
Professor Denham: Let me break that down into a number of sections. First, on local government reorganisation and size, I will be straightforward: Sir David and I did not propose local government reorganisation. We proposed creating what would now be called strategic authorities from what we generally call upper-tier authorities—the unitaries and the counties. I am not saying that there would not have been a need down the line to do something about what will be a messy system, but in terms of getting growth plans and those things up and running—I just put that on the record, because I am not going to get too far into the issue. However, if you are where you are at the moment, I would commend the idea of community empowerment plans and a proper legal framework for devolution below those levels.
What I would say, though, is that there is a level of devolved function that needs to operate at the level of strategic authorities. If you are going to have really good local growth strategies, and if they are going to tie into a national industrial strategy, it could not be done, say, at the level of a city such as Southampton, where I was an MP for a long time. You need a bigger body. However you do it at the micro level, that strategic level must operate effectively.
To tie my threads together, if you go to other European countries with a higher level of devolution, they have an intermediate forum between the strategic body and the national, where these issues are thrashed out, best practice is worked out and, in a sense, the Secretary of State does not exercise their direction powers without discussing it with the mayoral council first. You actually say, “How is that going to work then? How is that power going to be used?” So building in that layer means the right sort of compromise between the desire of Governments to get on with things and the need to engage people at local level. That would be one way of dealing with it.
You are inviting me to say we should keep all the district councils, but I am going to pass on that one, because that was not part of our proposals.
Zoë Billingham: Let me just build on that and the question of scale. As John says, the proposed 500,000 scale of the unitaries post-reorganisation is very large compared with European counterparts, and that poses some big questions, not least whether the projected efficiency savings will be realised. However, town and parish councils still exist within the system, and we have previously done work that looks at what we call the hyper-local tier of governance. While they are imperfect bodies, there are improvements that can be built upon at that hyper-local level, in addition to having some sort of formal forum, as John says, to engage with communities.
If the neighbourhood area committee proposal continues as planned, I would really urge that to be—the majority—taken up by community leaders and young people. There are other ways that we can help to counterbalance this through democratic innovations. There was talk, for instance, about remote meetings and remote voting, which are not currently available. Especially when you speak to young people about why they do not engage with local politics, they say that meetings are at the wrong time and too far away, and if you do not have a car, you cannot get to them, especially in rural communities. So I think this could be a real opportunity to see how normal council business is done and improve on it.
Finally, to build on the point about participatory methods, it is about making sure that unitaries are committed to properly engaging with their communities on the big questions they face, and not seeing it as distancing from communities.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
Q
In order for Cornwall to access the highest level of devolution, as the Bill is drafted, it requires the Government to breach article 16 of the framework convention for the protection of national minorities. The Cornish are the only people in the UK that have national minority status but do not have access to the highest level of devolution. How flexible should the Government be when determining what powers different types of strategic authorities can exercise? Is there a case for exceptions in places such as Cornwall? I ask that you try to avoid the temptation to talk about identity—we can identify with lots of parts of the country and with football teams and pop bands—and talk more about national minority status.
Professor Denham: I confess that I am not an expert on the framework convention, so I am not sure I will address that from a satisfactory legal point of view. In terms of the devolution policy, it was always my view that whether to have a mayor should have been a local choice and not a national prescription. That boat may have sailed, but that was my view. Clearly, there are cases where mayoral leadership is seen by everybody as an advantage, but I think there was a case for having some flexibility over that.
The other thing that I think is worth exploring is that one size fits all is not always going to be the right arrangement. I would imagine that, in the case of Cornwall, there are some functions on which it is in Cornwall’s interest to collaborate very closely with Devon, and maybe the new Wessex strategic authority around strategic transport, and other areas on which you would not want to. There should be a way in the Bill—we have talked about the pooling of regional powers—to enable strategic authorities to build larger bodies with neighbouring strategic authorities when it is in their interest to do so, without requiring the agreement of central Government.
I suppose my in-principle answer to your question, which is very unhelpful to the Minister, is that maybe the choice whether to have a mayor should have been given more local discretion. As we are where we are, certainly I would like to see a system where Cornwall can build the sort of strategic authority it wants but also have the benefits of collaboration across the south-west peninsula, or whatever, on areas of common interest and where everybody might benefit from having a regional rather than a county-based approach.
Zoë Billingham: I speak only from the experience of pan-northern collaboration, which has changed and been flexible, and has taken the form of transport co-ordination. Its latest guise is the Great North, which is a great innovation and a great step forward for northern leadership. I think that is an example of how flexibility should be offered to all parts of the country where they see benefits beyond devolution just in their patch, so to speak.
I think you speak to a larger point about inconsistency in devolution. As many have said, it is very much building the plane while it is flying, and I think we need to be comfortable with that. We are far behind many of our OECD counterparts in terms of decentralising power. We are yet to settle on a model, and we should not settle on a very rigid model at this stage; we should be open to it being flexible in the future. I am sure that the Bill will be a very important first step in this Parliament, but it should by no means be the last word; the question of how devolution is taken forward in this country will need to be revisited on an ongoing basis.
Professor Denham: It might be worth exploring in Committee whether the right to request powers is sufficiently broad. For somewhere like Cornwall, even if you are currently on the lowest tier, you could none the less have the right to request powers specific to Cornwall, for the reasons that you want. There may be scope in the Bill to create something that does not necessarily guarantee you what you want, but gives you a route towards it.
Kevin McKenna
Q
One of the concerns that has been raised locally is that, by replicating the electoral and political structure of Kent and having Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone, which are very different types of towns, predominate the political nature of the mayoralty, we will just replicate the same problem and our needs in terms of economic development, and therefore social support and social economics, will be overridden. Effectively, we can be categorised as a little bit of the red wall in the south-east of England. One of the dangers to me is that we—
Kevin McKenna
Sorry, Ms Vaz—there is. What do you think we can do when setting up mayoral authorities to prevent aberrant areas—I say that in a very positive way—within a broader, more homogenous mayoral district from being neglected?
Zoë Billingham: We have some similar dynamics in the north, where certain combined authorities comprise some areas of low and modest incomes and some areas of great wealth, so some parallels can be drawn. Setting and influencing early mayoral priorities is really key. While in the north-east there are some areas of great wealth, Kim McGuinness’s priority is child poverty, and she has made that very clear. Obviously, that speaks directly to the areas of the north-east that suffer most from high levels of deprivation and child poverty. The initial setting of the mayoral agenda is absolutely essential in that.
Professor Denham: I recognise a lot of what you say, because I live in Hampshire. We have Southampton, Portsmouth and the island, which was mentioned earlier and is completely different.
There are two things that are crucially important. First, the unitarisation approach must be sensitive to those local geographies. Simply forcing people into a 500,000 unit because, mathematically, that is what came out of a PwC report two years ago would be counterproductive if that meant you lost the focus on those areas. That is a part of it: we need sufficient flexibility in the unitarisation approach.
The second thing is to try to build in from the beginning the idea that not every combined authority needs to replicate the structures that evolved initially in Manchester and the west midlands around a centralised authority. There are different ways of structuring a combined authority, its functions and its leadership that recognise the different constituent elements in an area. If I have one concern at the moment, it is that because we are asking people to reorganise their district councils and create a combined authority at the same time, it is very hard to find the headroom for that creative thinking about, “How are the internal dynamics of this going to work in the future?”
That is two things. First, we need flexibility on unitarisation, so that you do not disappear into an area that does not understand your needs. That is replicated in cathedral cities and all sorts of places right across the country. Secondly, we need to look at structuring a combined authority that builds in an understanding of those different geographies from the outset, and does not necessarily create a superior tier of authority.
Zoë Billingham: May I add one more point? It is about interventions at the neighbourhood level. A welcome focus of the Bill is that, as you raised, there can be as much inequality within combined authorities as between combined authorities. Sometimes the intervention needs to be at the neighbourhood level, so that should also be introduced as a focus of the combined authority. The basis on which they intervene and where is also a useful way to address disparities within regions.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
Q
On the democratic deficit, we are talking about getting rid of elected authorities. The response from you, Zoë, was, “Well, we can do some more consultation. We can have online meetings and votes at 16,” but how can any of that replicate a free and fair democratic election to a local council?
Professor Denham: I made my position clear: I think you might have needed to reorganise in future; I did not think it was the priority. But we are where we are. Personally, I am sceptical about savings materialising at the scale that has been said, because costs are always higher. If you followed what I suggested about having some flexibility in the size of the new unitaries, that undermines what was in the original proposal, but I think it is necessary for democratic reasons.
I would say, though, that we have never really taken a strategic approach to what happens below unitary and strategic authorities, even in areas that have only unitaries and strategic authorities. Everything I said about community empowerment plans, I would apply to met boroughs and to Greater Manchester and all the rest of it. It probably sounds particularly relevant because we have this process of local government reorganisation, but it should apply equally strongly to the duties that exist on current unitary authorities and strategic authorities. It is a national policy, rather than purely a local one.
Zoë Billingham: I would only add that, as John said, I am not sure there were many external voices calling for the abolition of district councils. It was seen as a quid pro quo, as I understand it, for the mayoral tier. As I stated previously, I am sceptical about the backroom savings that are considered to come with reducing headcount, office space and so on, but I will leave others to speak to that. As John said, unitarisation is not new, so there are examples of places that have tackled it well. We should look to those before thinking it is a foregone conclusion that it is not the right thing to do.
On democratic innovations, although the Bill challenges the current model, I think we should use this moment to consider what they are. Looking at voting levels at the last election, we just about got 50% of the country voting for MPs. At some of the local and regional elections, we mostly have less than the majority of the population coming out to vote. We can improve on the current system, and I hope this is a real opportunity to do that. That is why thinking about how people engage with democracy, why they come out to vote, and who comes out to vote is really important at this stage—especially with such a difficult political atmosphere in this country.
Maya Ellis
Q
Professor Denham: My view is that it would be reasonable for the legislation to enable Ministers to set out the broad parameters of the plans, but not to do that in a way that specifies exactly how it should be done in particular areas. It will vary: if you have strong town councils, you would sensibly build them in, but if you have communities that do not engage at all, you would use deliberative participation. People should be required to set out which tools they are going to use, why they are going to use them, how they would monitor the effect of that, how they will keep an eye on who is taking part in those processes, and so on. It is not just a slogan; it is a proper structured framework for doing it.
Zoë Billingham: I absolutely agree with that, and with allowing local tailoring. You are right; sometimes even community conversations can be captured by usual suspects. That is why using participatory methods on an ongoing basis is really important. We have seen some innovation in this space already through the mayors; they do mayoral question times, or invite young people to come in and ask them questions in a public forum. There are lots of ways it can be done.
The Chair
Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of the allotted time. On behalf of the Committee, I thank you both very much for your erudite evidence.
Examination of Witnesses
Richard Hebditch and Naomi Luhde-Thompson gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Richard Hebditch, coalition co-ordinator at the Better Planning Coalition, and Naomi Luhde-Thompson, member of the Better Planning Coalition steering group and director of rights community action at the Better Planning Coalition. We have until 5 pm for this panel.
Siân Berry
Q
Richard Hebditch: I think the Bill could be a very powerful tool from a planning point of view. The ability to co-ordinate across housing, transport and planning is really important. As in the London model, which obviously you know very well, that can be very powerful. One thing that is interesting with the Bill is the comparison with London’s accountability. What has been really important in London is the fact that you have the directly elected Assembly, committee structures with powers, and active civil society and media. There is also the statutory passenger watchdog in London, London TravelWatch, of which I am a board member. There is a developed infrastructure to scrutinise what the strategic authority and the mayor do, and that is important. Particularly given the increased powers there will be for strategic authorities elsewhere to call in planning applications and have mayoral development bodies, it is important to have that level of accountability.
Siân Berry
Naomi, do you have anything to add?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson: I could mention a little bit about public participation, but I do not know if you have a question on that later.
Siân Berry
Q
Richard Hebditch: As I mentioned, these are potentially very powerful bodies, as the Bill collects powers and duties from other legislation, rather than being a stand-alone piece of legislation. The health duty is potentially important. We would like to see duties around climate and nature. Those are long-term issues; they are not the kinds of things where, as a mayor or an authority, you are under short-term pressure—or, necessarily, pressure from central Government—to deliver, but they are really important. In the collection of duties from elsewhere—on local transport plans, for example—there are duties to have regard to national policy, but not in terms of the exercise of your functions, so these strategic authorities will be powerful delivery bodies in their own right, not simply as plan-making and strategy bodies, which makes it important to have those climate and nature duties as well.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson: The Labour Government in Wales introduced a different format in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015—a public authority duty. It has a series of goals, and each public authority has to carry out those duties in relation to their functions. I should declare that I am a member of the Eryri national park authority, so I have a very close view of how this is actually carried out. It comes to the point about where the public interest is in the proposals in front of us. There is growth and a bit about health, but where is the public interest? It does not seem to me to be properly explained or described in the Bill that this is all about delivering on the public interest—what is the Government’s role in doing that?
There is a bit of confusion between the two Bills. Look at the health duty in this Bill and then look at the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which is obviously in the Lords at the moment. There is no consultation for health groups in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, but there is a health duty on the combined county authority. It is just not connected. On the spatial development strategies, it is not particularly mentioned as a group, but there is a duty on the CCA, so it is really important to examine the connection between the two a bit more closely.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
At the community level, we obviously want to build in a way that is sustainable, but we need to make sure that there is public consent. I am interested in how we ensure that strategic planning powers sit alongside community engagement and community consent to make sure that there is a whole place sense of the direction of travel and the development that needs to happen, in a way that builds public support.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson: On public participation, the UK is a signatory of the Aarhus convention. Article 393 of the trade and co-operation agreement is really clear that when you are doing something that has an impact on the environment you must have a proper process of public participation. It must happen at an early enough time to influence the outcomes; otherwise, what is the point of having people involved? You are literally just asking them, “What colour do you want the gates to be?” You are not asking them to be involved in the full decision.
The issue that you have here—I will talk about the products that are produced—is that, if you look at the spatial development strategies, it specifically says in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, in proposed new section 12I of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004:
“No person is to have a right to be heard at an examination.”
That is completely the opposite of what you have on local plans: any person who makes representations must be given the opportunity to be heard in front of the examiner. That is not going to send out a strong signal that you actually want people to participate in the making of these spatial development strategies.
It is not a sell-out event to go to a plan examination, so I do not think that you need to be worried about that. I do, however, think that you need a right to be involved at that stage, and it cannot be at the discretion of someone else. I think that is one of the issues: if you have to wait for somebody else to give you consent or permission to enter that space, you do not have a right to enter it, because it is at somebody else’s discretion. That is why the formulation of such a right of access—a right to participate—is really important.
Your other point was about the duties, and how that is carried out. I would be really interested to see how the local growth plan is supposed to comply with, for example, the environmental principles policy statement. How does it combine with that? How does it combine with the spatial development strategy? What is the interaction there? It is quite complex, if you look at the organogram of the different plans that, if you are a member of the public, might affect and shape the place in which you live, and therefore what the purpose of all these plans are—whether they are there to achieve sustainable development in the public interest—and how you are supposed to get involved in influencing the outcome of the decisions that are made through these plans.
Richard Hebditch: It is probably also worth talking about the resourcing of all this. As people have discussed, we have the local government reorganisation at the same time. The new format for local plans, which are out of date, has new housing targets as well. Then we have the SDSs—spatial development strategies—on top of that. How do we make sure that we have the resourcing to develop all those things, which are happening at the same time? We then have wider planning reform, and we might have another planning Bill in the new year. There is a lot of potential chaos at the same time. I am sure the Government want to address that, and the resourcing for planners to develop the SDSs is very helpful, but there is a risk of not necessarily having a clear road map for how you get to that place. As I was saying, we are very supportive of the idea of spatial development strategies and the strategic layer, but the journey there is going to be quite chaotic. I think it would be good to look at issues around workforce skills and the timing of all the different things that are going on.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Naomi Luhde-Thompson: I think we need to reflect on what became of the regional spatial strategies, and on whether that was an issue around social licence and public consent. Obviously, an examination was attached to them in their development, and there was accountability in different formats. If it is not clear to people that they are going to be involved, you will just get disempowerment and disenfranchisement, and then people are just going to say, “Well, it’s nothing to do with me. I haven’t been able to be involved, and I haven’t been able to have an influence.” Those routes to influence and to participate properly, which means having an impact on the outcome, need to be very clearly laid out so that people can participate. I agree with you that it is a whole discussion. Planning is the way we organise ourselves in space, in society and in places. That is what it is supposed to be, so we need to make it like that.
Your point about democratic accountability is really important. One of the things that the Better Planning Coalition has been looking at is the national scheme of delegation, which will have a huge impact on whether there is democratic accountability for planning decisions at local level. If people realise what is happening only when the bulldozer turns up at the end of the road, that is obviously a failure of the system. If they feel that a decision has not been made in a way that is accountable, if there is no one for them to go and talk to, and if they do not have public speaking rights at planning committees any more and cannot have their say on that decision, I think that will lead to a democratic deficit.
David Simmonds
Q
The Chair
Bullet points would be great.
Richard Hebditch: This is not a good way to start an answer, but it is a massive challenge, and I very much recognise that. One of the things is around democratic legitimacy. As Naomi was saying, it is not about entirely removing local planning authorities’ say in how they deal with applications. It is important to ensure there is a community voice in the development of local plans as well. There is a challenge, as previously mentioned, if local government reorganisation is going on at the same time.
It is also about having a level of democratic accountability within the strategic layer. I mentioned the lack of structures for these new strategic authorities beyond the indirectly elected constituent authorities. The previous panel was discussing ideas that might improve engagement. There are risks in relying on elections every four years as the entire democratic legitimacy, particularly in a time when you have five parties all quite close together in polling, and you are seeing that in local authority elections at the moment.
There are risks in relying on that to justify your decisions without necessarily having a structure for what happens in the gap between those four years to ensure democratic voice and community engagement. It is not necessarily for the Bill, but maybe there is something around ensuring that there are adequate reviews of how this will operate, drawing on the ideas that the previous panel was discussing. We also now have the national covenant between civil society and national Government, so it is about whether we can look at similar things at a strategic layer and at a local layer.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson: Let me add just one example. I do not know whether anyone knows about the Salt Cross area action plan. It is West Oxfordshire district council: 2,000 homes on a greenfield site, and they want it to be zero carbon. It is going to have business on it and affordable housing. The community is really supportive, because that development is bringing things for them. The only problem is that those developing it want to strip out some of the things about zero carbon, for example, so there is a conflict there. I think that is all about—this is a whole different conversation—land values and land value capture, and how you get the public benefit out of development.
Manuela Perteghella
Q
Richard Hebditch: The Planning and Infrastructure Bill has the requirements on training for councillors when they make decisions. That is something we have welcomed, at that level. I think this goes back to the point on resourcing as well. The funding that has gone in to pay for planners to help develop at the SDS level is welcome. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill changes on being able to retain fee income from planning, and to vary fee income, are also welcome.
There is still an ongoing issue, and there are particular issues that the Royal Town Planning Institute has raised around apprenticeships and being able to have new entrants into planning. Changes in the rules around apprenticeships might threaten that input for planners.
Naomi Luhde-Thompson: We should be applying the subsidiarity principle. We should be making the decision at the closest level at which it is relevant to make that decision.
Mike Reader
Q
Richard Hebditch: Can we just say yes?
Naomi Luhde-Thompson: You need duties, because then it provides a framework. All those parts of the green economy have had no stability over the last few years because they have not known which way the policy has been going. If you provide stability in terms of a framework—“This is the direction of travel: we have to mitigate and we have to adapt”—and it is stable and long-term, then you know in which direction you are going.
The Chair
Thank you. That brings us to the end of our time for this panel. On behalf of the Committee, I thank you both very much for your evidence.
Examination of Witness
Sacha Bedding gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Sacha Bedding MBE, chief executive of Wharton Trust and a member of Locality. For this panel, we have until 5.20 pm.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Sacha Bedding: We welcome the community right to buy. It is a good step, a big step, and it is important. Communities often do not feel that they have those rights, because they do not, and when they see a treasured building or space go up for sale, and they have no opportunity to purchase or reclaim it—lots of these things are already ours—they feel disillusioned and hopeless. To have an avenue and pathway to change that will be important and helpful. It will need to be properly resourced; I think we should look again at a community ownership fund or a successor to it. Places that do not have capacity but have a willingness and desire should be supported in creating that. But it is a great opportunity for the people of this country.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Sacha Bedding: I watched some of the proceedings, and I understand why there is a desire for an expansion of parish councils. It is what we look like, and it is a reflection of this at a local level, but it is not right for everywhere. There are places up and down England where organisations like mine—Locality has hundreds of them as members—have the opportunity to create an active role in making sure that decisions reflect the will, the want and the need of the people who are going to be affected by those decisions.
That will happen only if we do not prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution to what neighbourhood governance looks like. Neighbourhood governance should mean that when the people in that community are asked, “Do you feel you have a stake in this place and the opportunity to shape where you live?” the answer is yes. At the moment, our opinion is no: roughly 80% of people say they do not feel they have that stake in their community. We see that in election turnout: the by-elections in Hartlepool, which I know well, had turnout of under 20% or 15%. That is an issue, and I am afraid that it is not going to be solved by creating another layer of councillor. I live in a parish area, by the way. Where parish councils do tremendous work, perfect—build on it—but where it is not right, let’s not mandate it. Let’s be creative and braver than we have been so far.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Q
Sacha Bedding: The first thing is that we have to make it accessible. I will always advocate for a community organising approach, because I think that releasing people’s agency, so that they feel that they can take action on the things they care about, is a route to that. However, whether it is asset-based community development, old traditional community development or community organising, that is where we start. We start where people are, not where we would like them to be.
If we can do that and resource that, there are thousands of people willing to roll up their sleeves and get involved where they live. I see it every day; you see it in your constituencies every day. This is not some great big secret—it is just, “Go out and ask them.” On the flipside of that, our sector, like every other sector, has been hammered for a long time, but releasing the skills and talents of local people to take action on the things they care about will answer that question.
Vikki Slade
Q
Sacha Bedding: I do not work in an area of environmental concern. If there are environmental opportunities in places, the broader the scope of what we consider an asset of community value to be, the better, in my opinion. I do not think we should prescribe that it must be bricks and mortar. For us in Hartlepool, things such as long-term plans for neighbourhoods should include the sea. That is our greatest asset, after the people who live there, and every community plan could involve the sea, for example. The environmental opportunities are there; whether we can distinguish whether they are social or environmental does not matter—let us expand the scope.
However, we should also look at the right to shape public services, because too often the people who are receiving services do not have a stake in the design of those services and the right to control investment. That is a big one. I do not mean, for example, Hartlepool getting 10 nuclear modular power stations, although that is great news; I mean at the neighbourhood level, where houses can be built, or not built, as we have just heard. People should have a stake in that decision. If you want more housing built, work alongside people who live in that community now. Do not just internally exile them, flatten the houses and say, “Hard luck, son.” That is not an answer.
The more expansive the assets of community value are, the better. The opportunity to expand the community rights is there, and it makes more sense for everybody. On homelessness strategies, where people are still on the streets and we are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds, or a literacy strategy, where one in three people is illiterate and that works with cohesion, if people can bring those together, they will coalesce around a place, and they can do that far better if those rights are enhanced.
The Chair
Thank you very much, Mr Bedding, for coming down and for your evidence. I will suspend the Committee for 10 minutes, because our Minister has been sitting here and she has to give evidence next. We will resume at 5.20 pm.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Miatta Fahnbulleh MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Thank you very much for agreeing to do it today when you were just sitting here listening to all the evidence; it is a tough day for you, Minister. For this panel, we have until 5.40 pm.
Paul Holmes
Q
I would like to angle in on two issues. I think it is fair to say that most witnesses today have said that there has been confusion and doubt about the benefits, and there have been some concerns about the disjointed nature of planning reforms. I do not think I have seen before a Government bring forward two major pieces of legislation that, maybe unintentionally, deliver completely different things.
My first question is: has your Department done any analysis or assessments on how much will be saved in local government from the unitarisation and devolution measures that you are introducing?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: First, no, I do not think I have inherited a disjointed mess from my predecessor. Candidly, we are having to fix 15 years of another Government making a complete mess of the local government landscape. To the extent that these are big reforms and that we are having to drive through some big changes simultaneously, that is a function of where the Conservative party—and the hon. Member and his colleagues—left us.
On the specific question about local government reorganisation, yes, savings are part of this, but it is much bigger than that. Ultimately—I think this came out really clearly in all the evidence sessions—this is about delivering better services and better outcomes for communities. It is about dealing with the fact that the landscape of local government is currently fragmented. It is about dealing with the fact that we do not have sufficient alignment around different types of services that we need to bring together in order to deliver the outcomes for communities. It is about ensuring that we are aggregating our resources and driving through efficiencies. It is about all of that.
Candidly, when you speak to communities, they do not know who in their local area is responsible for what, so we have to strengthen that sense of accountability. The reforms go back to what works in service of communities. That is driving us. We are very clear that where we are is not where we need to be. If you speak to communities, they are clear that the landscape does not serve them in the way that they need it to, and that is what these reforms are trying to drive though. Yes, it is about efficiency savings, but it is a much bigger agenda than that.
Paul Holmes
Q
Can I just drill down again, as you have not answered the question: has your Department done any analysis on estimated savings from the unitarisation of local authorities across England, and the devolution measures that you have put forward to the House today?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: There is a big evidence base that sits behind the proposals, and an impact assessment that sits alongside this piece of legislation. Ultimately, we have taken an approach of asking places to come forward with proposals. That is the right approach because, in the end, it is about places and communities. A locality must make the decision about what works for their communities. It is quite hard to have a full and comprehensive assessment until you have that set of proposals. It is a function of the approach that we have taken, but I do not think a single Committee member would say that we should have just imposed boundaries across the country rather than go to communities and say, “What is the boundary that makes sense for you that will deliver the outcomes that we need for your communities?”
Paul Holmes
Q
Paul Holmes
I have one more question, if I may. We will move on, because it is clear that there was no assessment of the spending.
On 16 December 2024, the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) sent a letter to local authority leaders setting out a target of 500,000 people per local authority. On 3 June, he said that that was a set principle and that any local authority that wanted to go above or below it would need to set out a clear rationale. On 20 July, he said that he continued to be asked about the 500,000 target, indicating the concern and confusion among local government leaders. Do you think that the Government have behaved in the right way to ensure an efficient and streamlined consultation process for local government leaders in the country?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Councillor Craig summed it up perfectly: the 500,000 was an indication of the type of scale that we thought makes sense for the outcomes that we are trying to achieve. I go back to the need to deal with fragmentation, the alignment of services and, fundamentally, the impact for communities on the ground. Ultimately, though, there has to be some give within that. It has to be aligned with the existing institutions and with what local communities believe is the right geography to deliver the outcomes they want.
I think that we have been consistent, and I understand that my predecessor was pretty consistent. People ask whether it is 10,000 or 1 million; the 500,000 gives an indication. But part of the devolution process is about empowering places to use their judgment to come up with the right outcomes, and that is what we are trying to do. We have given an indication but, ultimately, we want proposals to come forward from places that say, “We can achieve the scale in the geography that makes sense to deliver the outcomes for our communities.” In the end, that is what this is all about.
The Chair
If we keep our questions and answers short, everyone will get in. I call Perran Moon.
Perran Moon
Q
“Article 16 prohibits restricting the enjoyment of the rights of the Framework Convention in connection with the redrawing of borders.”
The Bill currently excludes Cornwall from accessing the highest level of devolution unless we compromise our national minority status. Is there an appetite in the Government, before we pass a Bill that breaches the framework convention, for making special provision in the Bill for Cornwall so that it can access the highest level of devolution without compromising our national minority status?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: First, let me thank you for being such a consistent, persistent and passionate advocate for Cornwall. The Government absolutely recognise Cornwall’s national minority status. We recognise the uniqueness of Cornwall and are trying to operate within that framework. Ultimately, strategic authorities, at their best, try to drive economic performance and growth, so geography matters.
The conversation that we want to have with Cornwall is: “If you want to drive growth and employment opportunities, and if you want to create jobs in your area, what is the best geography to do that in?” That is not to deny Cornwall’s uniqueness and specialness, which I think every single Committee member recognises and appreciates, but it is to say that if our objective is to make sure we are delivering for your community in Cornwall, what is the best spatial strategy to do that? That might require collaboration beyond the boundaries of Cornwall.
David Simmonds
Q
Clearly, a number of those authority areas are in the process of finalising their bids, and in some areas there is dispute at different levels of local authority as to what the footprint should be. Many of us will have been pleased to hear you say earlier, Minister, that that was flexible, in your view—that it was not intended to be a strong guideline, but was something where you were looking at a much greater level of latitude. So that we can have assurances in relation to the relevant groupings later in the Committee process, will you commit to all those local leaders—in particular any who have submitted a bid on the understanding that it had to be around that 500,000—that there will be the opportunity to revisit that if it was not dictated by their local circumstances and preferences but, in their minds, something required by the Government?
David Simmonds
That is the question.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I come back to, “What is the purpose of this?” We are not doing reorganisation for the fun of it—it is not fun. We are doing it because we think it will help us to drive certain outcomes. Our assessment is that around 500,000 is the sort of scale that allows us to do certain functions. That has to be consistent and compliant with what makes sense locally. The whole purpose of localism is that you have that interaction between the two. We have therefore given a benchmark for what we think makes sense, but when we look at proposals we will, of course, take into account the specific circumstances. If an authority comes forward with 100,000 or 200,000, we are likely to say that that probably does not cut the mustard, but we want to have that conversation, because fundamentally this has to be aligned and make sense on the ground. Otherwise, none of this will play out in the way that we want it to.
David Simmonds
Q
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I come back to the fact that it is not just about savings and efficiency, but about removing fragmentation and about what makes sense in terms of the types of services that we are asking local authorities to deliver—it is a whole set of things. That is our benchmark, but ultimately the basis of localism is to say to places, “Given these parameters, what do you think makes sense?” We will use that to make decisions.
Vikki Slade
Q
Miatta Fahnbulleh: The push of powers to communities is absolutely critical to us, and the duty on local authorities to think about neighbourhood governance is trying to get to the heart of that. Parish councils may be the structures and institutions that the local authority decides to build on, but it is not consistent across the country, so we have to ensure that we are finding the right governance structures for different places so that communities have a genuine voice. We have to ensure that we have diversity of representation, which we need for this to be enduring and for it to ensure that there is power and voice for communities. The commitment is there, and that is why we have it. We were very clear that this was not just about strategic authorities or local authorities, but was absolutely about the neighbourhood level. How we get that right has to be a conversation—an iterative relationship with places. That is the bit that we are absolutely committed to.
Mrs Blundell
Q
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We are clear that councillors have an absolutely fundamental role to play in the democratic system that we are trying to create. They are not only elected, but champions and conduits for their community.
As we drive through these reforms, there is a question about how we build on the power of councillors and the role that they play, whether within our neighbourhood governance structures or, indeed, in how they interact with the mayor, and the accountability and scrutiny of the mayor.
You can have our assurance that councillors have a fundamental role in the landscape and are part of the infrastructure that we need to build on. There are huge opportunities for that as we take the process forward.
Siân Berry
Q
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We recognise that, if you like, the scrutiny landscape is not as it should be, which is why some of the measures that we are driving through the Bill try to address that. We are moving at pace and creating institutions at pace—we recognise that and do not resile from it. We are doing so because we looked at the inheritance and were not pleased with it, so we thought that we had better make some progress in the time that we have.
However, it is absolutely the case that strong, accountable leaders are only as strong and accountable as the scrutiny institutions that you build around them. I think they have emerged organically in some instances, but we hope to use the Bill to create more structure around that so that alongside—hopefully—powerful mayors and powerful local authorities, we have that scrutiny function in place. Again, we will learn from what is working well and we will look at how we build on what is working well.
Siân Berry
Q
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Resourcing is a challenge across the piece. As we think about the structures that we are creating, we are also thinking about how we build capacity, because if we do not do that, we will create structures that will not be effective, which is not the outcome that we are trying to achieve.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Miatta Fahnbulleh: There are two things that I would say. Even in our urban areas, or what are defined as urban areas—for example, North of Tyne—there are big rural constituencies within them. Actually, many of our metro mayors straddle urban areas—in some instances, there are core cities—and rural areas.
The benefits are the same for both. If your starting position is, “How do we drive economic growth?”—that is one of the big issues—the evidence of the last decade and a half, as well as that from other countries, is that such a strategic level creates a massive opportunity to unlock growth. That is as true for our urban areas as it is for our rural areas.
However, I would also say that, yes, there is a model that we are trying to drive forward, but it has to be specific to particular places. There will be different constellations, if you like, of strategic authorities. That is okay, because what matters is that we create governance structures that can fundamentally drive outcomes that are tailored and specific to those areas.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Ultimately, the approach that we are taking is to say to places, “What makes sense?”, and there is a journey for places to go on. Some places will choose to be foundational authorities, because that makes sense for them. Actually, we are being overwhelmed. It is not just urban areas that are coming forward to us with an appetite to move to—
Lewis Cocking
Q
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Well, no. We said, “This is the suite—
Lewis Cocking
You have.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We said, “This is the suite of powers that you can get.” Places have seen the opportunity and are looking to other areas that have gone through this journey. Look at Greater Manchester, with some of the highest productivity growth that we have had. I was there at the start, when we began this journey. People are seeing that there is something here that is working and there is an appetite for that.
The Government have done their bit by saying, “Look, we understand you need the powers; this is the suite of powers. We’re not going to ask you to do lots of deals and jump through hoops,” and places are lining up. I think that every place needs to figure out what makes sense for it. However, the evidence so far is that places see that there is a strategic opportunity, because they care about growth and outcomes for their communities.
Mike Reader
Q
The Chair
That was a request and not a question.
We come to the end of today’s session. Minister, thank you very much; I know that it has been a hard day for you.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.—(Deirdre Costigan.)
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Third sitting)
Tuesday 14th October 2025
(1 day, 23 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesEnglish Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 14 October 2025 - (14 Oct 2025)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 3 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
As we begin consideration in Committee of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, I have a few housekeeping points to make.
Phones should be switched off. I have just switched mine off, as I do not want to set a bad example. I do not really like gentlemen to remove their jackets; I never remove mine, unless I am in my home or garden, or on holiday. I notice someone getting their tie on quickly.
We will power through this, but we will also give the Bill full consideration. I have made it clear to the Government Whip, as I now make it clear to others, that we are not going to delay unduly; equally, we will not hurry through without proper scrutiny. Getting that balance right will be my job.
Everyone is entitled to speak, and they should let me know that they wish to do so in the normal way. Anyone who wants to press an amendment to a vote needs to notify me, or make it clear in their speech that they will press for a vote—unless, of course, the Minister satisfies them, possibly by conceding the amendment, in which case a vote will not be needed. We will see about that as we go. Let us have a good Committee, with everyone enjoying it and participating, so that we have good scrutiny of legislation.
We are sitting in public and proceedings are being broadcast. I emphasise, no tea and coffee—it states that in my script, by the way, but I guess you knew it anyway—but you may refresh yourselves with water.
We now begin line-by-line consideration. The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room and on the parliamentary website. It shows how the clauses, schedules and selected amendments have been grouped together for debate. There has been a bit of a change, because a Member withdrew their amendments late on, so we will be getting an up-to-date version of that.
The Member who has put their name to a lead amendment in a group is called to speak first. For debates on clause stand part, the Minister will be called first. Other Members are then free to indicate that they wish to speak by bobbing. If we have had a full debate on a clause through discussion of the amendments, I will probably not allow a separate stand part debate. If we have not had full consideration, we will have a stand part debate on that clause. I will gauge that as we go, mindful that we need to make progress, but have proper scrutiny, as I said.
At the end of a group of amendments and new clauses, I will call the Member who moved the lead amendment or new clause again. If any Member wishes to press to a vote any other amendment, which includes grouped new clauses, that is at the Chair’s discretion. The Member must inform the Chair in advance if they wish to press an amendment. My fellow Chairs and I will use our discretion to decide whether to allow separate stand part debates. I hope that is helpful.
Clause 1
Strategic authorities
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider new clause 35—Standardisation of definitions—
“(1) Within six months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must by regulations standardise the definition in legislation of—
(a) ‘national’,
(b) ‘strategic’,
(c) ‘local’ and
(d) ‘community’
for the purposes of ensuring each refers consistently to the appropriate level of local government across all legislation.
(2) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
(3) In exercising this power, the Secretary of State must have due regard to the need to ensure consistent use of the words listed in subsection (1), to facilitate public understanding of devolution.
(4) Within six months of a statutory instrument under subsection (2) being made, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report setting out how the power under this section has been used this power, including any reasons for failure to exercise it where there is inconsistent usage of the words listed in subsection (1).”
This new clause would ensure that words like “strategic” and “local”, where they relate to a level of government, have consistent meaning across statute.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir John. Before I speak to the first group of amendments, I put on the record my thanks to the witnesses who gave up their time in September to give evidence to the Committee. Their comments were insightful and will inform our scrutiny over the remainder of Committee stage.
The English devolution White Paper committed to introduce in law the concept of strategic authorities, which sits at the heart of our new devolution architecture for England. The clause makes good on that commitment and establishes a more consistent and simple model of devolution. The clause sets out the three levels of strategic authority: the single foundational strategic authority, the combined foundational strategic authority and the mayoral strategic authority. Each category will have access to a consistent set of devolved powers and functions.
Mayoral strategic authorities that meet specified eligibility criteria may be designated by secondary legislation as established mayoral strategic authorities, unlocking further devolution. We believe that that will deliver a permanent shift in power from Whitehall to all parts of the country, with consistent powers at the right level across all of England, so that empowered mayors can drive growth, unlock house building and infrastructure, and deliver the change that our communities want.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
I echo the Minister’s welcome, Sir John. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair.
We will refer to a good deal of evidence on all parts of the Bill, but it is important to set out briefly—in terms equivalent to those used by the Minister—the concerns that the Opposition continue to have about the significant democratic deficit that arises from the measures in the Bill; the risk of losing the efficiency and local insight that come from many of our local government structures; and, in the context of a country that already has fewer elected representatives per voter than any other developed democracy in the world, the impact of stripping out, by some estimates, up to 90% of elected representation. I therefore echo your comments, Sir John, on the importance of scrutiny of the Bill. Local authorities are the means by which our voters, our residents, exercise control over what happens in their neighbourhoods and communities. It is critical that the legislation gets that right.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We absolutely recognise the hon. Member’s point about democracy. Directly elected mayors can play a powerful strategic role. They are a key new part of the devolution architecture that we have seen work well across the country. I point to Greater Manchester, which has delivered the fastest growth of any local economy. They sit alongside strong democratic structures that we will have in local government. The Bill is complementary to that and does not cut across or undermine those structures.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. This is not my first Public Bill Committee, but I have had the whole summer to forget how these things work, so I look forward to being firmly guided by you if I stray from good practice.
I will speak to new clause 35. In that context, I emphasise how friendly, constructive and helpful the new clause is intended to be as a way of getting the Committee started on a good note. I ask Ministers to take the need for it on board, although I will not press it to a vote. I tabled the new clause to ensure that, more broadly, words such as “strategic” and “local”, where they relate to a level of government or a level of area of policy, have a consistent meaning for strategic authorities, constituent authorities and community-level groups.
I will give some examples of possible confusion growing in the areas cited in new clause 35. We have a strategic road network, which is in fact a national network managed by National Highways. We have new strategic authorities, which will have to manage a key route network, analogous to the Transport for London route network. We also have local roads managed by local authorities. In the Bill, however, we have strategic authorities being asked to make a local transport plan. That could be more helpfully named a strategic transport plan.
Another area of policy I am very familiar with is the community infrastructure levy. In later clauses, we will discuss new applications of the mayoral community infrastructure levies. I have experience of how, more locally, spending on what most local councils call strategic community infrastructure levies is done by local authorities. Decisions on local CIL spending, which is what councils normally call is, are made closer to the community, often by ward councillors or neighbourhood forums.
We are slightly better off in planning, where there is a national basis for decisions on nationally significant infrastructure, and where strategic planning applications may be called in by regional strategic level mayors under current or new structures. However I do think that we lack rigour, sometimes logic, and often clarity in all these terms now. More thought about making things more standardised and easier to understand would be very welcome. I am not proposing a vote on this new clause, but what I would like to hear from the Minister today is that she will take this away, ask for at least a report on the current range of terminology we have ended up with in different areas of policy, and consider potential further amendments and the fuller review the new clause calls for.
The Chair
As a point of advice, if people want to contribute after I have called the Minister to sum up then just let me know in advance and I will call the Minister at the end, so she can respond to a variety of points that have been made. I do not want the Minister to have to keep getting up and responding to every speech. I know people are new to Committee, but it helps the Minister be able to sum up her consideration of all the points that have been made.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I am sympathetic to the intentions behind the new clause, and the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion makes a good point regarding the tapestry of terms that we have in a very complicated local government structure; however, the Bill already includes defined terms relevant to interpreting local government structures. For example, clause 1 defines exactly what strategic authorities are. My concern is that taking a one-size-fits-all approach might have unintended consequences by altering existing definitions that have been deliberately tailored to work in specific legislative contexts. My view is that as we go through this process of standardising the new structure, with strategic authorities now established in legislation working alongside local government and community structures, the roles and the definitions of different structures of government will become much clearer. I hope the hon. Member will not press the new clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Functions of Strategic Authorities and Mayors
Siân Berry
I beg to move amendment 261, in clause 2, page 2, line 21, after “economic development”, insert “, poverty and socio-economic inequality,”
This amendment would make poverty and socio-economic inequality an area of competence for devolved authorities, ensuring they can take action to address the root causes of disadvantage in their areas.
Siân Berry
The amendment relates to the fact that the new strategic authorities simply must be tasked with reducing inequality as well as creating growth. We know that growth for growth’s sake does not trickle down or help everyone equally. The strategic authorities must be tasked with understanding, measuring and reducing socioeconomic inequality. The socioeconomic duty in the Equality Act 2010 is not yet commenced for England, but if it were the amendment would have to be made.
The amendment would make poverty and socioeconomic inequality an area of competence for devolved authorities, ensuring they can take action to address the root causes of disadvantage in their areas. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on poverty and inequality, this is an issue close to my heart. In July, the officers and I sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Education and the Minister for Women and Equalities to ask about the urgency of commencing the socioeconomic duty. We said,
“The urgent need for the duty could not be clearer. Rising child destitution, increasing reliance on foodbanks and untimely excess deaths attributable to austerity policies all highlight the imperative for a legal tool to reduce socio-economic inequalities”.
We also said,
“Activation of the Socio-Economic Duty marks an important shift from piecemeal responses to rising poverty and widening inequalities, to a proactive systemic approach, embedded across all policy areas”.
The Bill is an opportunity to embed those principles.
I do not believe that these two actions—the commencement of the duty and the writing of this Bill—are mutually exclusive in achieving these goals. I cannot see why, given the Government’s promise to enact the duty, the new bodies should not be set up with it in place and in mind. I know that organisations including many local authorities are already preparing to comply with it in England. Towards the end of last year, one of my Green party colleagues on the London Assembly questioned the Mayor of London with some urgency about the work that he is doing with local authorities and agencies across London to prepare for this. We are now approaching the end of this year and it is still not in place. I believe that the Bill is the right place to start putting this into legislation.
I do not plan to push the amendment to a vote, but I would like to hear more from the Minister about when the Labour Government plan to bring the duty into force, and what plans Ministers have to use a statutory instrument to apply it to strategic authorities and mayors. Even if they will not accept the amendment, I would appreciate anything on the record asking those bodies to get ready for the duty, so that when they are set up, they can hit the ground running on addressing poverty and inequality in their areas.
David Simmonds
The Opposition have some sympathy with the amendment, but we spent time reflecting on its implications and appropriateness for the Bill. I suspect that, to a degree, the Minister and I agree on this point. If we reflect on the legislative framework around our local authorities from their earliest origins, the relief of poverty and addressing inequalities—the duties that the amendment refers to—have been enshrined. It goes back as far as the Poor Laws, but in more recent years the National Assistance Act 1948 compelled all local authorities to support those destitute in their areas, and the Localism Act 2011 gives scope for local authorities to use their economic powers through activities such as procurement in ways that specifically benefit the local area.
The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, which was much debated and broadly had cross-party support, is reflected in a lot of this Bill. It was specifically about local authorities using their powers to support the economy of their local area. Just a short time ago, some of the members of the Committee were in this room debating the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, in which the Government set out a vision—contested to some extent—about how those measures affecting local authorities will address persistent issues of inequality. We recognise that sometimes that is about legislation, but sometimes it is about Government action.
Mention has been made of food banks, which were rolled out under the last Labour Government as a means of addressing persistent issues of poverty. I remember them being opened during my time as a local authority councillor, and Gordon Brown visiting and saying, “This is an example of how we expect local authorities to address some of these persistent issues.” Local authorities already have these duties at both the strategic and the micro level. I question whether it is necessary to add an amendment that, in essence, reflects existing duties throughout all the different tiers of local government in England.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I shall start by setting out the purpose of clause 2, then turn to amendment 261. The clause provides some broad thematic policy areas under which functions and powers of strategic authorities are arranged in the Bill. Defining those areas on the face of the Bill will bring clarity and purpose to the role of strategic authorities, which all parties agree we need to do. We want to empower mayors, who know who their areas best, to respond to local needs, so they can be the ones driving change and improvements in economic prospects and living standards and poverty. These thematic policy areas are deliberately broad, to allow for a wide range of activities.
I have a lot of sympathy with the intention behind amendment 261. Alleviation of poverty and tackling socioeconomic inequality should be a core part of what we do and a core metric of economic success. However, as the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner set out, those duties are already baked into the very function and purpose of local authorities and, critically, they cut across all the thematic areas that we have set out.
Siân Berry
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Single foundation strategic authorities
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 3, page 2, line 27, leave out subsections (1) to (3) and insert—
“(1) A unitary district council or a county council may submit a proposal to the Secretary of State for designation as a single foundation strategic authority.
(2) A proposal under subsection (1) must be prepared in such form and contain such information as the Secretary of State may by regulations prescribe.
(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations designate a unitary district council as a single foundation strategic authority if—
(a) a proposal has been submitted in accordance with subsection (1), and
(b) the Secretary of State is satisfied that the designation is appropriate having regard to the need to secure effective and convenient local government in relation to the areas of competence.”
This amendment would restrict the Secretary of State's power to designate a single foundation Strategic Authority. Instead, a local authority would initiate the request by submitting a proposal to the Secretary of State.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 28, in schedule 1, page 87, leave out lines 1 to 29.
This amendment would remove the Bill’s provision for the Secretary of State to have powers to prepare a proposal for there to be a mayor for the area of an existing combined authority.
Amendment 29, in schedule 1, page 95, leave out paragraph 33 and 34.
This amendment would remove the Bill’s provision for the Secretary of State to have powers to prepare a proposal for the establishment of a CCA without a public consultation.
Vikki Slade
Amendments 4, 28 and 29 seek to ensure that this is a genuinely community-led devolution—I am sure that we will repeat that many times throughout the morning. Fundamentally, the Bill seeks to move decision making closer to home, which we welcome. However, closer to home needs to start at home, and we want it to be councils that take the initiative to establish a single foundation authority, not the Secretary of State. We also believe that the public should play a role, and therefore this process should involve consultation, which we believe these amendments will provide.
This is a really important issue for us; we think it is fundamental to the whole concept of devolution. As a result, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon will speak to these amendments in more detail, and we will push amendment 4 to a vote.
David Simmonds
We know there will be quite a degree of debate on this in due course. We sympathise with the objectives of the amendment, and we all share the concern that local people should be the ones who initiate change in the structures that govern their local areas, not the Secretary of State or the man in Whitehall who knows best. Therefore we have sympathy with the objective, and we shall return to that debate later on with some of the amendments around the structures.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. Amendments 4, 28 and 29 would make English devolution genuinely local by ensuring that local consent and public consultation come first. Amendment 4 would change clause 3 so that local authorities must apply to the Secretary of State themselves to become a single foundation strategic authority, rather than Whitehall imposing devolution on local councils. Amendments 28 and 29 would remove the parts of schedule 1 that would allow the Secretary of State to prepare a proposal for there to be a mayor in an existing combined authority area, and for the establishment of a combined county authority, without public consultation.
One of the greatest criticisms of the Bill is that it proposes a top-down, Whitehall-led devolution, which is not really devolution at all. In my county of Warwickshire, the choice of which strategic authority we create, form or join must come from local elected representatives who are closer to their communities and understand better the needs of our constituents. Such an important shaping of future governance must have grassroots support and should not end up being imposed by central Government, especially if we want to decentralise powers to tackle socioeconomic inequalities, address regional disparities and promote real autonomy.
Without the amendment, local people will lose the right to decide their own governance arrangements. Whitehall will be able to impose devolved powers, force mayoral models on to areas that have not asked for them, and redraw local governance boundaries behind closed doors. Community involvement and local consent are essential to ensure transparency and accountability in devolution decision making.
Amendment 4 reaches the heart of the issue at hand. It would ensure that devolution is locally led, not imposed. It would ensure that a council that wishes to become a single foundation strategic authority must initiate the process itself, rather than wait for the Secretary of State to decree it. If devolution is to have legitimacy, it must be built on local consent, local ambition and local accountability. Without that, we risk the Bill becoming an exercise in central control and a top-down approach dressed up as devolution. We would like to push amendment 4 to a vote.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Both the policy intent and the practice with places going through the devolution process are locally led. The impetus is coming from local leaders and local authorities that are working with their communities to drive the process.
On amendment 4, the Government have been clear that we will consider non-mayoral devolution arrangements for single local authorities on an exceptional basis where certain criteria are met. Designation is not intended as the end point; it is a stepping stone towards deeper devolution, which is what we hope will be the journey for all parts of the country. It is therefore most appropriate for the process to be initiated by the Secretary of State rather than the local authority. However, to be clear, the Secretary of State will not be able to designate a council as a foundation strategic authority unless the council itself consents to that designation. That is a robust safeguard that will protect the interests of the single local authority concerned. I agree with the sentiment behind the amendment to ensure that the Secretary of State has regard to the need to secure effective and convenient local government. I am pleased that those criteria are already embedded in the Bill when conferring functions on a single foundation strategic authority.
Amendment 28 seeks to remove the Secretary of State’s proposed power to direct for there to be a mayor for an existing combined authority without local consent. The Government have been clear about the benefits of mayoral devolution; we are seeing it across the country. For example, South Yorkshire mayoral combined authority brought the Supertram network back into public control after 27 years, and there are already drops in fare evasion, increases in usage, ticketing apps and improved clearing. Greater Manchester authority has taken control of its bus service, resulting in increased punctuality and ridership and cheaper fares. The North East combined authority has secured a £450 million development for one of the largest film studios in Europe, with the potential to create over 8,000 jobs.
We know the impact of this devolution model. We are seeing it across the country and we want to see it in more areas. We are clear that mayors with skin in the game are best placed to drive forward growth, reform public services and deliver the change that their communities want. Every resident in England should be able to benefit from deeper mayoral devolution in their area.
David Simmonds
There is, perhaps, a risk of the Committee being inadvertently misled, in that all these points are being described as locally led. The Committee needs to be clear: local authorities were told that they needed to submit the proposals or the Government would take powers to direct them to do it. It was a gun to their heads. It was not the case that local authorities came forward proactively. During the 14-year era under the previous Government, it was clear that proposals that did come forward for reorganisation would be entertained by Government, and a number of those were taken forward, but compulsion was not the case. It is only since the Government told local authorities that they either had to come forward or would be directed to do so that we have seen the proposals, so it is not the case that they are locally led. The Committee needs to be clear on that.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I completely disagree. I have been having conversations, for example, with our strategic combined authorities that are going through the process. The difference between this Government and the last is that we have created a clear sense of the powers and the economic opportunities that areas can take forward. Take, for example, our current devolution priority area. I am the new Minister, and I am having the first set of conversations with them. Every single one is excited and enthusiastic about the prospect. At the moment, the demand for devolution deals is outstripping our ability to respond, because we have attached to them clear powers, access to funding and the ability to drive the change that we want to see in those areas. So I completely reject the premise that places are being driven to do this.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
There is a risk here that we are conflating what is actually happening on the ground. The Minister is absolutely right, and no one can argue that this Government have not been clear about the structures that they want to put forward. However, to say that there is a demand from local authorities requesting devolution is stretching it a bit, because it is quite clear out there—particularly in my area, in Hampshire and the Solent—that this Government have said to them, “You have to do this; otherwise we are going to force it on you.” That is not locally led, is it?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I spoke to the leaders of Hampshire and the Solent just last week, and they were unanimously enthusiastic about what was being proposed, because they could see the opportunity. I am pleased that it is being voted on, and ultimately it is for places to come forward. What we have said to them is, “If you go through this journey, there are powers that you can draw down that will allow you to drive change in your areas.” The strategic authorities, combined authorities and constituent authorities can see the economic prospect. They see what is happening in Greater Manchester, the Liverpool city region and the west midlands, and they want that for their residents. That is absolutely right, and what we are doing is enabling and supporting that.
Let me talk about the backstop power provided here. We do not expect to use it, which is why it does not come into force at Royal Assent; it is there if we need to draw on it. The only reason it is there—because we think the demand and the momentum created by devolution will do the job for us—is in the instance where there are blockages. That means when constituent authorities that want to move forward are being resisted by a particular authority, we give ourselves the ability to intervene. The reason we are doing that is because we do not want any residents to be left out. We do not want areas to be devolution deserts, not being able to benefit from the economic opportunities and prospects provided.
Vikki Slade
The reality is that the only reason they are queuing at the Minister’s door to access devolution is that they are being denied access to funding if they do not. Let me give the example of Wessex: Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire have all been unitarised over the past 10 years. They should have been in the ideal position, but they were overlooked for the first wave of devolution. They were apparently not ready, and I accept that fact, but they have missed out this financial year on more than £300 million—£159.29 for every single household in that area—compared with other areas. They have no real choice but to devolve to a single authority, because why would their residents think it is acceptable for them to miss out on £300 million? So it is not fair, or it is disingenuous, to suggest that this is not compulsion. The other point I want to make—
Miatta Fahnbulleh
It is absolutely right that we say that, in order to drive economic success in particular areas, there are powers that relate to economic drivers and levers that we want, and there is an investment fund that can be deployed at that functional level. I will not resile from that; it is absolutely the right thing to do. We are clear with places that we think a strategic authority operating at a functional geography is the way to unlock their economic potential, and we are building powers alongside that. Places that want to take it up absolutely can. At the moment they are queuing up to do so, and I am incredibly happy about that.
I am very disappointed in the hon. Member for Hamble Valley for not getting on in support of his area, which is enthusiastic for this and moving forward. Ultimately, there is momentum around devolution because the benefits of it are being seen already. It is not theoretical; it is not on paper. We are seeing it in our areas, and I want it for every part of the country, not just the ones that have gone through the journey.
Paul Holmes
The Minister should be very careful about attributing motives to myself that are not there. I am very supportive of the fact that Hampshire and the Solent and will have a mayor. Hopefully, it will be a Conservative mayor, as that will drive the economy going forward. I want to press the point that we can see how divisive this is in the fact that three different versions of local government reform are being proposed. Hampshire and the Isle of Wight were told, in this Government policy, that if they did not go ahead and embrace devolution, it would be forced on them in a way they may not like. That is not locally led; it is compulsion, is it not?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I will not press this point. All I can say is that I sat down with the leaders last week as a new Minister—the newbie—and I asked them how it was going. They told me, “we are enthusiastic and there is momentum around this because we can see the value that it will provide for our communities, so we are driving forward. What we need is for Government to get out of the way and for the Government to support and enable us.” I take that as a ringing endorsement of what we are trying to do. I can only go by the conversations I have had with local leaders. At the moment, I am seeing momentum and support for this, and rightly so because we are seeing the impacts of this on the ground and the Bill will extend that across the country.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Vikki Slade
I beg to move amendment 30, in clause 3, page 2, line 32, at end insert—
“(3A) Before making a designation under this section, the Secretary of State must consult town and parish councils within the area of the proposed single foundation strategic authority.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult town and parish councils prior to the unitary district council or county council within which they are situated being designated as a single foundation strategic authority.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 266, in schedule 1, page 79, line 15, leave out subparagraph (b).
This amendment, and Amendments 267 to 273, remove the ability of the Secretary of State to create, or make certain changes to the governance or composition of, combined authorities without consent of the councils involved.
Amendment 267, in schedule 1, page 79, line 33, leave out subparagraph (b).
See explanatory statement for Amendment 266.
Amendment 268, in schedule 1, page 80, line 18, leave out “subsections (3) to (5)” and insert “subsection (3)”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 266.
Amendment 269, in schedule 1, page 80, line 20, leave out paragraph 6.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 266.
Amendment 270, in schedule 1, page 80, line 21, leave out paragraph 7.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 266.
Amendment 271, in schedule 1, page 82, line 11, leave out paragraph 14.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 266.
Amendment 31, in schedule 1, page 83, line 3, at end insert—
“(6A) The Secretary of State must consult town and parish councils within the proposed new combined authority area.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult town and parish councils prior to proposing a new combined authority in the area in which they are situated.
Amendment 272, in schedule 1, page 85, line 31, leave out paragraph 17
See explanatory statement for Amendment 266.
Amendment 27, in schedule 1, page 85, line 37, at end insert—
“(2A) The Secretary of State has obtained consent for the proposal from any affected local government area.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to obtain consent from all affected areas in preparing a proposal to add a local government area to an existing area of a combined county authority.
Amendment 32, in schedule 1, page 86, line 20, after “to” insert “and thereafter consult with”.
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult with any of the relevant councils and persons given notice that an area is being proposed to be added to an existing combined authority.
Amendment 33, in schedule 1, page 86, line 27, at end insert—
“(da) any town and parish councils whose area would be added to the area of the combined authority, and.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult local councils prior to proposing the area in which they are situated is added to an existing combined authority.
Amendment 273, in schedule 1, page 87, line 30, leave out paragraph 18.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 266.
Amendment 274, in schedule 1, page 92, line 12, leave out subparagraph (b).
This amendment, and Amendments 275 to 280, remove the ability of the Secretary of State to create, or make certain changes to the governance or composition of, combined county authorities without the consent of the councils involved.
Amendment 275, in schedule 1, page 92, line 35, leave out subparagraph (b).
See explanatory statement for Amendment 274.
Amendment 276, in schedule 1, page 93, line 40, leave out paragraph 29.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 274.
Amendment 277, in schedule 1, page 94, line 1, leave out paragraph 30.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 274.
Amendment 278, in schedule 1, page 95, line 23, leave out paragraph 34.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 274.
Amendment 279, in schedule 1, page 99, line 5, leave out paragraph 37.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 274.
Amendment 280, in schedule 1, page 101, line 1, leave out paragraph 38.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 274.
New clause 23—Consent for local government restructuring—
(1) The Secretary of State may only make an order or regulations to create, change, or dissolve a strategic authority with the consent of all the constituent councils.
(2) The “constituent councils” are any county council, district council, town council or parish council.”
Vikki Slade
We rehearsed the conversation about the level of consultation, but this is really about the role of town and parish councils. We have seen, since the devolution announcements were made, areas around the country rush to form town and parish councils where they do not already exist, and to protect services through town and parish councils where they already do.
However, we have heard that town and parish councillors have been completely ignored throughout the entire process. There has been no formal consultation with them and they have barely been mentioned. In fact, in the whole of the Bill, the title “parish councillor” is mentioned just four times, and in relation only to community assets. They are the true local councils; they are the people who know what is going on in their communities. The suggestion that there is no formal role for them to play in something as important as the creation of a huge council that will move things further away from them is hugely problematic.
We had local reorganisation in the Dorset area back in 2019. I have visited a number of the parish councils, and they have said to me that, since they lost their district council, the unitary council that they now have to work with is distant; things do not get done. In some of the areas being proposed, the new unitary authorities might be 50 or 60 miles away—they are going to be dealing with half a million people. Their main role is going to be in those really statutory, strategic functions. Yet our town and parish councils will be the ones that have to pick up the pieces, so their voices have to be heard. Of course, they will not be the ones making the decision—we know that—but they are simply invisible. We feel strongly that they should be part of that conversation; they should be consultees in this. Things should not be able to happen without their voices being heard.
Paul Holmes
I have great sympathy with the point that the hon. Lady is making. Would she agree that town and parish councils are already being asked to take on more services? We are seeing potential districts being abolished, handing down—or essentially getting rid of—assets to town and parish councils. Meanwhile, the town and parish councils are not being consulted on the wider reorganisation going forward. I wholeheartedly endorse the hon. Lady’s view that parish and town councils need to be consulted. Could she elaborate on why she thinks the Government are so reluctant to do so?
Vikki Slade
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I am not in the mind of the Government; I cannot understand why they would not want to embrace the incredible hard work of these volunteers in our communities who are already doing so much. But we are seeing, in every community, services handed down or at risk of closure, which are then only saved by the incredible work of the parish councils. It just strikes me as odd that we would not embrace the role of those parish councils.
Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)
I would just point out—I will say this multiple times in this Bill Committee—that, as someone in an area that has become unitary, no one is ever saying, “We want more district, borough and county councils, rather than fewer.” We have to be careful not to suggest that there will be less engagement with the council because we are going to unitaries.
Could the hon. Lady set out what legal change to parish councils she is concerned about? What powers are they losing? I cannot see any change in a parish councils’ powers under the Bill.
Vikki Slade
No power is being lost, because parish councils have few powers in the first place. What we are suggesting—what we feel should be at the heart of devolution—is about consent: actually consulting those local organisations that have a role. They are tax-raising and grant-giving organisations. They are, in reality, taking on a lot of those services yet their voice is silent. We are not asking for their powers to be changed; we are asking for their voices to be heard. That is all that the amendment requires.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
I was a town councillor for a good decade and a half before I became an MP. We went through unitarisation in Cheshire in 2008, so I recognise a lot of what the hon. Lady is saying about town and parish councils being asked to take on more services—I saw it under the last Conservative Government as funding was taken away from Cheshire West and Chester council.
The reason why I am mystified is that my experience of town and parish councils is that they are not shy about expressing themselves. I am not sure what the hon. Lady is looking to achieve with the amendment, because town and parish councils are perfectly free to express their view in the consultations that already happen when these authorities are set up. Is she suggesting that town and parish councils should have a veto? From the way her amendment is worded, that seems like an entirely different proposition. Could she clarify that?
Vikki Slade
Nobody is suggesting a veto; we are suggesting a voice. There is a big difference. We have already heard that district councils felt that they were pushed around by the county councils, and the experiences of town and parish councils are simply an acceleration of that; when these proposals were being put forward by the Minister earlier this year, there was absolutely no role for those councils. We are simply saying that there are layers of local accountability that we believe should be on the list of people who are consulted.
This is a simple amendment that says, “You are already consulting other organisations in the chain of command. You should also include the town parish councils in that chain.” That is why we believe that amendment 33 is critical, as it
“would require the Secretary of State to consult local councils prior to proposing the area in which they are situated is added to an existing combined authority”,
and why we will push it to a vote.
David Simmonds
I shall speak to the amendments standing in my name. There is a degree of overlap between the points made so far and the subject matter of my amendments: all of them revolve around the issue of localism and consent. As has been clearly expressed, I have a degree of sympathy for the points that have just been made, particularly those about the role of parish and district councils in agreeing to and steering this devolution process.
When we had our witness session just a few weeks ago, we heard from Councillor Sam Chapman-Allen of the District Councils’ Network and from Justin Griggs, the head of policy and communications at the National Association of Local Councils, which represents the parish councils and parish meetings of England. Both of them emphasised in their evidence the need for and the importance of that local voice. I reflect on legislation passed recently—particularly the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which strengthened the powers that our communities sought for local authorities to deal with unauthorised encampments. One of the things we missed was the opportunity to enable parish councils and parish meetings to use those powers. That is a really concrete example of where our constituents would have benefited.
We know there are both sins of omission and sins of commission. I suspect it is a sin of omission that the Government have failed to use the opportunity of this legislation to complete the devolution work that they talk about, and to ask, “What role will those elected bodies at the town and parish level be able to play in the context of this new devolved world?” It speaks to something that I know the Opposition have real concern about: a form of institutionalised disrespect for local leaders that is built into this process. There is wholesale abolition of the local voice at scale, and proposals that the Secretary of State will direct, rather than consent.
Sir John, you will perhaps call to mind Lord Porter, formerly Gary Porter of South Holland, as one of those many local leaders whose approach and insight really shaped the nature of that local community. Reflecting on my time in local government, I had the opportunity to serve with people with very senior public and private sector leadership experience who steered the strategy of the local authority to deliver for local residents. To be told that the Government’s view is that they are to be mere community convenors, and they are not to have a role in that strategic leadership, is frankly insulting to the work that so many of our local leaders do.
The value of that was spelled out very clearly in our evidence session. I was particularly struck by Councillor Bev Craig, the Labour group lead and LGA vice-chair at the Local Government Association, who talked about how the Greater Manchester model worked because of that local leadership and the power of those individuals to come to the table and drive forward devolution, efficiency and service quality.
The amendments broadly fall into two categories that I have made today. The bulk of them are entirely about removing the ability of the Secretary of State to dictate to local areas—as was threatened by the Government when this devolution process started—what that devolution arrangement would look like, without the consent of those local areas. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley has spelled out, of the many proposals that have come forward, we have not seen a single one embracing what the Government have set out, but a number of rival proposals for that reorganisation.
It is very clear that there is not any significant degree of local consent. There is a threat, and there is some money on the table to bail local authorities out, but they can have it only if they do what the Government want. If local authorities do not do it now, the Government will take powers to make them do it to their own agenda later on. That is the very opposite of localism. When we put the Localism Act 2011 through Parliament, it was broadly supported by all local leaders and Members of Parliament, and that was because we recognised the value it added at all levels. This process, however—the centralising element of the Bill—says that it will be a man or woman in Whitehall who decides: they will tell us what is in the interest of our community.
Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)
The hon. Member is talking about localism and the importance of things being done with communities, not to them. I was a Cherwell district councillor when we were involved in joint working with South Northamptonshire. I remember clearly that the leaders of South Northants district council were distinctly unimpressed by the level of consent that they were given when the Conservative Government told them that Northamptonshire county council, which the Conservatives bankrupted, was being disbanded and that joint unitary authorities were to be created in Northamptonshire. Was he so exercised about local consent at that point?
David Simmonds
The short answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is yes. I have spent a good deal of my time in local government. One of the key issues that we learned from the process, and one of the reasons why former Secretary of State Eric Pickles said that he had a pearl-handled revolver in his desk—for anyone who came to him to suggest forcing local government reorganisation on England—was the need to get things right with local consent.
There are times, which I think we can all see in the local government landscape at the moment, when, because of geography or failure of leadership, we know it is necessary for Government to intervene, and Governments of all parties have done so. Northamptonshire was an example of such a place. Individual local authorities within it had not failed, but there had been a collective failure of the public service in that area. The Government therefore felt compelled to intervene to remedy that, as opposed to imposing an alternative vision for how they thought the local area should be governed.
New clause 23 stands in my name. It seeks to enshrine in the legislation the principle of consent. We have the very opposite of what we have been told as a Committee, that this is all locally led. Clearly, the Government are already using the levers in their power to compel local authorities down a certain route. Under the force of such compulsion, local authorities feel that that is what they have to do, because it is the only way to address some of their reasonable and justifiable concerns. The timetable, the process and all those things come at the same time as a wholesale reorganisation of planning and infrastructure, which is stripping away the local powers and voices that are so critical to ensuring that the infrastructure and new housing that we all want are delivered.
The view of the Opposition, therefore, is that we need to enshrine in this legislation not powers for Whitehall but powers for people—powers for people to shape through their local leaders the community structures of service that deliver for them and the taxes that they pay. People are represented to exercise such powers. Enshrining the consent of local authorities is a small step in that direction.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I will respond to amendments 30, 31 and 33 first, and then amendments to 266 to 280. I appreciate the intention of the Liberal Democrat amendments, and I reiterate that I think we are completely aligned in this Committee in our desire not just to push power down, but do so in a locally driven way. On the specifics of the lead amendment, the principal body affected by the designation that we are seeking will be the unitary council or the county council. The Bill already provides that no designation can be made without the consent of the relevant councils.
On amendment 31, the Secretary of State must already notify the proposed constituent councils, and any other persons that the Secretary of State considers appropriate, about a proposal to direct the establishment of a combined authority. The Secretary of State must consider the representations of that body. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire said, there is no shortage of representation and voice from individual town and parish councils. We think that the process of engagement is already there and that to impose additional requirements to consult every town and parish council in the proposed areas would be disproportionate and also risks conflating the distinct roles of town and parish councils, which, as I said at the evidence stage, we absolutely see having a role to play in the new architecture of strategic authorities.
Strategic authorities have been created to tackle regional issues and to capitalise on the opportunities that exist over a significant economic geography, such as pursuing, for example, integrated transport. Town and parish councils, meanwhile, will continue to represent their local communities, managing neighbourhood services and supporting initiatives that improve the day-to-day lives of their residents. Each tier of local government will be accountable to their local communities and should continue to represent their interests and to work in alignment.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
When areas go through this process—and they are being made to go through it—will the Minister consider making it easier for areas that are unparished to create town and parish councils? Otherwise she will create large unitary authorities and some areas will have town and parish councils and others will not. Will she make it easier to set up town and parish councils where there are not any?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We will discuss neighbourhood governance and neighbourhood boards later in the Bill. When it comes to areas that do not have town and parish councils, we recognise there is an opportunity for us to create structures so that there is stronger community representation and a stronger community voice. There is an opportunity for us to design something that works in areas where town and parish councils do not exist or may not be appropriate. We want to create flexibility so that local areas can find the right structures for them, so that neighbourhoods and communities have the voice and representation that we want to see across the country.
I turn to amendments 266 to 280. As I have said before, we have been accused of compulsion, and all I can do as a new Minister is point to the feedback that I get from the local areas that we speak to. Our engagement to date suggests there is genuine enthusiasm and momentum, because areas can see the economic opportunity and what a strong Mayor can do for their area. The Government have been clear in our aims: we want to get universal coverage of strategic authorities across England, because we can see the benefits that places like Greater Manchester and Liverpool are experiencing. We want that for every single resident across the area.
David Simmonds
During the evidence sessions, we heard senior local government leaders describe “inconsistent and…unhelpful messaging” on the building blocks of the new authorities—I quote what I wrote down. When we heard from those who are intended to be part of the investment agenda, they described no “meaningful consultation” from the Government on the proposals. How does the Minister square that with the idea that this is strategic and locally led?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
That is not the feedback that I heard in that evidence session. At the moment the places in our devolution priority areas are going through a process of consultation. They are talking to their constituent councils, voting it through the council chamber and taking it to their residents to make the case.
What we are seeing is positivity and momentum. Our job as a Government is to build on that and support and enable that. I come back to the point that there is a backstop power that we do not expect to use. But in the instances where we have got a blockage, we want to be able to help create a strategic authority so that we do not have devolution deserts and parts of the country left behind. We are very clear that the powers will commence only at the point that they are needed, rather than on Royal Assent.
Finally, new clause 23 would impose disproportionate consent requirements for these processes, requiring strategic authorities to seek the consent of all district, parish and town councils in their area. As I have said, there are already provisions in place to ensure a level of consultation. A primary aim for us in this Bill is to make the process simpler, more streamlined, more effective and less expensive. That is the feedback that we have had from places that have gone through the process and the feedback that we are getting from places going through the process.
My worry is that the proposed amendments would undermine the principle of having a process of devolution that is far more streamlined and far easier for places. Again, the feedback we are getting from conversations is that there is enthusiasm, appetite and commitment to do this. We want to make it as easy as possible for places, which is why I hope that hon. Members will not press the amendments.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Vikki Slade
I beg to move amendment 38, in clause 3, page 2, line 32, at end insert—
“(3A) The Secretary of State must make provision to ensure councils designated as a single foundation strategic authority receives adequate funding to facilitate their transition.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to ensure that councils designated as a single foundation strategic authority receive funding to facilitate their transition.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 39, in schedule 1, page 84, line 13, at end insert—
“(9A) The Secretary of State must make provision to ensure the combined authority receives adequate funding to facilitate its establishment.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to ensure that combined authorities receive adequate funding to facilitate their establishment.
Amendment 361, in clause 19, page 22, line 32, at end insert—
“(f) funding which has been allocated to support the establishment of new strategic authorities.”
This amendment would require the annual report on devolution to include an account of funding provided to support the establishment of new strategic authorities.
Vikki Slade
Our councils are struggling to make ends meet. With so many on the edge of a precipice, I can see why they would be queuing up to create a strategic authority, which come with millions of pounds. There is, however, huge concern in councils that the cost to set up and run these organisations is oblique, and that there is a risk that the cost of running them will be passed to local people through additional precepting. I can tell the Committee from experience that the tens of millions of pounds that it is said will be saved by creating strategic authorities generally are not saved, and that if they are saved, they are replaced with other costs and take 10 years to materialise. Many councils do not have 10 years before they will go bust.
I am acutely aware that some funding was put aside for those organisations in the devolution priority phase, but when I asked the previous Minister what was happening with funding for future phases, I was met by stony silence. He explained to me that in order to progress there would need to be money in the settlement, but at the same time he talked about having already made a three-year settlement. That suggested to me that those organisations that are not already funded perhaps will not be funded within a three-year period, because there is no money. Given that those organisations are already telling us that they are £300 million short this year because they are not in the programme, but the Minister has no money set aside for next year to continue the programme, where is the money coming from?
Our amendments 38, 39 and 361 would require the Secretary of State to ensure that authorities receive adequate funding at least to facilitate their establishment, if not their continuation. It is crucial that local leaders—and local people, when they vote to make this progress—do not tie themselves down to additional costs that they cannot afford. That is why we feel it is important to press amendment 39 to a vote. My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon will elaborate further.
David Simmonds
I had the privilege of spending 24 years in local government, divided equally across the previous Labour, Conservative and coalition Governments. I do not think that local government felt at any point in those 24 years that it was well funded and there was plenty of money to go around. In every single one of those years, irrespective of who was in government, our starting point when setting council tax was, “How are we going to meet a very substantial savings target?”
Manuela Perteghella
It is pointless to establish a strategic authority without appropriate financial support. Without support to build structurally, hire staff, co-ordinate partners and begin delivering on their devolved powers, new combined and strategic authorities risk becoming bodies with responsibilities but no real capacity to act. As the Minister will know, local authorities have been starved of funding by consecutive Governments. We need to ensure that these new unitaries—these new beginnings—have the best start in life, and that begins with fair funding so that devolution can be effective.
Amendment 39 is complemented by amendment 361, which would require the Government’s annual devolution report to include details of funding given to support new strategic authorities. Each year, when the Government report to Parliament on devolution, they would be required to explain how and why money has been spent to help to establish new devolved authorities.
As it stands, the Bill risks becoming a Trojan horse for centralisation, concentrating power in Whitehall rather than genuinely devolving it to local communities as promised. Amendment 361 would support true, locally led devolution by ensuring financial transparency and holding Ministers accountable for supporting local government reform. That is why we intend to divide the Committee on amendment 39, which is essential to ensure that new combined authorities and new strategic unitaries can operate effectively from the outset and deliver the powers and services they are intended to provide. Without adequate funding, the whole exercise of devolving powers and establishing new authorities will be meaningless.
For too long, my constituents, like so many across the country, have faced the consequences of under-resourced local authorities, with promises to their families and communities left unfulfilled. Our amendments would provide the vital financial support that this new era of local government requires, enabling us to deliver on the ambitions of devolution and achieve real, tangible results.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I thank the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner for highlighting the deep cuts that were imposed on local authorities during a decade and a half of Conservative government, which fundamentally weakened our civic infrastructure. We should never forget that. We absolutely appreciate that, as a result, local government is operating in a difficult context. I welcome the intent behind the amendments: it will be important for strategic authorities to ensure that they have the capacity funding so that they are established.
Amendment 38 concerns single foundation authorities. We do not anticipate that there will be transition costs for such authorities. When a unitary or county council is designated as a single foundation strategic authority, it will retain its existing voting and governance arrangements. The designation will sit alongside its status as a local authority. In other words, there will be no transition involved, so transitional funding is unnecessary.
We recognise that the mayoral strategic authorities that we are creating will need funding to support the transition and build capacity. All Members across the House want to see strong, capable authorities in their area, with the tools and capacity to deliver for their local communities. That is why in the English devolution White Paper we committed to provide new strategic authorities with capacity funding to kick-start their organisation. I am pleased to confirm that all areas on our devolution priority programme will receive £1 million in mayoral capacity funding this year to help establish new institutions, once the legislation has been laid before Parliament. They will also receive capacity funding in future years, so that they are ready and prepared to deliver the benefits that we believe devolution will unlock. As the Government are committed to providing funding for establishment expenses through the mechanism of mayoral capacity funding, we do not believe that amendment 39 is necessary, but we recognise the intent behind it, which is why are we are taking action.
Amendment 361 would require the Government to report on funding allocated to support the establishment of new strategic authorities. I am pleased to say that that is already established practice. Clause 19 amends the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 to ensure that all funding devolved to strategic authorities is reported. That will include any funds to support their establishment. Again, therefore, we agree with the intent behind the amendment but we do not believe that it is required.
Vikki Slade
Will funding be made available for areas that are not yet in a programme on the same footing as the areas that are already in one? It would be completely inappropriate if that funding was not committed to. I want to get that on record.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We have established a principle that there should be mayoral capacity funding. We have established a principle that for places that are going through the transition, to ensure that any mayor that is created is able to hit the ground running, capacity building needs to be a core part of that. That applies to the places that are going through the devolution priority programme at the moment, but the same principle invariably will apply across the piece.
Vikki Slade
We were seeking to divide only on amendment 39, but given that we have had that assurance, I am happy not to do so. I beg to ask to leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Combined authorities and CCAs: establishment, expansion and functions
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Clause 4 introduces schedule 1, which will streamline and simplify existing processes for establishing new combined authorities and combined county authorities, and for changing the arrangements of existing authorities. The Government have been clear that their goal is to achieve universal coverage of strategic authorities. We are therefore confident that clear and tangible benefits of devolution will be experienced across the country. We have also been clear that we want to create mechanisms that will ensure that the process is streamlined—that it is fast, and effective and efficient locally—and allows representation, but fundamentally allow us to move through the process that we see appetite and demand for across the country.
The powers introduced by the clause will be used as a backstop. They will be deployed only where we have devolution deserts and we want to work with areas to remove blockages, to the benefit of residents.
David Simmonds
We return to the theme that areas can have devolution provided it is in the form that Whitehall dictates. It remains a significant concern to the Opposition that we are proceeding in this manner, but that point is made and I suggest that we move on.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1
Establishment, expansion and functions of combined authorities and CCAs
Amendment proposed: 266, in schedule 1, page 79, line 15, leave out subparagraph (b).—(David Simmonds.)
This amendment, and Amendments 267 to 273, remove the ability of the Secretary of State to create, or make certain changes to the governance or composition of, combined authorities without consent of the councils involved.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I beg to move amendment 62, in schedule 1, page 80, line 19, at end insert—
“5A After section 105B insert—
‘105C Non-mayoral combined authority: consent to budget
(1) A non-mayoral combined authority may only exercise the following functions with the consent of each constituent council—
(a) adopt or amend the authority’s budget;
(b) where it is not part of the budget, approve the total sum of the transport levy.
(2) In this section a reference to the “transport levy” is a reference to any levy issued by the combined authority relating to the exercise of its functions relating to transport in accordance with any regulations made from time to time under section 74(2) of the Local Government Finance Act 1988.”’
This requires that a non-mayoral combined authority must have consent from its constituent councils to the approval and amendment of the budget and to the approval of the transport levy (if separate).
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I will begin by talking to Government amendments 63 and 65. The Government recognise that the creation of a combined authority or combined county authority can cause some concern in prospective constituent councils. One of the main worries is that the new institution could create new financial burdens on existing councils.
Many existing combined authorities and combined county authorities already include provisions in their constitutions that enable constituent councils to veto decisions that could create a financial liability on them. We recognise that those provisions have helped to soothe concerns about establishing new combined authorities and combined county authorities. That is why the amendments will create a standardised requirement for non-mayoral combined authorities and non-mayoral combined county authorities to obtain the consent of affected constituent councils before exercising their functions in a way that could create a financial liability on these councils. That will ensure that any future non-mayoral combined authorities or non-mayoral combined county authorities will need to comply with this requirement without the constituent councils needing to secure agreement to its inclusion in the individual authority’s constitution.
I turn to Government amendments 62 and 64. In the English devolution White Paper, the Government set out that in combined authorities and combined county authorities without a mayor, most decisions would require a simple majority vote. That is provided for in clause 6. However, in the White Paper, we also said that key strategic decisions would require unanimity in non-mayoral authorities. The budget for the authority is one of those decisions.
Similarly to amendments 63 and 65, amendments 62 and 64 introduce a standardised requirement for non-mayoral combined authorities and non-mayoral combined county authorities to obtain the consent of all their constituent councils when adopting or amending their budget. That includes the direct contribution of those councils to transport expenditure.
Government amendments 66 and 67 are minor, technical amendments. They amend the terminology used in schedule 1 so that references to secondary legislation within the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 use the term “regulations” rather than “orders”.
David Simmonds
I have a couple of questions for the Minister. It feels as though these amendments are intended to bring some welcome consistency and clarity.
The Committee will know that local government finance is largely regulated by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, but that older legislation on council tax fixing and budget setting all essentially states that a local authority’s budget must balance in-year. A local authority is not the same as central Government—it cannot borrow to fund its day-to-day expenditure.
However, one implication of the Secretary of State’s allocation of all these new powers to mayors or combined authorities is that they may choose to incur expenditure that imposes a liability on an individual local authority without seeking that authority’s consent. For example, there would be a legislative conflict if the mayoral combined authority decided to increase spending, or to increase rights to services for social care, which a local authority has to pay for, without giving the local authority the opportunity to include that in its budget.
Will the Minister give us clarity, first, on accounting standards? The legislation mentions that local authorities should refer to guidance from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. CIPFA is not the only accepted accounting standard in the public sector, although it is generally a reliable one. Given our previous discussions and the evidence we have heard about access to local audit and financial advice, can the Minister confirm that accounting standards other than CIPFA will be accepted, if a local authority relies on them? Or will they have to be reframed within CIPFA? That will let the Committee and member authorities know exactly where they stand.
Secondly, while this is a fairly catch-all provision, there will be areas—we have seen this in Greater Manchester most recently—where central Government fund the investment and set-up of a new transport network but the ongoing running costs must be met by trading that service to local residents, and a large deficit emerges; essentially, the service runs at a significant loss. Especially if the underlying authority is a transport authority that issues freedom passes, that can have a significant financial impact. Essentially, council tax payers of one authority subsidise the costs of service delivery by a mayor.
We see significant elements of that in London under Mayor Khan. I think that was one reason why the Labour leader of Manchester city council spoke about how Manchester works and London does not. It would be helpful to have clarity—if necessary, in writing to the Committee—about how those trade-offs will be managed effectively, so that the capital costs of mayoral projects are not subsidised by the revenue or capital budgets of individual local authorities. Particularly with larger projects, mayoral authorities do not always have to meet the same tight financial requirements, especially in respect of things like education. It would be useful to know how that will be managed so that local authorities do not suddenly go bust because something emerges from the financial accounting arrangements between the new structures.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I thank the hon. Member for his detailed, complicated questions. We will write in response, particularly on the public accounting standards.
We have set what we think is a good baseline. There will obviously be some flexibility for constituent authorities. The hon. Member will remember from the evidence session that the accountability and financial framework across local government is a current challenge, so we are looking to drive improved standards across the piece. That will apply to strategic authorities as much as to local authorities, but we will write fully in response.
On the wider question about the balance and the trade-off, our judgment is that for non-mayoral combined authorities, where constituent authorities operate together, we should put in those safeguards. In essence, constituent authorities act in concert, collectively, to make decisions. Whether it is a question of financial liabilities or transport budgets, it is right that all the constituent authorities provide consent. In the case of the mayor, however, our view is that because the mayor has his or her own democratic mandate and the ability to direct, that is separate from what we see in non-mayoral combined authorities.
Inevitably, there will be safeguards. In the evidence session, we heard really powerful evidence that the mayoral model works well when the mayor works in lockstep with constituent authorities and the two are aligned, with a strategy that they work around. We have seen examples of where the model does not work well, and we have had to go in and support and remediate the process when the mayor works without their individual local authorities. The model drives that. However, we think that there is something specific in the mayor’s democratic mandate; we have a model where there is a majority vote, with the mayor on the side of the majority, in order to drive through big strategic decisions.
David Simmonds
I am grateful to the Minister for undertaking to provide that clarity in writing. She said that there are differences between a mayoral authority and a combined authority without a mayor. We have seen a good case study in the Mayor of London’s decision that he wished to be seen to fund free school meals in primary schools, but the budget that is provided is less than the cost. School budgets, which are determined by the Department for Education, are subsidising the shortfall in the money provided by the mayor. We see posters on the tube saying that the mayor is funding this, but in fact the amount he provides is less than the cost. Probably all London MPs have had representations from schools that have said, “We are having to make staff redundant because of this shortfall. It’s a significant burden. It is causing a real cost.”
That is an example of where accounting and legal decision making sit across several different authorities. Although it is not the only ringfenced local authority grant, it would be helpful to have clarity about how the dedicated schools grant will be managed in a mayoral combined authority, so that we do not see a repeat of what happened in London with school budgets being raided to cover up a shortfall in a mayoral policy proposal.
The Chair
The Minister has courteously and helpfully said that she will write regarding those specific questions. May I ask that that is done within the period in which we are considering the Bill, and made available to all Committee members?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Yes.
Amendment 62 agreed to.
Amendment made: 63, in schedule 1, page 80, line 19, at end insert—
“5A After section 105B insert—
‘105C Non-mayoral combined authority: functions imposing financial liability
(1) This section applies where a non-mayoral combined authority considers that the exercise of a function by the authority may result in a financial liability being incurred by one or more constituent council (each such council being a “relevant constituent council”).
(2) The function may only be exercised with the consent of each relevant constituent council.
(3) When deciding whether subsection (1) applies, the authority must have regard to the “Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting in the United Kingdom” published by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, as amended or reissued from time to time.’”—(Miatta Fahnbulleh.)
This restricts a non-mayoral combined authority from exercising a function that might impose a financial liability on any of its constituent councils unless those councils have given their consent.
Amendment proposed: 269, in schedule 1, page 80, line 20, leave out paragraph 6.—(David Simmonds.)
See explanatory statement for Amendment 266.
Manuela Perteghella
I beg to move amendment 25, in schedule 1, page 83, line 3, at end insert—
“(6A) After preparing a proposal the Secretary of State must publish a statement demonstrating how the physical geography, community identity, and the boundaries of other public services in the area would be affected by the proposal.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make a statement about how the physical geography, community identity, and the boundaries of other public service structures in the area would be affected by the proposal for a new combined authority.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 305, in schedule 1, page 83, line 32, at end insert—
“(5A) The Secretary of State may not make an order under this section that has the effect of placing Cornwall in a combined authority with any other authority.”
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from making an order establishing a combined authority which would include Cornwall and any other area east of the Tamar in the same combined authority.
Amendment 43, in schedule 1, page 84, line 13, at end insert—
“(9A) If the order establishes a combined authority which contains the Isle of Wight, the authority’s name must include ‘the Isle of Wight.’”
Amendment 306, in schedule 1, page 86, line 18, at end insert—
“(5A) Neither the added local government area nor the existing area of a combined authority in the order includes Cornwall.”
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from adding a local government area to an existing area of a combined authority if either area includes Cornwall.
Amendment 44, in schedule 1, page 86, line 32, at end insert—
“(7A) If the proposal establishes a combined authority which contains the Isle of Wight, the authority’s name must include ‘the Isle of Wight.’”
Manuela Perteghella
This Government’s plans for devolution involve folding existing local government structures into larger combined authorities. From a central Government perspective, the benefits are clear. Each region has a single point of contact, accountability and new structures through which to work. However, devolution should deliver benefits in both directions and be truly community-led.
If proposals are prepared by the Secretary of State and the Department rather than being locally-led, we believe that a basic requirement should be that each new authority is appropriately sized, and that physical geography and cultural identities within the authority—especially community identities—are looked at. We need to look at the boundaries of other public service structures in the area that could be affected by the new combined authority, such as fire and rescue services, police forces and integrated care boards. In my area, we have local government reorganisation and the ICBs are being reorganised as part of NHS England reform or abolition, so both are changing at the same time. In geographical local areas, we have not just NHS commissioners but other NHS services, such as local NHS trusts.
Looking beyond size—I hope that the Government are flexible about size, because of all the other important considerations with any new authority—authorities should be shaped carefully to reflect economic zones, as well as physical geography. Crucially, there must be careful thought about how the proposals will align with public services. I have already talked about the organisation of ICBs, but there are also, for example, existing transport hubs and established boundaries for fire and rescue services.
A less tangible but no less important requirement is respect for distinct community identities. For example, my area is in the county of Warwickshire. South Warwickshire is very rural, with hundreds of parish and town councils, while north Warwickshire has different economic areas and is more populous and urban. Proximal areas may not be well-suited partners in new combined authorities, so what kind of flexibility will there be to think about services and the shared history of local communities so that such areas do not have a false cohesion?
We would like regional and sub-regional cultures to be taken into consideration, because those are what brings communities together. This goes back to the role of parish and town councils as the first tier of government: they know their communities best, which is why they should have a say in any consultation. They know their boundaries; they know which bus services should be improved so that residents can go to hospital and so on.
Practically, we are asking the Government to consider all these areas, boundaries and services, because if combined authorities backfire, governance structures could fail and might not deliver at all for areas that are already struggling. Requiring the Secretary of State to make a statement accompanying each proposal for a new combined authority, covering its impact on the shared areas that I have mentioned, would improve the quality of combined authority proposals.
David Simmonds
The Opposition have listened attentively to the points made by the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth and by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson). My hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley may speak later to the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East, but they both relate to the need to recognise in local government structures the heritage of the parts of England that are affected.
From all the evidence that we have heard, and from many Members’ contributions, we know just how important it is that people feel that the name of their local authority area—that most basic of things—has a connection to them. On top of that are layers of geographical and economic considerations, as well as the trouble of learning it, all of which have an impact. That is why we and others are so keen to support measures to ensure that historical names are not lost in any of the Government’s proposed devolution measures, and that that heritage is fully recognised in any structures that follow.
Paul Holmes
I will briefly elaborate on what my hon. Friend the shadow Minister has said about amendments 43 and 44. I do so on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East, who has been a tireless and fierce campaigner for his constituents, and not only at Prime Minister’s questions.
I represent a Hampshire constituency whose southern parishes look out on the Isle of Wight. If I take a walk down Hill Head beach or somewhere in Hamble, I always see it. In Hampshire, the Isle of Wight is a constant. It is a constant presence on the coast of southern England, but it is also a vital part of our county. It has a proud set of people who have a booming economy that contributes so much to the county of Hampshire, and which is a major part of the county’s identity.
The Minister has talked about wanting local views and localism to be at the heart of the devolution agenda. I believe her. We had a brief interaction earlier, and although we can disagree about whether that devolution has been forced or voluntary, I absolutely believe that the Minister intends to make sure that if devolution happens, the regions involved have an identity and the right to an economic injection that delivers for people locally.
It would be very easy for the Government to accept amendments 43 and 44, because they would do nothing to change the mechanics or principles of the Bill. They would merely ensure that a region of very proud people is included within the description of the mayoralty that is proposed for Hampshire.
Vikki Slade
I used to live on the Isle of Wight. I got married there and my parents met there, so I have a fond connection to it. Does the hon. Member agree that if “Isle of Wight” is not included within the authority name of “Hampshire and the Isle of Wight”, it might disappear from all the other organisations in which it features, such as fire authorities or health authorities? Suddenly, the Isle of Wight’s unique identity would be completely subsumed into an amorphous Hampshire.
Paul Holmes
As the hon. Lady knows from when we were on the BBC’s “Politics South” programme some weeks ago, I rarely agree with Liberal Democrats, but I suspect that she and I agree on this point. I know that she stands for her area and, as a former council leader, for the wider area, and that she knows a lot about the Isle of Wight. I did not know that she got married there, but I am sure it was a lovely wedding, because the Isle of Wight is a beautiful place steeped in history. She is absolutely right that while Hampshire and the Isle of Wight have been together geographically, they have also been together in the way organisations have worked, over hundreds of years. I see the Solent as the water motorway connecting the mainland to the Isle of Wight. We could not interact without having it there. “Hampshire and the Solent” is the wrong name for the proposed mayoralty, because it leaves out the distinct identity of a proud people on the Isle of Wight.
Siân Berry
I want to express my sympathy with the amendments related to the Isle of Wight. It is not miles away from the area that I represent, Brighton Pavilion. I know many people there who are similarly proud of their distinct identity. I note that the name for the new combined authority that will envelop Brighton is “Sussex and Brighton”. If it is good enough for us, it is good enough for the Isle of Wight.
Paul Holmes
I agree. I have had many a night out in Brighton, and I know that it is a very vibrant city. If it is good enough for Brighton to be named within that county, I do not see why the population of an island in this United Kingdom should not be named as part of its mayoral authority.
I say to the Minister, in the same spirit of co-operation in which I know she will respond, that if there is no movement in the decision on the name, that risks wider implications for the Bill. Many other areas will then start to think about why we went through the parliamentary boundary commissions’ changes to the names of our seats. That was a very difficult thing; people were not recognised.
The Isle of Wight has a precedent for being treated differently. It has always received special dispensation in the boundary discussions that we have had before. It would therefore be perfectly sensible for the proud and great people of the Isle of Wight to be recognised and have their name in a proud county name, if this devolution goes forward.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
Meur ras—thank you, Sir John. The Bill places me in an invidious situation. For thousands of years, the people of Cornwall have been considered different from the rest of the country. Indeed, the word Cornwall means “land of foreigners”. We call it Kernow—the people of the promontory.
David Simmonds
I know that the hon. Gentleman is not the only person with an interest, and that there are other amendments on the same topic. He mentions that he is satisfied with the Government’s assurances. We have not directly sought those assurances; would he be willing to set out for the Committee the nature of them, so that we can all understand what has been committed to and can be well informed when we come to make voting decisions later on?
Perran Moon
I have had no commitments; I have had discussions with Ministers. We have had discussions about the difficulties with the proposals made here, with the potential for the Bill to become a hybrid Bill and the complications that that would bring. I am happy to keep talking to the Government in a spirit of openness, reflecting the views of every political party in Cornwall bar one. On that basis, I am content to keep talking. I cannot support the amendments because of the negative change that I think they would make to the nature of the Bill, so I will be voting against them.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I put on record my thanks to hon. Members who are championing specific areas that have a unique identity, which the Government completely recognise. On amendments 43 and 44, I pay tribute to the hon. Members who have been championing the Isle of Wight and its proud history. The Government understand and support the intent behind the amendments, but we will not be taking them forward. Let me explain why.
Earlier this year, Isle of Wight council, Hampshire county council, Portsmouth city council and Southampton city council submitted a joint expression of interest in the Government’s devolution priority programme. They went through a consultation process, based on the proposed name of Hampshire and the Solent. This was not imposed by the Government; it came as a proposal from the local area, and on that basis a public consultation was conducted.
It is worth saying that of the 6,000 responses we received, only a small minority commented specifically on the name of the proposed combined authority area. The Government’s response to that consultation is online, if hon. Members want to look at it. It is important to say that once it is established, it is completely open to any combined authority or combined county authority to change its name by resolution, with the consent of its members and using existing powers. That is already in the Bill. The Liverpool city region combined authority and the South Yorkshire mayoral combined authority have both changed their names in the same way. There was no constraint from Government; the powers are there. It is within the gift of local areas to go ahead and do that.
Lewis Cocking
The Minister mentions that 6,000 people replied to the consultation on Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, but that only a small number of respondents actually mentioned the name. How many people from the Isle of Wight responded to that consultation, and how many of them mentioned the name?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I do not have those figures, but we can write to the hon. Member with them. However, the principle remains that the power is there. It is within the gift of constituent authorities; it is not being imposed by Government. If there is a name change that the combined authority wants to take forward, it can take it forward. We have seen that in Liverpool and South Yorkshire. There is no constraint from us. It is a determination for, and with the consent of, the constituent authorities. It is within the gift of Hampshire and the Solent to make that change.
Paul Holmes
The Minister says that it is not the Government who are making sure that it happens. I accept that. However, having been in her position for only a short time—that is not her fault, as the fickle finger of fate has rested it on her shoulders—she may not know that the negotiation process that has taken place among the local authorities in Hampshire has not been smooth. There has been an overarching view that the county council, which has rushed towards accepting this devolution notwithstanding the impacts of the Government’s decision to push it forward, has not worked collaboratively. There is a wish for devolution, but in the minutiae it has been a very county council-dominated process.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne says, the reason that there has not been a huge uptake in response to the consultation is the flawed nature of the decision-making process. I ask the Minister not to rest on the consultation responses, because as my hon. Friend says, a number of people on the Isle of Wight simply did not bother to respond. It is not about the make-up of a geographical devolution settlement; it is about a name. I ask her to listen to the elected representatives on the Isle of Wight who serve in this House, who have asked for it, and to consider it again.
Mike Reader
I declare that I am Hampshire born and bred, being from Romsey. I just ask: why are we so disrespectful of a place like Brownsea island? If it is called “Hampshire and the Isle of Wight”, what about the great Brownsea island, the home of our native red squirrels? Surely “Solent” is more inclusive for all the other islanders who live in the area beyond the Isle of Wight.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I say gently to hon. Members that we absolutely recognise the desire. I have had multiple conversations with the leader of Isle of Wight council, who was enthusiastic about this devolution deal. It is within the gift of constituent authorities to change their name; it is not for Government to impose. I hope that there is now a constructive conversation and relationship among the leaders of all the different parties. The leader is an independent politician, and I hope that in that spirit they will move forward.
I recognise the uniqueness of the name, but what really matters is what devolution will deliver for residents and constituent authorities. I hope that as much energy and time will be put into the nuts and bolts, the bread and butter, and the impact of what we are trying to do through devolution as will be put into the name. However, I recognise the particular sensitivities in relation to the Isle of Wight.
My hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth spoke about the issue of Cornwall. He has been a long-standing champion of Cornwall and its distinct identity. He has prosecuted the case incredibly effectively, not just in the context of this debate but across the piece. He is a proud Cornishman and I know that he wants the best for his constituents. I have put it on record in Committee, and I do so again, that we recognise the uniqueness of Cornwall. We are keen to continue engaging not just with my hon. Friend, but with other Cornish MPs, to ensure that we recognise that uniqueness and status and, critically, that we are doing a set of things that can enable local leaders to respond to the challenges—
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fourth sitting)
Tuesday 14th October 2025
(1 day, 23 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesEnglish Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 14 October 2025 - (14 Oct 2025)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 3 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
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The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
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The Committee divided: - Ayes: 10 / Noes: 3 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 11 / Noes: 4 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Chair
Before I ask the Minister to continue her wind-up for the debate on amendment 25 to schedule 1—I say that for those who have had a long lunch and lost their place; I had to be reminded—I want to let the Committee know that I asked for heaters to be brought in. I have one here, and there is one over there. I thought it was intolerable this morning. In many places of work, industrial action would have followed, were we in a private business. I speak as a strong trade unionist, by the way. I hope the heaters will warm the room up during the course of our proceedings.
Schedule 1
Establishment, expansion and functions of combined authorities and CCAs
Amendment proposed (this day): 25, in schedule 1, page 83, line 3, at end insert—
“(6A) After preparing a proposal the Secretary of State must publish a statement demonstrating how the physical geography, community identity, and the boundaries of other public services in the area would be affected by the proposal.”—(Manuela Perteghella.)
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make a statement about how the physical geography, community identity, and the boundaries of other public service structures in the area would be affected by the proposal for a new combined authority.
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment 305, in schedule 1, page 83, line 32, at end insert—
“(5A) The Secretary of State may not make an order under this section that has the effect of placing Cornwall in a combined authority with any other authority.”
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from making an order establishing a combined authority which would include Cornwall and any other area east of the Tamar in the same combined authority.
Amendment 43, in schedule 1, page 84, line 13, at end insert—
“(9A) If the order establishes a combined authority which contains the Isle of Wight, the authority’s name must include ‘the Isle of Wight.’”
Amendment 306, in schedule 1, page 86, line 18, at end insert—
“(5A) Neither the added local government area nor the existing area of a combined authority in the order includes Cornwall.”
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from adding a local government area to an existing area of a combined authority if either area includes Cornwall.
Amendment 44, in schedule 1, page 86, line 32, at end insert—
“(7A) If the proposal establishes a combined authority which contains the Isle of Wight, the authority’s name must include ‘the Isle of Wight.’”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
The amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a statement when directing the establishment of a new combined authority, setting out how the proposed combined authority would affect the physical geography, community identity and boundaries of other public services in the local area. I have no doubt that the intention of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon is absolutely right and that such matters are important; as I have said, the examples of the Isle of Wight and Cornwall highlight that. In practice, however, such matters will already have been considered through the process set out in the Bill.
In deciding whether to establish a new combined authority, the Secretary of State will already be required to have regard to the likely effect on the exercise of functions in neighbouring local government areas. In addition, the Secretary of State is already subject to the statutory tests requiring them to have regard to the need to secure effective and convenient local government in relation to areas of competence. The proposal itself can be expected to cover those issues. There is therefore no need for a separate statement, and so I hope that the hon. Member will withdraw the amendment.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
In our consideration of the issue, the Minister is asking the Committee to give a great deal of weight to the meetings she has described having had with various local leaders and Members with particular concerns about the impact on their local areas in terms of national identity, heritage and geography. Will she share with the Committee a little more detail on the substance of those discussions, so that before we vote we can understand what exact assurances may have been given to local leaders and what their understanding of them is, so that we are all completely clear?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
On Hampshire and Solent, for example, our conversation was very candid. The leaders were clear about some of the debates that they had had within the council; as the Minister, I said what opportunities would be open to them, and I expressed the fact that in the context of the Isle of Wight, the name was completely down to the constituent authorities. We support constituent authorities working together collaboratively to ensure that all the constituent parts are happy with the deal and the proposal.
On Cornwall, I believe that the Secretary of State, my boss, had those conversations, but I have also had some with MPs. We absolutely recognise the uniqueness of Cornwall and its identity. There are clear things that we know Cornish MPs and the council want, such as protection for the Cornish language, which we are in discussion about. There are clearly opportunities to build on the existing devolution deal. The previous Government provided a devolution deal for Cornwall in recognition of that exception. Another issue might be housing, which is big in Cornwall, for example, and the area is especially exercised about that, in particular in the context of the impact of tourism. We are happy to have a conversation about continuing to support the local authority to make inroads on some of those issues.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
On a point of order, Sir John. Can we ask the Clerk to speak a little louder? We are struggling to hear at the back.
The Chair
That is a perfectly reasonable point of order. Speak louder! When you think you are bellowing, you are getting it right. Thanks very much; I am very grateful. But I need my Clerk. Don’t upset him; I cannot operate without my Clerk.
Amendment proposed: 277, in schedule 1, page 94, line 1, leave out paragraph 30. —(David Simmonds.)
See explanatory statement for Amendment 274.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Once the Bill comes into force, there will be various ways in which functions can be conferred on a combined authority or combined county authority that will be operating as strategic authorities. The clause makes the necessary amendment to existing legislation to clarify these wider options. It is a small but important clause that will ensure our new devolution framework can operate effectively.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
I thank the Minister for that introduction. It is the implementation of this that is the subject of political contention, but a great deal has been said, and a vote has been taken. There is nothing further we can do on those issues at this stage, but I expect they will be the subject of great debate in the remaining stages of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Combined authorities and CCAs: decision-making and validity of proceedings
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Schedule 2 stand part.
New clause 48—Greater London Authority: decision-making—
“(1) The Greater London Authority Act 1999 is amended in accordance with this section.
(2) In section 42B (Assembly’s power to reject draft strategies), in subsection (5)(b), leave out “at least two-thirds” and insert “a simple majority”.
(3) In schedule 4A (Confirmation hearings etc)—
(a) in paragraph 10(5) leave out “at least two-thirds” and insert “a simple majority”;
(b) in paragraph 11(5) leave out “at least two-thirds” and insert “a simple majority”.
(4) In schedule 6 (Procedure for determining the authority’s consolidated council tax requirement)—
(a) in paragraph 8(4) leave out “at least two-thirds” and insert “a simple majority”;
(b) In paragraph 8C(4) leave out “at least two-thirds” and insert “a simple majority”.
(5) In schedule 7 (Procedure for making of substitute calculations by the authority), in paragraph 7(4), leave out “at least two thirds and insert “a simple majority”.”
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Moving from devolution by deal to devolution by default is at the heart of the Bill. Clause 6 and schedule 2 are essential to achieving that. The Bill ensures that strategic authorities have a consistent set of functions, and these provisions standardise how they exercise those functions. Many existing strategic authorities have complex and varied arrangements for agreeing fundamentals such as budgets and transport plans. That makes it hard for the public to understand how decisions are made and, therefore, to hold the strategic authority to account.
The provisions in clause 6 and schedule 2 would create a transparent and consistent default voting arrangement—a simple majority. It would unblock decision making to ensure that the right decision, even if it is difficult, can be made. In mayoral strategic authorities, the mayor must be in the majority for a vote to pass. Mayors are directly accountable to all voters in their area, so it is right that decisions cannot be made if they disagree. The Government expect mayors and other strategic authority members to continue to work together to build consensus. We heard time and time again in the evidence sessions that the model works well when the mayor works in partnership with its constituent authorities, but it is important that one member cannot get in the way of the right decisions being made for the entire area. It is therefore imperative that clause 6 and schedule 2 remain within the Bill to ensure that mayoral strategic authorities can operate effectively, and to provide the public with clarity on how decisions are made, so they can hold these institutions to account.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
I rise to speak to new clause 48, tabled in my name. I also want to raise another issue for consideration by the Minister at a future stage.
In clause 6, the new rules for mayoral combined authorities give simple majority voting for relevant decisions by bodies to adopt budgets or policies, such as spatial development strategies, local transport plans and other strategies set out elsewhere in the Bill. For example, schedule 2 outlines that
“a resolution to adopt the strategy is to be made by a simple majority of the constituent members present and voting”.
There are other rules to do with a tied vote.
I think that the Bill should also amend the Greater London Authority Act 1999 to give simple majority voting for decisions by the London Assembly on the budget and mayoral strategies of the Mayor of London. That is for consistency of decision making across the different authorities and bodies, and for fairness to London’s democracy. Along with many Opposition Members, this is something that I have wanted for some time now, as I was a member of the London Assembly in my previous job. In these Committee debates I will frequently bring up examples from my long experience of being part of an effective scrutiny body in a devolved authority at the strategic level—I feel that I have a good handle on how it works.
Using “a simple majority” is the right way to go about this. The Minister has talked about building consensus and working in partnership. I really value it when cross-party working can result in genuine dialogue, with mayors that will listen and make changes, and bodies scrutinising or working with them to put forward their own ideas and have them taken up. Those are all really healthy things for our democracy. New clause 48 would simply amend the parts of the 1999 Act that outline how the Assembly votes. Currently, the Act requires at least a two-thirds majority for any changes to be made, and the new clause would instead insert the words “a simple majority”. It is a very simple change, which the Minister should consider.
The second issue I want to raise relates to forward plans, which are incredibly useful for the general public, or anyone who wants to influence mayoral decisions and the decisions of combined authorities or local authorities. At the moment, only local authorities have this particular requirement written into law, under the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012, which clearly set out how key decisions are to be included in forward plans. I am not talking about planning decisions but key decisions, as set out in the schemes of delegation. Those forward plans are required to be published in advance, so that people who want to influence or scrutinise those decisions can bid to change them, or for things to be taken into account at the appropriate time.
Again, this certainly comes out of my experience in the London Assembly. It unanimously passed a motion in 2022 that was put forward by one of the Liberal Democrat members and me, which said that the Mayor of London should publish a forward plan. However, he did not agree to do that, as he said that he was complying with everything in legislation; so the answer seems to be for legislation to require both the Mayor of London and these new combined authority mayors to publish a forward plan along the same lines. Looking at the 2012 regulations, it would be very simple to change the current wording, “local authorities”, to “strategic and local authorities”, if the Minister wanted.
I also point the Committee to the excellent report published last month by the GLA oversight committee, a cross-party committee currently chaired by a Labour member of the London Assembly. It makes exactly the same request: for a forward plan of key mayoral decisions to be put into the 1999 Act. Because of the complexities of the different regulations, I have not tabled an amendment for such a change, but I hope the Minister would consider the question of effective scrutiny of these new bodies and the ability to influence them. I hope she could potentially come forward with a new clause at a later stage for us.
David Simmonds
The Opposition support the amendment; the principle of having a simple majority is sound. In oral evidence, we heard about why Manchester works and London does not, and there is a logic to implementing those measures consistently across the country. We support introducing that consistency.
There is a broader question, however. I understand what the Minister and the Government are trying to achieve; it would clearly be frustrating if one authority was effectively acting as a blocker. However, I asked the Minister earlier to give us some assurances about the treatment applied when financial impacts occur that affect one or more of the constituent authorities in a combined authority area. There will be cases—we have seen them in planning, for example—where an authority argues that to deliver its housing target, a site in another local authority’s area must be developed, because it does not have sufficient developable land to hit the target that it has been given; legally, it is not that authority’s decision. There will be other examples.
I am mindful of some of the Government’s amendments that introduce a lot more scope into this Bill for mayors and combined authorities to undertake their housing responsibilities. One of the main routes for funding is through borrowing against the housing revenue account, which is ringfenced. Each individual local authority has a legal duty to balance that account and the power to borrow against it; it also holds all of the legal housing duties and responsibilities. The purpose of the measures is to make mayors the vehicle for the delivery of asylum accommodation, as opposed to asylum hotels, as is the case now to some degree. Yesterday, on the Floor of the House, another Minister in the Department alluded to this in his response to a question about asylum accommodation.
Those decisions will have a significant impact on the legal obligations of the authorities that sit beneath the mayoral authority. There is a risk that being outvoted in a decision made at combined authority level would put an individual constituent authority in breach of its legal obligations to balance its dedicated schools grant, its housing revenue account or some other element of its council tax account. Will the Minister, either now or in writing, set out what arrangements will apply in the likely situation of a conflict between the legal obligations on a constituent authority to balance the budget and the strategic decisions put forward by the combined authority? How will the conflict be resolved without undue detriment to the constituent authority in particular, which is the one that will find itself in court?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I will respond to the amendment to clause 48, and then I will pick up the specific questions from the hon. Member. The GLA has a different and long-established governance model. In London, the mayor is elected by the people of London to make decisions; the Assembly’s role is to scrutinise those decisions. As a London MP, I think that model has worked well for London for well over 25 years. It is tested and it strikes the right balance between the executive authority of the mayor and the scrutiny of the Assembly.
Siân Berry
It is notable that recently the London Assembly has, on a number of occasions, made constructive changes to the mayor’s budget at stage one of budget setting, which have simply been overturned at the second stage. This tendency, I think, is part of the growing need for a change in the threshold.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We think that the model works well. We have heard representations from constituents, local authorities, Assembly members, and the mayor himself. Any model needs to evolve; as we think about how we expand the powers of the mayor, which we want to, we will also be thinking about reforming the GLA to make it fit for purpose in the 21st century. We will take into consideration some of the points that have been made in this Committee.
On the specific question about decisions at the strategic authority level putting an individual local authority in breach of its legal obligations or jeopardising its financial viability, all our experience of combined authorities is that they always operate within the legal duties of constituent authorities. I struggle to think of an example where constituent authorities have been put in such a position by their mayor and the decisions of the collective. There are sufficient safeguards in place to mitigate that risk.
I hope that majority working will benefit the collective area. This Government will make sure that clear legal obligations on constituent authorities are not breached. I am happy to write to the hon. Member to provide further reassurance on that point. I think we agree that we want clear and effective decision making with a democratic mandate, that will not jeopardise individual authorities by forcing them to breach their legal requirements and/or putting them in financial distress.
David Simmonds
Let me give a concrete example: the long-standing proposal for Heathrow expansion airport. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has set out her absolute determination to ensure that happens, because it is part of her Government’s growth agenda. It is likely to be directed under these powers and in the purview of the Mayor of London, who will ultimately have some planning role in the decision making. However, as well as being the planning authority, the London borough of Hillingdon, within which Heathrow sits entirely, has legal duties in respect of air quality. It is already breaching those duties, which it has no means of fulfilling, simply because of that external factor.
If the Treasury and the Mayor of London were say to the combined authority, “In pursuit of the growth agenda with which we have been tasked, we are determined to see this expansion take place,” immediately that local authority would be put in significant legal jeopardy. To give an indication of the scale, when the Localism Act 2011 was debated and there was also interaction with European Union standards, it equated to an annual fine of £150 million to be paid by the legally responsible local authority. That is a significant jeopardy, and it is by no means the only one—in the case of special educational needs and disabilities obligations, for example, there are significant duties to pay compensation in the event of failure.
We can all envisage situations where a mayor decides that, for the good of everybody, they want an individual place to take a hit, but through the judicial review process that places that individual local authority at significant moral and financial risk. If the Minister sets out how those very significant and real risks will be addressed, I will be grateful.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I thank the hon. Member for that very detailed and specific example. The concerns he raised have been heard and noted. Both in practice and principle, ensuring that no constituent authority is put in either financial or legal jeopardy underwrites all of this. I will take the hon. Member’s points away and write to provide the relevant reassurances.
The Chair
As I said this morning, Minister, if you are going to write to the Member, I would be grateful if you did so in a timely fashion and made that correspondence available to all members of the Committee for consideration.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 7
Combined authorities and CCAs: powers not limited by other provision or
powers
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Clause 7 is a small but important clause that supports the wiring of our new devolution framework. As hon. Members will know, the Bill introduces a systemic approach, ending one-off deals and creating a standardised devolution framework in which strategic authorities and mayors are given a clear and coherent set of functions. However, the Government recognise that it may, on very rare occasions, be necessary to tailor the exercise of specific functions to reflect local circumstances and to preserve the smooth running of public services. Clause 7 provides that existing powers that allow Ministers to modify how a function is exercised by an individual combined authority or county combined authority can continue. Exceptions will be rare, but this flexibility, where appropriate and necessary and where it reflects local circumstances, will be essential to ensure the smooth running of public services.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8
Combined authorities and CCAs: designation as established mayoral strategic authorities
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The devolution White Paper set out our commitment to introduce a new category of established mayoral strategic authority, representing the highest level of devolution in England. The clause delivers on that commitment. It enables a mayoral strategic authority that meets the eligibility criteria set out in the English devolution White Paper to submit a written proposal to the Secretary of State for designation as an established mayoral strategic authority. Designation will provide a strategic authority with access to the highest level of powers and functions in the devolution framework, as well as the right to request additional devolved functions and eligibility to receive an integrated funding settlement.
In the event that a Secretary of State decided not to designate an authority as an established mayoral strategic authority, they would be required to notify the authority in writing of the reasons for their decision. It would remain open to the authority to submit a fresh request at some future point. Importantly, once an authority has been designated as an established mayoral strategic authority, it will not be possible for Ministers to remove its status through secondary legislation. In that way, we will hardwire the powers and functions of established mayoral strategic authorities into our system of government, future-proofing arrangements against unnecessary change and ensuring permanent and enduring devolution.
David Simmonds
I draw the Committee’s attention to a topic to which we will return throughout our proceedings: the extent to which the devolution legislation is about the powers of the Secretary of State to designate this or direct that. Ironically, we are embarked on a course of action that started with us hearing about how it was going to be locally led, despite all evidence to the contrary, yet as we proceed, we have clause after clause and paragraph after paragraph referring to new powers for the Government to make local authorities do this or to direct them to do that. It is clearly not in the spirit of devolution.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The clause does two things. The proposal to become an established mayoral strategic authority will come up from the locality. The power is about the ability of the Secretary of State to designate it as such at its request; it is not about the Secretary of State imposing the status on any area. Critically, it will lock in the established mayoral authority for good, and will, in fact, contain and curtail the power of future Secretaries of State to decide that they will change the status of an established mayoral authority, therefore locking in devolution for the long term.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
Appointment of commissioners by mayors
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I beg to move amendment 68, in clause 9, page 11, line 19, leave out from “function” to “, or” in line 20.
This would omit this wording is because of its replacement by the new section 30A(2) of LURA 2023 (see Amendment 220).
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Government amendments 68 and 69 are consequential to Government amendment 220, which we will discuss later. Government amendment 220 will ensure that responsibility for fire and rescue functions sits directly with the elected mayor, who can delegate them only to a public safety commissioner and not to deputies or officers, thereby strengthening accountability. Government amendments 68 and 69 simply remove wording that will be superseded should Government amendment 220 be accepted.
Amendment 68 agreed to.
Amendment made: 69, in clause 9, page 12, line 7, leave out from “function” to “, or” in line 8.—(Miatta Fahnbulleh.)
This would omit this wording is because of its replacement by the new section 107DZA(2) of LDEDCA 2009 (see Amendment 220).
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 2—Policy delivery in areas of competence—
“(1) Any function of a mayoral combined authority or mayoral combined county authority which—
(a) relates to an area of competence, and
(b) is not a mayoral function exercisable solely by the mayor
must be exercised by or under the direct authority of the constituent members of that authority.
(2) No person may be appointed to exercise any function that relates to making or delivering policy relating to an area of competence unless that person is an elected member of—
(a) the relevant strategic authority, or
(b) a constituent council within the relevant strategic authority.
(3) Nothing in this section is to be taking as preventing the appointment of staff by the strategic authority or its elected members for the purposes of administrative, advisory or technical support for the exercise of its functions.
(4) For the purposes of this section, ‘constituent members’ means any elected representative who is—
(a) appointed by a constituent council to be a member of the mayoral combined authority or mayoral combined county authority;
(b) any person acting in the place of a person appointed under paragraph (a).”
This new clause provides that any policy delivery or development relating to an area of competence in a strategic authority is carried out by an elected representative.
New clause 21—Power to provide for an elected mayor to appoint a deputy mayor—
“(1) The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 (section 107C) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1), leave out ‘one of the members of the authority to be the mayor’s deputy’ and substitute ‘a deputy mayor’.
(3) In subsection (3)(c), leave out ‘the person ceases to be a member of the combined authority’ and insert ‘the person ceases to be a councillor of a constituent council of the authority’
(4) In subsection (4), leave out ‘another member of the combined authority’ and substitute ‘another councillor of a constituent council’.”
This new clause would amend section 107C of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 so that a mayor is no longer restricted to appointing a deputy mayor from among the leaders of the constituent local authority members of the Combined Authority.
New clause 22—Mayoral special advisers—
“(1) The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 (section 15) is amended as follows.
(2) After section 15 (Definition of ‘special adviser’ insert—
‘15A Mayoral special advisers
(1) A mayor may appoint one mayoral special adviser.
(2) A mayoral special adviser is a person who holds a position within a mayoral strategic authority and whose appointment to that position meets the requirements in subsection (3).
(3) The requirements are—
(a) the mayoral special adviser is appointed to assist the Mayor after being selected by the Mayor personally;
(b) the appointment will end not later than—
(i) the day on which the Mayor ceases to hold office, or
(ii) if earlier, the end of the day after the day of the poll at the election following the appointment.
(4) The Secretary of State must publish a code of conduct for mayoral special advisers (“the code”).
(5) Before publishing the code (or any revision of it) the Secretary of State must consult the Council of Nations and Regions.
(6) The code must provide that a mayoral special adviser may not—
(a) authorise the expenditure of public funds; or
(b) exercise any power in relation to the management of any part of the mayoral or strategic authority.
(7) The code must provide that a mayoral special adviser may—
(a) engage in political activity; and
(b) provide party-political advice to the Mayor.
(8) The code must form part of the terms and conditions of service of any mayoral special adviser.
(9) A person appointed under this section is not to be regarded, for the purposes of Part I of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 (political restriction of officers and staff), as holding a politically restricted post under a local authority.’”
This new clause would insert a new section into the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 to establish a statutory framework for the appointment of “mayoral special advisers”. It makes provision about appointment, function, code of conduct, and exemption from political restrictions.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The public rightly expect that mayoral strategic authorities will have access to the expertise they need, that they will work with businesses and other stakeholders, and that mayors will work full time to deliver for their communities. Mayoral strategic authorities will undertake critical new functions, including a stronger set of planning, transport and skills powers and, increasingly, police, fire and public health duties. The authorities will also represent their region in engagement with national bodies, and undertake joint working with partners. It is simply not realistic to expect a single mayor to do all that on their own.
The appointment of commissioners will be a local decision and no additional funding will be provided. I will gladly take Members’ questions now, but when we discuss schedule 3 in four groups’ time, I will expand on some of the checks and balances we are introducing to ensure that commissioners add real value to local decision making. I commend clause 9 to the Committee.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
The name of the Bill promises devolution and community empowerment, yet a number of its clauses cause the Liberal Democrats some concern, and this is one. A key principle of democracy, local or national, is to have elected people—Ministers, Members of Parliament or councillors—delivering for the people who elect them. It makes little sense that a mayor of a combined county authority or combined authority, with dozens or scores of skilled constituent councillors and council leaders beneath them, might instead choose to appoint a commissioner to such an important role.
We heard in oral evidence from Councillor Bev Craig about the model used in Manchester, where the leaders of the constituent councils perform one of the portfolios. That strikes me as much more appropriate in a large strategic authority, where each of those individuals has skin in the game. There is no reason why a mayoral authority should not operate in the same way as large unitary authorities do. Mine represents more than 400,000 people and does not require a commissioner to look at planning, although it does have a head of planning—a paid member of staff. Policy decisions have in the English system traditionally been made by politicians, so I struggle to see why creating a new layer of authorities, further away from people, should take away the principle that such decisions should be made by elected people.
Some have suggested that there are not enough constituent council leaders in some areas—perhaps areas that have only three or four council leaders. There are some incredible deputy leaders and portfolio holders. There may be a case for drawing from a broader pool, but suggesting that those people are not sufficiently qualified in understanding their area or area of expertise could damage the respect that council leaders have in their area, as well as the connection between a constituent council and the strategic authority that sits above it. If we want constituent councils to drive better strategic decisions and better strategic outcomes for all residents, it would be much more sensible to give those individuals a real role in the authority. Given the way that additional responsibility allowances are scheduled, that can be a lot cheaper, because the Bill does not provide for people to have the double allowances that we already have in other parts of the system.
If we bring in external individuals as commissioners, there will be few checks and balances; they are not democratically accountable. The mayor may well be able to remove them, as is detailed in the Bill, but the public cannot remove them. Fundamentally, the people who are making policy decisions should be able to be removed by the public. They should also be held to the standards regime, as well as the other elements of conflicts of interest and financial declarations that councillors must follow.
I think that is all I want to say, but I feel really strongly that a model is there, such as the one in Manchester. We have heard about London evolving over time, but we have some great models running in the country. To me, it seems a sensible way forward to look at what they are doing in Greater Manchester, which is already incredibly successful.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
As the hon. Lady refers to Greater Manchester, I am minded of the role that Chris Boardman has played in Greater Manchester in rolling out active travel. He is unelected, and I think it would be a shame if we could not take advantage of such a person’s expertise. Does she accept that is a risk with what she proposes?
Vikki Slade
There is a role for experts, but the role of the commissioners, as they are seen through this lens or this organisation, is far better suited to people who are elected. Councils around the country, including Manchester, can appoint individuals to do specific roles for a specific period of time, but the role of commissioner lies in those strategic decision-making pieces that are integral to their shape, and they ensure that an individual cannot independently run a fiefdom. I think it is really important that there are local people who are accountable. There is nothing to stop an organisation from appointing an individual expert, as they do all over the country, but they do not need to be called “commissioners”.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
With your permission, Sir John, I will make some references to schedule 3 as well as clause 9, just to do it all in the same place. I will start by responding to some of the hon. Lady’s points. She raises some valid concerns. I will just give the perspective of someone who lives in quite a fractious combined authority area. I think my combined authority board currently has two Conservatives, two Lib Dems and two Labour—that is not enough people, so it must be 3:3:2, but I cannot remember which way around.
We also have the Manchester system at the moment, whereby different people hold different portfolios, which has led to a lot of politicisation. We have a Conservative mayor now, and we previously had a Labour mayor, but under both there was a lot of game-playing going on and a lot of difficulty, so I think it would be helpful for the mayor to be able to appoint commissioners just to get on with delivering their strategy. They are directly elected, and although I disagree with my mayor on a lot of things, I accept his mandate. It may well be helpful for mayors across the country to be able to deliver the strategy that they have stood on.
My concern relates to the relative sizes of combined authorities in a uniform approach to commissioners, and whether we can look at how to deal with that. To give an example, Greater Manchester has 3 million residents; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough has around 1 million. Similarly, the Greater Manchester combined authority has 3,500 staff—or 4,600 if you include Transport for Greater Manchester—while Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority has 139 employees, according to a freedom of information request from March 2024. The difference in scale is significant, and obviously the amount of work for commissioners to oversee is therefore significant.
I do not want to put the Minister on the spot now, but could she write to me at some point to give context on whether the Government have considered modifying the number of commissioners that a combined authority mayor can appoint with respect to that variance in size, or perhaps the allowance payable to those commissioners, so they would be more part time in smaller authorities? I note that amendment 293, which we will discuss later, relates to allowances, and I can imagine that the Government want to allow flexibility so that local areas can do what is best for them, which makes perfect sense.
Within my area, if commissioners were paid at director level, that could cost well over £1 million. Senior officers can earn in excess of £100,000, which is a significant sum, and it is more than mayors themselves or many Government Ministers earn. That may well be appropriate in London, where it works and seems to be doing a great job, but London is a lot bigger than some other authorities. I thank the Committee for listening to those thoughts, and if the Minister could give some clarity on how we can deal with some of those issues, I would be really grateful.
David Simmonds
The Opposition have some sympathy with the points that have been made in the debate. It is an area in which there is scope to move towards a degree of consensus. I think that we all recognise that part of the underlying thinking behind the mayoral combined authority is that it brings a new element of leadership, and from those models where they are established, such as in London, we can identify some of the issues. As we heard at the start of the Committee, there is clear evidence about accountability.
One of the issues that persists in London is that there are a number of advisers—whether they are commissioners or not is a moot point—who undertake sometimes quite highly paid roles on behalf of the mayor, but they are not visibly accountable to the GLA, the boroughs or anybody else. That begins to undermine public confidence, and it clearly creates a sense of distance between those who are elected and those who they are there to serve.
While I agree that there is no reason why somebody who is elected should not occupy those roles, one of the issues with the proposed amendment is that there is clearly a risk of constraining them—in particular, in relation to the wording of the proposed amendment. When we consider some of the statutory roles that might be occupied—directors of children’s services, statutory directors of social care, monitoring officers, section 151 officers and others who have legal duties—there is a risk that by defining it as narrowly as the amendment does, we create some concerns about the interaction between those who are part of the professional officer corps that serves local government and those who are political appointees. I do not think that that is intentional; it is simply a risk that arises from the way in which it is drafted.
We will not be supporting the amendment, but I am mindful of the comments that have been made by those on the Government Benches about the need to ensure that those who occupy the roles are fit to do so, and that they are publicly accountable, because they will be public servants and they need to be answerable to effective scrutiny measures for the work that they do.
Siân Berry
I want to participate in this debate, despite having not tabled any amendments. I am grateful to the Members who have done so. The issue of commissioners is interesting. It is also interesting that the Government have chosen this model to codify in the Bill. From my experience, I believe that the London model of how this is done is far ahead of other combined or strategic authorities that already exist, and of the Government’s imagination in terms of the Bill. London Assembly members are used to having the equivalent of commissioners—deputy mayors—to scrutinise. The Assembly members do that effectively, not only by asking the deputy mayors questions and making them accountable, but also by providing them with evidence and new ideas, and by highlighting problems across the strategic area. Many effective changes have been brought through in that way.
However, to have those kinds of commissioners without that level of scrutiny is a mistake. In that respect, I am not in favour, and I am not convinced by the argument from my Liberal Democrat colleagues that people who are separately responsible for running services—many of them statutory services—and who have a lot of other responsibilities and duties in the constituent part of the strategic area are the right people to be given those kinds of roles. It is a really interesting question.
I have also found that, aside from a very short period when a Green deputy mayor was appointed to serve under an independent mayor in London, most mayors seem to be allergic to appointing anyone from an opposition party to any of those roles. There are examples of independently minded, effective, delivery-focused people. Chris Boardman, in Manchester, was mentioned. However, there does seem to be a party political element to the appointment of the roles, if the Minister and the Chair were to look at the record.
In conclusion on this clause—and it will come up in relation to other parts of the Bill—we collectively need a wider discussion about scrutiny and governance of the new roles. Some of the comments earlier from the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner suggested that if we all got together in a room, we might be able to come up with a better idea than what is being proposed. I very much agree with that. There are things that we should be discussing.
It was pointed out to us in evidence that we will lose something like 90% of our elected representation in certain areas. In certain parts of the country, people will end up with somewhat of a deficit of overall elected representatives—people to come to with casework. More should be looked at on whether or not a model more like the London Assembly could be adopted, where people are separately elected with strategic responsibilities. In London, there are constituency Assembly members, and Assembly members who are London-wide and take a more strategic view. Those are good models that have worked, and the Government and others should look at that. It is not up for debate today, but my new clause 15 proposes a review of scrutiny, which I will argue for later. When the Government come to look at this in review, which inevitably they will have to do, I hope they will look again at potentially having more directly elected—
David Simmonds
I am listening attentively to what the hon. Lady described. We heard in evidence from Councillor Sam Chapman-Allen of the District Councils’ Network that under these proposals, shire England stands to lose 90% of its elected representation, which the hon. Lady referred to. There is not anything really concrete in the Bill that sets out what scrutiny should look like—what those minimum standards should be. There are elements about conduct and things like that, but that is very basic. Does the hon. Lady have a view about what a good model should look like, so that local residents can exercise their control over what happens in their neighbourhood effectively?
Siân Berry
I am attempting in my speech not to be too biased towards what I am used to, because that is a failing as well. We should discuss this in a very open way. Other new clauses I have tabled contain proposals for things such as a citizens assembly. We should look at international examples as well. When there are proposals to spend a significant amount of money on the commissioners, there is value in spending an appropriate amount on decent scrutiny and elected representatives. Again, I am biased—I am an elected representative. I think we are good value, but that is a case to be made.
Finally, I cannot find any mention in schedule 3 about guidance that the Secretary of State may issue to commissioners about conduct, standards and transparency. I would like some reassurance from the Minister about guidance on those aspects of the job. Even if they are not elected, they are accountable to the public and must be given a process and regime of standards, and potentially be brought into existing standards systems. Without scrutiny, standards and regulations to govern their behaviour, I worry about this in the same way as several other Members today have.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Commissioners can and will support mayors in getting the job done for their communities. They are not compulsory. There is no obligation on a mayor to appoint commissioners, but it gives the mayor the option of increasing capacity and expertise to do that. The hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion talked about the example of Greater Manchester, where they have council leaders who are portfolio leads. It is worth pointing out that Manchester also uses commissioners—for example, on active travel—so it can be complementary or can supplement. It is just giving them an additional set of levers in order to respond.
It is also worth pointing out that there will be some roles that the mayor has accountability for that they simply cannot delegate to councillors—for example, strategic planning powers, where direct delegation to a commissioner might expand the mayor’s capacity to dispense with that responsibility. However, to the point about checks and balances, which has been made time and again, it is important to be clear that we completely agree on the need for accountability for commissioners. They will be accountable to the mayor for their performance, who has the power to terminate their appointment, and the combined authority or combined county authority must also agree before any non-mayoral functions are delegated to the commissioner. Critically, the combined authority or combined county authority overview and scrutiny committee will also have the power to recommend the termination of commissioners if they think the commissioner is not performing or delivering. A two-thirds majority of members of the authority is required to accept that recommendation.
Siân Berry
Does the Minister believe that the people who are able to recommend that the commissioner be terminated have sufficient ways to discover whether or not they should be?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The hon. Member made the point about the scrutiny of commissioners, which is a fair and valid point, and my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire made the point about flexibility in different contexts, particularly for smaller strategic authorities. We have come at this in such a way as to allow local areas as much flexibility as possible, but these are valid points about making sure that the model is flexible enough to respond to specific contexts. We will provide further detail in statutory guidance on the selection and appointment of commissioners, as well as other operational matters that the combined authority or combined county authority will need to consider, and we will take some of the points that have been raised as we do that in due course.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
The Minister talks about our scrutiny committees being able to recommend the termination of commissioners. Has she given any thought to their involvement in the appointment of commissioners? For example, currently, those appointed as deputy police and crime commissioners have to appear before the police and crime panel, which makes a recommendation to the police and crime commissioner about their suitability for the role. Has the Minister given any thought to how scrutiny committees can get involved before someone takes on the commissioner role, rather than waiting to see if they are good or not and then making a recommendation to the mayor?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We have done this through the constituent members of the combined authority, so that before an appointment can be made, the full combined authority will need to agree to that appointment. We think that provides sufficient safeguards and the ability to scrutinise; however, the point about how we ensure ongoing scrutiny of the work being done and the performance by more than the mayor and the combined authority is a fair point, and we will take it away.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
The commissioners are not accountable to the public; they are accountable to the mayor, who will of course be elected. The Minister talks about scrutiny, but what about holding them to account on public standards? What kind of framework is there to ensure trust in these commissioners?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
All holders of public office have to adhere to public standards; that is as true for national Government as it is for regional and local government. We expect those standards to apply, and the safeguards we are putting in place by enabling the mayor to terminate based on performance or poor conduct will ensure that they are upheld.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 3
Commissioners
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I beg to move amendment 70, in schedule 3, page 111, line 33, at end insert—
“(d) excepted fire and rescue functions.”
This would prevent a commissioner appointed by the mayor of a CCA from exercising “excepted fire and rescue functions” (defined in Amendment 71).
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 71, 73 and 74.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The amendments will prevent a commissioner from exercising certain fire and rescue functions that should be reserved as functions of the mayor, as head of the fire and rescue authority in the area. The effective delegation of fire and rescue functions to a commissioner can ease capacity constraints on the mayor, by ensuring that there is a dedicated individual with the time and expertise to focus on executing those functions. Fire and rescue functions are already delegated successfully to deputy mayors for policing and crime in Greater Manchester and in York and North Yorkshire. The ability to delegate to a commissioner, without the need for secondary legislation, simplifies that process. If they wish, mayors will be able to make an existing deputy mayor for policing and crime the public safety commissioner, meaning that individual could lead on both policing and fire.
However, certain functions should be the sole responsibility of an elected mayor, as head of the fire and rescue authority. The retained functions are those with the most significant bearing on the strategic direction of the fire service, such as its budget, its risk plan, and the appointment or dismissal of the chief fire officer. It is important that these decisions are taken right at the top, and that the person taking them is accountable at the ballot box.
These amendments provide for the effective delegation of fire and rescue functions. They ensure that decisions are taken at the right level and support the Government’s commitment to ensure that our communities are safe.
Amendment 70 agreed to.
Amendment made: 71, in schedule 3, page 112, line 3, at end insert—
“(6) In this paragraph “excepted fire and rescue functions” means—
(a) functions under the following provisions of the FRSA 2004—
(i) section 13 (reinforcement schemes);
(ii) section 15 (arrangements with other employers of fire-fighters);
(iii) section 16 (arrangements for discharge of functions by others);
(b) the functions of—
(i) appointing, suspending or dismissing the chief fire officer;
(ii) approving the terms of appointment of the chief fire officer;
(iii) holding the chief fire officer to account for managing the fire and rescue service;
(c) approving—
(i) the community risk management plan;
(ii) the fire and rescue declaration;
(d) approving plans, modifications to plans and additions to plans for the purpose of ensuring that—
(i) as far as reasonably practicable, the CCA is able to perform its fire and rescue functions if an emergency occurs, and
(ii) the CCA is able to perform its functions so far as is necessary or desirable for the purpose of preventing an emergency or reducing, controlling or mitigating the effects of an emergency, or taking other action in connection with it;
(e) approving any arrangements for the co-operation of the CCA in relation to its fire and rescue functions with other Category 1 responders and Category 2 responders in respect of—
(i) the performance of the CCA’s duty as a fire and rescue authority under section 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (duty to assess, plan and advise);
(ii) any duties under subordinate legislation made in exercise of powers under that Act.
(7) In sub-paragraph (6) and this sub-paragraph—
“Category 1 responder” and “Category 2 responder” have the meanings given in section 3 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (section 2: supplemental);
“chief fire officer” means the person with responsibility for managing the fire and rescue service;
“community risk management plan” means a plan which—
(a) is prepared and published by the combined authority in accordance with the Fire and Rescue National Framework, and
(b) sets out for the period covered by the document in accordance with the requirements of the Framework—
(i) the combined authority’s priorities and objectives, and
(ii) an assessment of all foreseeable fire and rescue related risks that could affect its community, in accordance with the discharge of the combined authority’s fire and rescue functions;
“emergency” has the meaning given in section 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (meaning of “emergency”);
“fire and rescue authority” means a fire and rescue authority under the FRSA 2004;
“fire and rescue declaration” means a document which—
(a) is prepared and published by the combined authority in accordance with the Fire and Rescue National Framework, and
(b) contains a statement of the way in which the combined authority has had regard, in the period covered by the document, to the Framework and to any community risk management plan prepared by the combined authority for that period;
“fire and rescue functions” means—
(a) functions of a fire and rescue authority which the combined authority has by virtue of an order under section 105A, or
(b) functions which the combined authority has as a fire and rescue authority by virtue of section 1(2)(f) or (g) of the FRSA 2004;
“Fire and Rescue National Framework” means the document prepared by the Secretary of State under section 21 of the FRSA 2004;
“fire and rescue service” means the personnel, services and equipment secured for the purposes of carrying out the functions of a fire and rescue authority under—
(a) section 6 of the FRSA 2004 (fire safety);
(b) section 7 of the FRSA 2004 (fire-fighting);
(c) section 8 of the FRSA 2004 (road traffic accidents);
(d) any applicable order under section 9 of the FRSA 2004 Act (emergencies);
(e) section 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (duty to assess, plan and advise) and any applicable subordinate legislation made under that Act;
(f) any other provision of, or made under, an enactment which confers functions on a fire and rescue authority;
“FRSA 2004” means the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004.”—(Miatta Fahnbulleh.)
This would define the “excepted fire and rescue functions” which a commissioner appointed by the mayor of a CCA would be prevented from exercising by Amendment 70.
David Simmonds
I beg to move amendment 293, in schedule 3, page 112, line 16, at end insert—
“(2A) The relevant remuneration panel may not recommend allowances which exceed the amount paid in salary to a person employed at director level within the relevant authority.”.
This amendment ensures that Commissioners cannot be paid more than Directors working for the authority.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 292, in schedule 3, page 112, line 22, at end insert—
“(5) The relevant remuneration panel must consider, and make recommendations about, whether commissioners appointed by the mayor, and councillors in the constituent areas, should be eligible for the local government pension scheme.
(6) Recommendations of the relevant remuneration panel relating to the local government pension scheme must have the aim of achieving value for money.”.
This amendment requires remuneration panels to consider whether mayoral commissioners should be eligible for the LGPS and justify those findings.
David Simmonds
These amendments concern the remuneration of commissioners and have two purposes.
There is a long-established principle within the arrangements for the remuneration of elected officials in local government that an independent panel, which is able to take evidence from the public and other good sources in the local area, will make a recommendation to the local authority about what the scheme of allowances payable should be. That brings a degree of transparency. Councils are currently required to consider the recommendations and to update their scheme from time to time, including voting to renew it each year. That has certain elements. One is whether commissioners—in this case, those who are appointed and are part of a mayoral combined authority—should be eligible for the local government pension scheme.
We heard an announcement from the Secretary of State on this issue, and it is the view of the shadow team that it is a sensible step. Changing the local government pension scheme from a final salary scheme to an average salary scheme was led by councillors, and it was instrumental in convincing a very large body of appointed officials to move over to that scheme, saving the taxpayer millions of pounds. However, it is also important that those appointed as commissioners are considered for eligibility and that each mayor is transparent about the recommendations and advice they have undertaken around that.
The second point to consider is around remuneration. We often hear it cited that there are people in the civil service, the NHS and local government who are paid more than the Prime Minister, which is used as a benchmark for excessive pay. Whether or not we agree with that—personally, I do not, as I recognise that there is a professional salary structure for these roles, in which those people will participate for the whole of their careers, that is very different from the context for politicians—it is none the less important to recognise that those who are appointed into mayoral roles should be subject to some degree of constraint.
As is the case with local government, it seems reasonable that we do not see elected officials appointed on a very significantly higher salary than senior professionals who are advising in the same field. The amendments aim to bring a degree of transparency and rigour to that, and to ensure that, in the potential circumstance where a mayor chooses to stretch the limits of their powers of appointment, shall we say, there is some degree of constraint so that the public can see that the taxpayer pound is being carefully husbanded.
Sam Carling
We have just heard the Minister speak about having statutory guidance on this issue. Does the hon. Member agree that one way of making this change, rather than through these amendments, would be for the guidance to include some clear indications to the remuneration panels about what roles they should consider comparable for mayoral commissioners. That might be council leaders or cabinet members rather than senior officers; or it may be senior officers, where appropriate.
David Simmonds
I understand the issue that the hon. Member is highlighting. One thing that emerged from the debate about councillor pensions was that they were essentially taken away by a decision of Parliament, without the process of legislation. One of the risks here is that statutory guidance, robust as it can be and coming with a duty to “have regard”, can be changed quite quickly. Therefore, if this is not clearly set out on the face of the Bill, the ability of this Parliament and of local communities, as we are observing, to exercise the degree of accountability and scrutiny that they might wish is undermined. That is why we have proposed these amendments.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I thank the hon. Member for his thoughtful contribution on this critical question of how to ensure value for money in the remuneration of commissioners. It is important that allowances paid to commissioners accurately reflect the work they do but also represent value for money. We completely agree with that principle. That is why the Bill, as drafted, has a clear process for setting the allowances of commissioners. The relevant authority must consider a report by a relevant remuneration panel, and payments cannot exceed the amount specified in that report.
Ultimately, what commissioners are paid is a local decision, and we have crafted the measures for that, but it is a decision that needs to be made in alignment with recommendations, as is the practice across local government. Adding a further requirement that commissioners cannot be paid more than directors would reduce local autonomy in decision making and would pre-emptively undermine the relevant remuneration panel. The Bill is about empowering places, but what we can and will consider is how we set up statutory guidance to provide clarity about what is possible and to deal with some of the potential pitfalls that the hon. Member has raised.
Amendment 292 seeks to place a duty on remuneration panels to consider and make recommendations about the local government pension scheme. Again, I understand the intent behind the amendment and the importance of ensuring that public officials in local government are properly remunerated and incentivised. However, I do not believe the amendment necessarily advances that.
We value the work that remuneration panels do to make considered recommendations about allowances that should be paid locally. However, overall access and eligibility to the local government pension scheme is dealt with at national level. It is therefore not clear what value the amendment would add, which is why I ask the shadow Minister to withdraw it.
David Simmonds
I have listened intently to what the Minister has said. I think the risk is that, if things are delegated to statutory guidance, what emerges later on will not meet the expectations set out in the debate. I will therefore push for a vote on these amendments.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I beg to move amendment 72, in schedule 3, page 112, line 23, leave out from beginning to end of line 27 and insert—
“Ending of appointment
8A The appointment of a person as a commissioner ends if—
(a) the appointment ceases to have effect in accordance with paragraph 2(2), 4(3) or 5,
(b) the appointment ends—
(i) in accordance with the terms and conditions included by virtue of paragraph 6(1), or
(ii) in accordance with paragraph 6(2),
(c) the appointment is terminated in accordance with its terms and conditions—
(i) by the mayor for the area of the CCA (whether that is the person who made the appointment or a successor), or
(ii) by the commissioner,
(d) the appointment ceases to have effect in accordance with paragraph 10(4), or
(e) the commissioner dies.”
This would state the ways in which the appointment of a commissioner can end.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Simply, these amendments set out the ways in which a commissioner’s appointment can end. Specifically, it can end if the appointment is invalid, if the person becomes ineligible, if the term of the appointment ends, if the appointment is terminated in accordance with the terms and conditions, if a recommendation to terminate the commissioner’s appointment is accepted, or if the commissioner passes away.
We have talked about the accountability mechanisms that we are putting in place to ensure that commissioners play the role they should play, but they are accountable to the mayor. We have also talked about the role of the scrutiny committee in providing oversight and recommendations about termination.
Amendment 72 agreed to.
Amendments made: 73, in schedule 3, page 116, line 40, at end insert—
“(d) excepted fire and rescue functions.”
This would prevent a commissioner appointed by the mayor of a combined authority from exercising “excepted fire and rescue functions” (defined in Amendment 74).
Amendment 74, in schedule 3, page 117, line 10, at end insert—
“(6) In this paragraph ‘excepted fire and rescue functions’ means—
(a) functions under the following provisions of the FRSA 2004—
(i) section 13 (reinforcement schemes);
(ii) section 15 (arrangements with other employers of fire-fighters);
(iii) section 16 (arrangements for discharge of functions by others);
(b) the functions of—
(i) appointing, suspending or dismissing the chief fire officer;
(ii) approving the terms of appointment of the chief fire officer;
(iii) holding the chief fire officer to account for managing the fire and rescue service;
(c) approving—
(i) the community risk management plan;
(ii) the fire and rescue declaration;
(d) approving plans, modifications to plans and additions to plans for the purpose of ensuring that—
(i) as far as reasonably practicable, the CCA is able to perform its fire and rescue functions if an emergency occurs, and
(ii) the CCA is able to perform its functions so far as is necessary or desirable for the purpose of preventing an emergency or reducing, controlling or mitigating the effects of an emergency, or taking other action in connection with it;
(e) approving any arrangements for the co-operation of the CCA in relation to its fire and rescue functions with other Category 1 responders and Category 2 responders in respect of—
(i) the performance of the CCA’s duty as a fire and rescue authority under section 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (duty to assess, plan and advise);
(ii) any duties under subordinate legislation made in exercise of powers under that Act.
(7) In sub-paragraph (6) and this sub-paragraph—
‘Category 1 responder’ and ‘Category 2 responder’ have the meanings given in section 3 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (section 2: supplemental);
‘chief fire officer’ means the person with responsibility for managing the fire and rescue service;
‘community risk management plan’ means a plan which—
(a) is prepared and published by the combined authority in accordance with the Fire and Rescue National Framework, and
(b) sets out for the period covered by the document in accordance with the requirements of the Framework—
(i) the CCA’s priorities and objectives, and
(ii) an assessment of all foreseeable fire and rescue related risks that could affect its community, in accordance with the discharge of the CCA’s fire and rescue functions;
‘emergency’ has the meaning given in section 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (meaning of ‘emergency’);
‘fire and rescue authority’ means a fire and rescue authority under the FRSA 2004;
‘fire and rescue declaration’ means a document which—
(a) is prepared and published by the CCA in accordance with the Fire and Rescue National Framework, and
(b) contains a statement of the way in which the CCA has had regard, in the period covered by the document, to the Framework and to any community risk management plan prepared by the CCA for that period;
‘fire and rescue functions’ means—
(a) functions of a fire and rescue authority which the CCA has by virtue of regulations under section 19, or
(b) functions which the CCA has as a fire and rescue authority by virtue of section 1(2)(f) or (g) of the FRSA 2004;
‘Fire and Rescue National Framework’ means the document prepared by the Secretary of State under section 21 of the FRSA 2004;
‘fire and rescue service’ means the personnel, services and equipment secured for the purposes of carrying out the functions of a fire and rescue authority under—
(a) section 6 of the FRSA 2004 (fire safety);
(b) section 7 of the FRSA 2004 (fire-fighting);
(c) section 8 of the FRSA 2004 (road traffic accidents);
(d) any applicable order under section 9 of the FRSA 2004 Act (emergencies);
(e) section 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (duty to assess, plan and advise) and any applicable subordinate legislation made under that Act;
(f) any other provision of, or made under, an enactment which confers functions on a fire and rescue authority;
‘FRSA 2004’ means the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004.”
This would define the “excepted fire and rescue functions” which a commissioner appointed by the mayor of a combined authority would be prevented from exercising by Amendment 73.
Amendment 75, in schedule 3, page 117, line 31, leave out from beginning to end of line 36 and insert—
“Ending of appointment
8A The appointment of a person as a commissioner ends if—
(a) the appointment ceases to have effect in accordance with paragraph 2(2), 4(3) or 5,
(b) the appointment ends—
(i) in accordance with the terms and conditions included by virtue of paragraph 6(1), or
(ii) in accordance with paragraph 6(2),
(c) the appointment is terminated in accordance with its terms and conditions—
(i) by the mayor for the area of the combined authority (whether that is the person who made the appointment or a successor), or
(ii) by the commissioner,
(d) the appointment ceases to have effect in accordance with paragraph 10(4), or
(e) the commissioner dies.”—(Miatta Fahnbulleh.)
This would state the ways in which the appointment of a commissioner can end.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 10
Combined authorities and CCAs: allowances for members with special responsibilities
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The clause will ensure that all combined authorities and combined county authorities can pay their members an allowance where they take on special responsibility for the combined authority or the combined county authority. Constituent council members regularly take on important additional responsibilities, particularly leading on policy portfolios such as housing or transport. We heard from the leader of Manchester city council about the important role she plays for that combined authority. They are crucial in driving forward local policy, ensuring that it meets the needs and aspirations of our communities. Indeed, their role will grow in importance as we increase the powers and functions available to combined authorities and combined county authorities.
However, currently, constituent council members can be paid for such special responsibilities only by their council, not the combined authority or combined county authority. This simply is not right; members should not be expected to do important work for free, and constituent councils should not foot the bill for work done in service of another body. Ensuring that the combined authority or combined county authority can pay its members creates a fairer system, allowing areas to recognise and reward hard work that delivers for communities. To ensure transparency and accountability, pay will be determined following a report by an independent remuneration panel.
David Simmonds
I draw the Minister’s attention to the existing arrangements for independent remuneration panels. She has referenced the proposals for how this kind of situation will be handled. However, we can envisage circumstances such as those that we heard about in Greater Manchester, where the mayoral commissioners are effectively drawn from the leadership of those local authorities.
There is a degree of ambiguity in proposed new sections 52A(6) and 113E(6), which refer to allowances paid
“in respect of the same special responsibilities”.
For example, I think of a situation where someone is a cabinet member with responsibility for transport in a constituent authority and also undertakes a strategic transport role as part of the combined authority. We as politicians would recognise that those are two different things, in the same way that a Minister undertaking duties in the Government is paid separately from their role as a Member of Parliament because those two things are distinct.
Transparency and clarity are important to retaining public confidence. Clearly, we do not want to create a situation where there is a degree of dispute, such as where a mayoral combined authority expects the constituent council to pay, or vice versa, and where an individual who wishes to take up those duties is inhibited from doing so. It would be helpful if the Minister could set out how the statutory guidance will address that issue so the Committee can be confident that we will not see this act as a barrier to participation in the governance of these new authorities.
Sam Carling
I have some more thrilling financial commentary, so I hope the Committee will forgive me. First, I welcome what the Minister has just said. Exactly this situation happened in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, where our mayor went on medical leave for some time. His deputy, Councillor Anna Smith, who is a good friend of mine, ended up taking on the deputy mayoral role, so she had to drop hours at work and faced a significant loss of income. Our council took the decision to pay her as essentially a cabinet member, but it was not ideal. Clause 10 will resolve so many issues.
I want to highlight a discrepancy in that, at present, there is usually no allowance for members who sit on the combined authority board. A lot of the time, it is the leader of the council who does so, and it is often considered to be part of their portfolio, but it is not always leaders who sit on the board. That can lead to people taking on a very significant commitment without any financial support, despite potentially having to reduce hours at work and the like, if the councillor in question has a job, as many do. That is not conducive to having a diverse range of elected representatives to do these jobs.
Following local government reorganisation, if we have fewer leaders on boards and more holders of other portfolios and councillors, we may see this problem increase. I encourage the Minister to consider either altering the clause or making other provisions as the Bill progresses to allow combined authorities, if they wish, to pay an allowance to their board members for that role.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I understand the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner and the context in which that could arise. Our judgment is that if the independent remuneration committee does its job, we can mitigate around that. There is always a balance. We are trying to live the spirit of the Bill and to create as much autonomy, space and power for the mayor and constituent authorities to make such decisions, rather than us specifying nationally. As we get representations from strategic authorities going through the process, we will reflect that in statutory guidance, but we think we have the right balance. The important role that the remuneration committee will play will help to mitigate some of the risks the hon. Member mentioned.
On the specific example raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire, we are not prohibiting elected members from sitting on the combined authority. It is within the gift of the combined authority. Again, we are giving as much flexibility as possible for an authority to come up with measures that work for a particular local area.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 10 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 11
Mayoral combined authorities and CCAs: precepts
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I beg to move amendment 82, in clause 11, page 14, leave out from line 35 to line 13 on page 15 and insert—
“(a) omit subsection (11)(a);
(b) in subsection (11)(b), for ‘that section’ substitute ‘section 107G of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009’;
(c) omit subsection (12)(a);
(d) in subection 12(b), for ‘that section’ substitute ‘section 41 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023’.”
This removes the restriction on mayoral combined authorities and mayoral CCAs only being able to issue a precept in connection with mayoral functions.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The amendment updates the clause to ensure that mayors have the power to precept across all their functions. It replaces the provisions added to the Local Government Finance Act 1992 by the Bill, which needed clarification. The amendment will mean that, by virtue of being major precepting authorities, combined authorities and combined county authorities will have the power to precept across all their functions. It repeals provisions that previously restricted that precepting power to specific functions. The amendment more effectively meets the policy intention to allow mayors to precept for everything that they are required to do. That will give mayors more flexibility in how to fund mayoral priorities to create growth and improve local services.
Government amendments 76 and 79 provide that the issuing of precepts under the Local Government Finance Act is a function exercisable only by the mayor, and that that is the case for mayoral and non-mayoral functions. By removing restrictions from the existing legislation, the amendments will establish that precepting is a function of the mayor for expenditure relating to mayoral and non-mayoral functions, meeting the original policy intention. It has always been the intention of the Government that issuing a mayoral council tax precept should be a function of the mayor alone. The amendments will ensure that that will be the case and will ensure that mayors can precept across all their functions.
David Simmonds
The Opposition have significant concerns about the import of amendments 82, 76 and 79. We have made a number of references to some interactions with different elements of local government finance, but clearly the measures will open the door to very substantial tax rises through the vehicle of the mayoral precept. Worse than that, they open it up to being used for any purpose, in effect.
In the sometimes tense relationship between central and local government, there are disputes about who should pick up the tab—for example, the ongoing debate about asylum costs. That is very much having an effect in my local authority, which has the highest number of asylum seekers per capita of any in the country. Such individuals are only a cost to the local authority, as a result of central Government policy. The Bill opens up the scope for mayors to directly tax people for the purposes of environmental legislation, or social care, which consumes around 70% of the budgets of local authorities, or any other function that authorities may choose to undertake—making Manchester a nuclear-free zone, or whatever it may be—despite the fact that those are not functions that mayors undertake by statute. I am sure we all agree that there should be an opportunity for politicians to speak up, but there needs to be some limit on it.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I would just point out to the hon. Gentleman that the mayoral precept was introduced in 2017 by a Conservative Government, and that mayors are directly elected. Like Members of Parliament, mayors are not immune to political pressures around tax rises, and examples across the country show that mayors are as thoughtful about the right balance between investing in their services and managing tax increases as national politicians—in fact, when we think about the record of the last Government, perhaps more so.
David Simmonds
That was a fairly shameless political pitch, but we should just reflect on the debates that took place across the Dispatch Boxes yesterday during Housing, Communities and Local Government questions, when it was highlighted that we have a Mayor of London who is quite happy to issue precepts to indulge his personal political priorities but is an abject failure in discharging his mayoral functions around housing. Thousands of people are unable to find homes in the capital because the mayor is failing to build out more than 300,000 planning permissions that have already been granted by the local authorities. That is an injustice that is being inflicted on the citizens of our capital, and this provision, as envisaged by this Labour Government, potentially inflicts the same, or an even greater, injustice on other areas of the country. For those reasons, we remain deeply concerned about it.
Particularly in an environment where, as we heard earlier, local authorities were left £1.5 billion worse off—net—by the Government’s decision to introduce additional taxes on their employees, the temptation will be for the mayoral precept to be seen as the catch-all or safety valve through which additional taxes can be extracted to meet whatever demand central Government choose to impose, without central Government being accountable for it. That is why we oppose the measures.
Siân Berry
I had not previously heard the Conservatives’ argument on this issue, and I have to say that I disagree. The Minister said that the original intention of the policy was to allow for a wide range of precepting, and if there is one thing that directly elected mayors are really accountable for, it is the level of precept that they set.
I am in favour of creativity in conversations with the electorate about what initiatives, appropriate to the local area, might be funded by precept on a short-term basis or just in the local area. The way that the provision is set up allows mayors to be properly accountable for that. I worry less about it resulting in huge tax rises without consent, because consent is built in at election time.
I appreciate the concerns about austerity continuing in councils that are underneath and part of the combined authority if mayors are taking up available taxpaying powers. In every debate in this Committee, I would love to bring up the fact that all this reorganisation is happening in the absence of an end to austerity. The Government need to provide more funding to local councils so that this is not all being taken in council tax, which is a very unfair tax.
Vikki Slade
I have no principled objection to the mayor setting a precept. I found it confusing when I heard Mayor Houchen explain how he had a zero precept. How does anything get done? Where does the money come from? [Interruption.] I am sure he has a salary, and I am sure he has an extensive office that is paid for by someone. I accept that the principle of a precept is, in some respects, self-limiting, but what bothers me is that the combined authority mayors have no referendum cap, unlike upper-tier, lower-tier, police and crime or fire authorities.
It is fire authorities I particularly want to speak to, because although some Government amendments have been tabled on the role of the mayor in terms of fire and rescue, there is almost silence in the Bill about the role of the fire and rescue service, while embracing it completely and almost making the whole service disappear. I am really concerned that fire authorities are already desperately under-resourced. Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service gets £1.76 a week per household. It has desperately been trying to get a 20p per week increase, but has been told, “No, you can’t have that.” There is nothing in the Bill that protects and ringfences any money for fire services, whereas there is more talk about police services. I am looking for some reassurance and commitment about how fire services funding will be properly resourced and ringfenced to make sure that no area suffers as when we had those horrendous wildfires, where fire services had to beg, borrow and steal equipment.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We are all hugely sympathetic to the funding of fire and rescue—as we see climate change, the imperative of fire and rescue services is key—but it is outside the scope of the Bill. We believe that we have the balance right between allowing precepting powers for mayors and allowing democratic accountability by which the electorate can hold any mayor and politician to account.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I beg to move amendment 77, in clause 11, page 15, line 15, at end insert—
“(b) in subsection (4)(a), for the words from “consists” to the end of that paragraph substitute “includes a separate component in respect of the mayor’s PCC functions,”.”
This provides for flexibility where the mayor of a mayoral combined authority has PCC functions as to how the components of the authority’s council tax calculation which relate to the authority’s other functions (both mayoral and non-mayoral) are to be set out.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 78, 80 and 81.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The amendment relates to where a mayor has police and crime commissioner functions: secondary legislation about the arrangements for setting the precept must provide that the police and crime commissioner component is ringfenced. Where a mayor has police and crime functions for more than one police and crime commissioner area, secondary legislation must provide that there is a separate police and crime component for each area. The legislation currently provides that there must be separate components for police and crime administrative functions and for mayoral general functions.
The amendments mean that Ministers have the flexibility to provide for either one component for non-police and crime functions, or multiple separate components for different types of non-police and crime functions. I hope Members are following. This gives Ministers the option to direct how precept spending on non-police and crime functions is accounted for, by setting this out clearly in secondary legislation. In doing so, they will be able to ensure that the precept is accounted for in ways that best reflect how the precept should be spent—whether that means allowing for full flexibility across the non-police and crime component, or ringfencing money to be used for certain functions.
Amendments 78 and 81 will give the Secretary of State the ability to make an order about the preparation of budgets for all an authority’s functions. The provision in the Bill currently only provides that power in relation to the mayor’s general functions. This needs to be updated to align with the expanded mayoral precepting powers introduced by the Bill. This allows Ministers to set out the procedures that should be followed in the preparation and calculation of a budget.
By enabling Ministers to set clear direction on the preparation of budgets and the calculation of precepts, these amendments allow for consistent processes to be set across the sector, to give full effect to the expanded precepting powers.
David Simmonds
I have two questions for the Minister. First, given that these budgets, and the precepts that the amendments relate to, will sit within that bit of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, will the requirement for budgets to be balanced in-year apply to all the accounts that the Secretary of State will be giving direction to?
The second question—the Minister may wish to write to the Committee on this—is, will the consistency that she referred to be introduced by giving the Secretary of State individual, and in effect case-by-case, power to issue these directions for different authorities? Clearly, our concern is that if the door has been opened to, in effect, unlimited precept rises, and these were to be used by the Secretary of State to bail out a significant amount of debt in one of these reorganised local authorities—which I know is a significant concern of many of the local authorities that are proposing reorganisation—that would not apply everywhere.
There are certain parts of the country where there are very high levels of debt, and others where those levels of debt do not exist at all. It would be, in effect, a condition of those constituent authorities’ doing the devolution at all that they were not asked to bear that cost. Yet this Bill introduces a back-door power for the Secretary of State to direct that they would go down that route. How do the Government propose to ensure that that is forestalled, so that they can have the assurances that they would need as a necessary minimum?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
There are two processes that I, as the Minister for devolution, as opposed to the Minister for local government reorganisation, am constantly keen to emphasise. There is a devolution process and there is a local government reorganisation process, which my colleague the Minister for Local Government and Homelessness, my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern), is taking forward. We know that some authorities are in a difficult financial position as part of that, and we are having a conversation with those authorities in the context of the proposals they are putting forward. That is still very distinct from what we are trying to do through the devolution process, and it is important that colleagues do not conflate the two.
What I would say on the wider questions that the hon. Gentleman raised is that there is nothing that we are proposing to do through the Bill that denudes or undermines the standards for financial prudence and financial accountability that sit across the local government landscape.
David Simmonds
Turning to the question of how a mayoral precept will be used under this group of amendments that the Government have tabled, if we think of the reorganisation in Thurrock or Surrey, both those local authority areas contain a single authority that has a very high level of capital borrowing, or a high level of debt. Those authorities have been assured that there will be three years’ worth of revenue support; in effect, there will be a Government grant to cover the revenue cost of the borrowing for three years. However, the borrowing cost is extended over 40 or 50 years, so there will be a very long period of time where, as things currently stand, that local authority will be expected to meet that cost, when it comes into being.
Clearly, one way of doing that is for the Secretary to State to say, “You will raise your precept, and that is how we will deal with the debt,” but that runs contrary to the proposals for devolution where those authorities have said, “We will do this, but it is simply not fair or ethical for us to accept those debts on to our books.” I am just seeking an assurance from the Minister that either the existing provisions that require the in-year balancing will apply, in which case the Government will deal with this prior to the devolution arrangement coming into existence, or the provisions will not apply, in which case those authorities need to be mindful that the likely consequence of devolution will be a massive increase in the precept levy purely for the purpose of paying off someone else’s debt.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
To answer the specific question, yes, in-year balancing will apply. The purpose of the precepting function is to allow the mayor to invest in key things that will drive the economic prosperity of the area and the core functions that we have set out in the Bill. It would be a very brave mayor who chose to raise the precept not to deliver on that. In the end, they are democratically elected, and it will be for their residents and constituents to show them the consequences of that at the ballot box.
Amendment 77 agreed to.
Amendments made: 78, in clause 11, page 15, line 15, at end insert—
“(b) in subsection (5)(b), after ‘functions,’ insert ‘or the other functions of the authority (other than any PCC functions that are exercisable by the mayor), or both’.”
This enables the Secretary of State to require the mayor of a combined authority to prepare an annual budget in relation to the authority’s functions, excluding any mayoral PCC functions, either separately to or in combination with the budget relating to the mayor’s general functions.
Amendment 79, in clause 11, page 15, line 17, at end insert—
“(b) in subsection (2), omit ‘in respect of mayoral functions’.”
This provides that the issuing of precepts under the Local Government Finance Act 1992 in respect of expenditure relating to the functions of a mayoral CCA is a function exercisable by the mayor acting on behalf of the CCA.
Amendment 80, in clause 11, page 15, line 17, at end insert—
“(b) in subsection (4)(a), for the words from ‘consists’ to the end of that paragraph substitute ‘includes a separate component in respect of the mayor’s PCC functions,’.”
This provides for flexibility where the mayor of a mayoral CCA has PCC functions as to how the components of the CCA’s council tax calculation which relate to the CCA’s other functions (both mayoral and non-mayoral) are to be set out.
Amendment 81, in clause 11, page 15, line 17, at end insert—
“(b) in subsection (5)(b), after ‘functions,’ insert ‘or the other functions of the CCA (other than any PCC functions that are exercisable by the mayor), or both’.”—(Miatta Fahnbulleh.)
This enables the Secretary of State to require the mayor of a CCA to prepare an annual budget in relation to the CCA functions, excluding any mayoral PCC functions, either separately to or in combination with the budget relating to the mayor’s general functions.
Clause 11, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 12
Power to borrow
Manuela Perteghella
I beg to move amendment 20, in clause 12, page 16, line 24, at end insert—
“(9AA) A combined authority or CCA must provide a report to the Secretary of State to lay before both Houses of Parliament a report detailing the reasons for which they are seeking consent to exercise the power conferred by section 1.”
This amendment would require the combined authority or CCA to lay a report before Parliament detailing the reasons for which they are seeking the Secretary of State’s consent for exercise of the powers conferred by section 1 on mayoral combined authority or mayoral CCA.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 83
Clause stand part.
Manuela Perteghella
The amendment would require any combined authority seeking new devolved powers to lay a formal report before Parliament, explaining why it is seeking those powers and how it intends to use them. It is of absolute importance that any devolution of powers is set within a framework of transparency and visibility on the reasoning, evidence base or expected outcomes for local people. The amendment would bring the process out of the shadows and make it open, transparent and accountable to the people whom local authorities are meant to serve.
The powers devolved under the Bill are significant. They constitute major transfers of authority over transport, housing, strategic planning, education and skills, health and more. Such decisions must be backed by clear reasoning and, above all, a public mandate. The devolution of powers should be clearly justified and democratically accountable, and must not be imposed on communities or done for political convenience. Local residents must understand why an authority is seeking certain powers and what benefits they can expect them to deliver. MPs and peers—our Parliament—must be given the opportunity to assess whether devolution requests are handled consistently and fairly across regions. I therefore urge the Minister to consider our amendment.
Paul Holmes
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way at what I think was the end of her speech. I just wondered whether she or her party had done any analysis of the extra cost that her amendment would put on mayoral authorities. I feel that the Liberal Democrats in Committee are having their cake and eating it—they have said that they want absolute devolution to local people, but now they want accountability to this Parliament on how the devolved mayor spends their money. We have no extra or special democratic right to do that, rather than the mayors who are being proposed. Has she looked at the cost that her proposal might put on the mayors?
Manuela Perteghella
We have not looked at the costs, but we need to understand that the Bill devolves significant powers, possibly to one person. My local authority is a three-tier one at the moment, and we are very happy with that, but now the district councils will be abolished and possibly the county council, and we will have to be part of a unitary authority and then a strategic authority. It is important that we as MPs are here to stand up for our communities and residents. We need to ensure that anyone who gains more powers comes to them through Parliament.
Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)
The hon. Lady and her party seem to be proposing that every single potential devolution should come before this House for scrutiny. That would take up a considerable amount of the time of the House, as well as incur the costs picked up on by the hon. Member for Hamble Valley. Is her amendment just about kicking devolution into the long grass, rather than being serious?
Manuela Perteghella
No, the amendment is not kicking anything into the long grass. We have to get the Bill—this devolution—right. It is all about accountability, as I said when we were discussing the commissioners. This is a big change. Some of the Committee will already have unitary authorities and I will talk later about devolved Administrations, but for my constituency, that will be new. We need to get it right. Going back to the cost, that will be smaller compared with the cost of what could go wrong.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I will speak to clause stand part and amendment 83 before responding directly to amendment 20. On the clause, all existing mayoral combined authorities and mayoral combined county authorities have powers to borrow for all their functions. That allows them to invest in economically productive infrastructure. Unlike for local authorities, the existing process for confirming the power to borrow money on mayoral combined and mayoral combined county authorities is by making a bespoke statutory instrument after an institution has been established. To confirm such powers by bespoke statutory instrument is highly inefficient and slow. The clause streamlines the process by giving the power to borrow to mayoral combined authorities and county authorities for purposes relevant to all their functions. It preserves existing safeguards by requiring them to obtain the Secretary of State’s consent before they exercise the power for the first time in respect of functions other than transport, policing, and fire and rescue. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Government amendment 83 is minor and technical. It simply clarifies that the reference to section 12 coming into force relates to clause 12 of the Bill. Amendment 20 would require a combined authority or combined county authority to produce a report, to be laid before the House by the Secretary of State, detailing the reasons for which they are seeking consent to exercise borrowing powers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury and Opposition Members have pointed out, this would be an onerous, costly and time-consuming process. The amendment is well-intentioned, but we do not think it necessary.
Like the rest of local government, combined authorities and combined county authorities must operate within the prudential framework, which comprises statutory duties and codes that are intended to ensure that all borrowing and investment is prudent, affordable and sustainable. The framework already provides robust mechanisms of oversight and accountability. In addition, the exercise of borrowing powers by mayoral combined authorities and county authorities to date has not raised issues. Amendment 20 also contradicts the Bill’s aim of furthering devolution and increasing financial autonomy for these authorities. For this reason, I hope that the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon will withdraw it.
David Simmonds
I want to make sure that I can reconcile the Minister’s observations and the import of the amendments with her reply to me earlier, when she said that the requirement to balance in-year will apply. Clearly, the provisions essentially state that the Secretary of State can give consent for a substantial degree of borrowing, but it is not at all clear in the clause or the amendments what the purpose of the borrowing would be.
Manchester’s improvements to its transport system are fantastic, but they were funded by central Government as part of the devolution deal, and they are now creating a significant ongoing deficit in the mayoral budget, which has to be covered, essentially, through precepting—by levying those in the local area to cover the cost. There is clearly a concern with that. If the borrowing is for capital purposes there is a clear strategy for its repayment, and it must be for the purposes of capital investment. However, if borrowing is undertaken to cover shortfalls between revenue and the mayor’s expenditure on day-to-day costs, this House would have significant concerns about it in relation to our national accounts. Can the Minister tell the Committee how that decision making will sufficiently constrain a mayor or combined authority from undertaking borrowing that is for the purposes of day-to-day revenue expenditure, so that we do not find a large debt bubble growing underneath these new bodies?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Yes, I will answer that question. There is a contradiction in the hon. Member’s position. He has spent much of today talking about the need for us to take a more local approach and to give local leaders and communities control, yet he is talking about restricting that very power. Everything that the strategic authority and mayoral combined authority will do will have to operate within the prudential framework. There are robust mechanisms to ensure that all their financial mechanisms adhere to the standards that we expect across local government and national Government.
The shadow Minister gave the example of Greater Manchester. That was a combination of a grant—a lot of devolved areas have an investment fund—borrowing and precepting. That is what we would expect for big capital projects. My experience suggests that mayors across the country have the aptitude and ability to make the right economic decisions on how they balance investment in things that will unlock the economic potential of their areas. We should trust them to do so, as the hon. Member has been saying all day.
Manuela Perteghella
As I said, the amendment would give Parliament the opportunity to assess whether devolution requests are handled with consistency and fairness across the regions, because at the moment they are not. I therefore wish to press it to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
We have a number of clauses on which I feel we can make some progress. My proposal is that we get to either the end of clause 19 or 5 pm, whichever comes first. I will not sit here in the cold for much longer than that.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
As the local transport authority, combined authorities and combined county authorities deliver a range of local transport functions across their area. Each combined authority or combined county authority agrees its own transport budget for the year and, in many cases, constituent councils contribute to this through a transport levy. This is because constituent councils receive funding for some transport functions directly from Government.
The clause standardises the power for combined authorities and combined county authorities to levy such funding from their constituent councils to cover the cost of their transport functions, where they are not otherwise met. This power has proved effective in supporting transport delivery in local areas. For example, each of the seven councils of the West Midlands combined authority pays a levy based on its population figures, which goes on to fund a range of functions from subsidised bus services to the English national concessionary travel scheme, which provides free bus travel for eligible older and disabled people.
This power complements clause 39, which provides combined authorities and combined county authorities with the power to pay grants to constituent councils. Together, these powers support partnership working between combined authorities and combined county authorities and their constituent members.
David Simmonds
Again, I seek a point of clarification from the Minister. I understand the purpose of the clause, but clearly there is a distinction between a levy, where it is the constituent authority that is required to pay, and a precept, where it is the taxpayer who is paying for it through their council tax bill. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify, if necessary in writing, how it will work where there is a dispute about the payment.
If we take London as an example, we have a London-wide concessionary travel scheme, but it is has very different application in different boroughs. It is easy to foresee a situation where, particularly if the purpose of the overall transport levy does not benefit the whole of the mayoral combined authority area, there will be a dispute about whether that is an appropriate way forward. Particularly if the levy is large, it would have a significant impact on the budget of the constituent local authority. Can the Minister set out how that type of process will be addressed in practice?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I have agreed that I will write on the specifics; I think this question comes back to the same theme of how we mitigate collective decision making and agreement across constituent authorities that put at risk their financial viability, or cut across the legal obligation of a particular constituent authority, and I will capture that in writing. However, I would say that we cannot legislate for every eventuality. Indeed, I do not think that is the purpose of legislation. What we can draw on is the practice that we see across the country. Broadly, it is not in the interests of a mayor, who has been democratically elected by the residents and constituents of any of their constituent authorities, to make decisions that will be fundamentally detrimental to those constituents.
The Chair
I am grateful to the Minister for saying that she will include that in her correspondence, which we look forward to with enthusiasm.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 14
Combined authorities and CCAs: minor amendments
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Committee members will recall that clause 1 introduced the established mayoral strategic authority as a specific type of strategic authority. It drew a distinction between combined authorities and combined county authorities led by a mayor, and those operating without one. Clause 14 inserts the formal definitions of an established mayoral strategic authority, a non-mayoral combined authority and a non-mayoral combined county authority into the relevant existing legislation. These are minor but necessary provisions intended to give clear meaning to the existing legislation.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 15
Additional functions of the GLA
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
It is vital that the devolution framework works for the unique circumstances of London’s governance, which we have talked about in this Committee. That is why the Bill will enable Government to confer functions on the Mayor of London, the Greater London Authority and its functional bodies. Previously, the Government could change the powers of the Greater London Authority only via primary legislation. This clause brings London into line with other strategic authorities by enabling the Government to change its powers via secondary legislation. This will ensure that the Greater London Authority benefits from the devolution framework and can deepen its powers over time.
David Simmonds
Again, I have a question of clarification; can the Minister tell the Committee whether these powers apply to a transfer of functions, as opposed to the conferral of functions? We know there have been situations, and we can certainly envisage some within the overall package of the Bill, where the statutory duties of the constituent authorities could be transferred over to the mayor, either en bloc or in part. Indeed, there might be times when it might be a sensible approach; if there is an example of a significant failure in one authority, that could be looked after by the mayoral office while the situation is turned around—that goes to the point raised about South Northamptonshire. However, can the Minister clarify whether this refers solely to new powers that are conferred, or opens up the door to the transfer of functions that are currently statutory duties of constituent authorities?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
This clause relates to functions and powers that sit underneath the devolution framework that we have talked about and are putting on the face of the Bill, and the seven areas of competencies that this measure applies to.
We currently have a situation where, for example, certain powers will go to Greater Manchester that currently would not necessarily go to the Mayor of London and the GLA, and that does not feel right. Clause 15 allows a mechanism and a process to make sure that there is consistency across the piece, and that we can achieve that without having to go through primary legislation.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 15 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 16
Members of legislatures disqualified for being a mayor of a strategic authority
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Clause 16 will prevent individuals from being a Member of Parliament, or of the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, and a mayor of a strategic authority at the same time.
The Government are clear that mayors are central to delivering the growth, economic prosperity and change that local communities want. Already, the impact of our mayors, from West Yorkshire to the North East, from Greater London to the West Midlands, is being felt clearly. However, their responsibilities will only increase once this Bill is in law.
It is right that the role of mayor receives the officeholder’s full time and attention. Both MPs and mayors have a duty to represent the constituents that elected them. Fulfilling two different democratic roles could lead to conflicts of interest, given the differences in public expectations for each role and the differing responsibilities of a mayor and an MP. Clause 16 prevents that conflict and will ensure that regions benefit from their mayor’s full time and attention.
Siân Berry
I agree with the principle of not having too many people able to do double-hatting, but it is a fact that there have been overlapping periods when mayors of different combined authorities and London have also been MPs, either at the beginning or end of their term. That has been dealt with in a pragmatic way, with nobody overextending those kinds of double-hatted jobs.
As I understand it, and I would like the Minister to clarify this, writing this rule into statute would mean that, while nobody would be prevented from campaigning to be a mayor or an MP while in either of these jobs, at the moment they are elected, the situation then becomes illegal. An instant resignation takes place on that day. There would be immense disruption across a wide area—perhaps not so much for one constituency, as we have got used to having by-elections for various reasons, but in holding a mayoral by-election.
I wanted to check whether the Government’s intentions here, in making that resignation statutory and instant, are not a bit too much, when these issues have been previously worked out. Does there need to be more detail in the clause to allow for a transition period?
David Simmonds
The Opposition have a high degree of sympathy with the points made by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion. It is very striking when we compare our local and regional democracy with those of other countries: in our nearest neighbour, France, with the cumul des mandats, there is almost an expectation enshrined in their politics that, for someone to become Member of the national Parliament, they will have represented their area as a mayor. Indeed, when President Chirac cast around to find someone who was eminently qualified to become Prime Minister of that country, he took the view that there was nobody within the National Assembly who could possibly meet that standard; it needed to be somebody from local or regional government. He lighted on Alain Juppé, the well-reputed mayor of Bordeaux, who served with great distinction as Prime Minister. If we begin to introduce restrictions of this nature, it will significantly constrain the ability of our politics to rise to the challenges that our communities and our areas face.
Paul Holmes
I am not sure that I can beat the excellent oratory of my hon. Friend the shadow Minister, but I want to add some context in my own style on why this clause is a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion has adequately and expertly addressed why there may be need for overlap in different local situations. She is absolutely correct to say that there have been instances where that overlap has been dealt with in an orderly manner and has been sorted within the usual confines of the democratic mechanisms we currently have.
All the way through the Bill, which I think has admirable aims, the Minister and the Government have said, “Let local people decide.” Now, local people presumably have elected those mayors or those MPs who now might want to be a mayor; I declare an interest here, as this clause will stop me running for the Hampshire and the Solent mayoralty. I will not cry in front of the Minister, but it will mean that my hon. Friends here would have to listen to some of my more mundane speeches for the next three or four years.
Local people have elected their MPs and they should have the right to determine whether those MPs are the people they want to be the mayors. The hon. Member for Barnsley North (Dan Jarvis), served as a mayor from 2018 to 2022. At no point did anybody on the Labour side of the House say that he was not good enough to do both jobs at the same time. Ken Livingstone was a mayor and a Member of Parliament from 2000 to 2001. I do not think anybody who was on the Labour side of the House at the time—I grant that many of the Members on that side of the Committee Room were not in the House at the time—was saying that he could not do two jobs at the same time.
This clause just seems very restrictive. If an election is going ahead and a city or region says, “Actually, we do not want you to be our mayor—we want you to remain an MP”, that person will not win the election. The Minister has said many times today that, on elections and democracy, local people should have their say. I find it strange that we seem to be taking quite a restrictive measure on who can and cannot stand in a democratic event, decided democratically by local people, for candidates who, presumably, are local too. I have some concern that this is overreach.
I also think that MPs are generally sensible—I do not want to create breaking news here, but they are generally sensible and, as the Minister said in the context of mayors setting council tax precepts, they are also not immune to the moods and feelings of the local people that they serve. If a local MP wants to stand for election as mayor, they have the right to say that to their constituents. If they get a massive kickback from their constituents, they either will not win the mayoralty or they will not stand.
Local MPs should have the right to make that decision. Local people in that constituency or that region should have the right to say that they do not want that person; or that they might want that person, and allow that person to stand down from Parliament at a time of their choosing, if they are allowed to stand for the mayoralty, and resist the cost of a sudden burst of by-elections to this House. Let local people decide. Let local politicians be local. If they are not wanted, they will not be voted in.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I thank hon. Members for their comments, and I have some sympathy with the arguments made. However, in a world where we are giving greater powers to mayors, which is the process we are going through with this devolution Bill, the idea that someone can exercise those functions to the best of their ability alongside the very important role we all do as MPs is a stretch. It is right for residents and constituents that we say, “If you are elected as a mayor, you ought to be doing that job full time.”
Several hon. Members rose—
Miatta Fahnbulleh
If I may finish, I will give way to hon. Members. The point about transition is a fair one. To clarify, we are setting out in legislation that, at the point someone is elected as a mayor, they resign as an MP, and vice versa. It is at the point of gaining office that this comes into effect. In response to the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion’s example of the transition period when campaigning, there are flexibilities within that.
Siân Berry
I appreciate that, but these are two things in different directions. A sitting mayor who becomes an MP would need to resign as mayor that day, given what the Minister has just outlined for us. A mayoral by-election across a large area is a much bigger thing than a parliamentary by-election, and I am not sure that making it instantly statutorily illegal has been properly thought through.
David Simmonds
I ask the Minister to reflect that it used to be the practice of this House that any MP appointed as a Minister had to resign and fight a by-election, because they were undertaking a function different from that for which their constituents had originally elected them. That practice was abandoned because of the extent of the disruption it caused to the work of government and of the House, as well as the cost of those by-elections, so I ask the Government to reflect. We have learned from experience, cross-party, that having these types of requirements is not conducive to good democracy. Perhaps the Minister will undertake to reflect on that.
Paul Holmes
Yes. I thank the Minister for involuntarily giving way to me—Sir John, your rule as Chair is a very happy time for me. The Minister may now think I am being facetious, but I assure her that I am not; I have genuine agreements with her vision for devolution. On her response, however, to the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion about someone not being able to fulfil two jobs to the best of their ability, can the same argument not be made for Members of this House who are elected while councillors? I am speaking particularly of the Liberal Democrats, but also of some within the Conservative party, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, who is sitting behind me. Does the Minister stand by her view that someone cannot do those two roles at the same time? Why is it acceptable for that role, or even for her role as a Minister while she is an MP, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner mentioned, but the roles of the mayoralty and the MP seem to be different?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We are trying to create empowered mayors with huge responsibility over transport, housing, infrastructure and skills. That is a full-time job—bigger even, candidly, than that of an individual Minister. It is absolutely right that they should, if elected to do that job, be doing that job. Hon. Members have made important points about how we get the transition right in order not to have disruption. I thank the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner for his encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of local and national government and the precedent that Ministers used to resign their seats. We will reflect on that and think about how we get the transition right.
Paul Holmes
My intervention will be very brief. I am slightly burnt by my experience on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee, where the Minister constantly said that they would reflect, and we never heard back from them until after the Committee had finished. May I seek assurance from the Minister—she does not need to give an answer today—that, on the point of the immediacy of the vacation of the office, she will come back to us in writing to give us the steer of her reflections and what actions she will take in regard to these concerns, if any? Will she commit to doing that before the Committee rises?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I am happy to make that commitment.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Clauses 17 and 18 make technical but necessary changes to existing legislation. As hon. Members will know, some functions conferred on combined authorities or combined county authorities are exercisable only by a mayor acting on behalf of the authority.
Clause 17 clarifies that, where a function is conferred on a mayor, it should be taken to be a function of the underlying authority that is exercisable only by the mayor acting on behalf of the combined authority or combined county authority. This is because mayors of strategic authorities are not corporate entities in themselves; therefore, all functions must be conferred on the underlying authority.
Clause 18 clarifies the meaning and extent of the “general functions” of mayors in combined authorities and combined county authorities. The term “general functions” here refers to non-police and crime functions. It is appropriate for the mayor alone to be able to exercise their judgment in certain cases, and to be held fully accountable for those decisions and ultimately to the public. I commend these clauses to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 18 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 19
Report under section 1 of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016
The Chair
We now come to amendment 361 in the name of Manuela Perteghella. Do you wish to press this to a vote?
Paul Holmes
On a point of order, Sir John. Forgive me, I may be ignorant on this, but on the selection list I do not see amendment 361 in the running order. If you could give me some clarification, I would be very grateful.
Manuela Perteghella
I beg to move amendment 363, in clause 19, page 22, line 32, at end insert—
“(f) progress with the implementation of the strategy provided for in section [Duty to publish and implement a Forward Devolution Strategy].”.
This amendment is consequential on NC46.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 46—Duty to publish and implement a Forward Devolution Strategy—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within two years beginning on the day on which this Act is passed, prepare and publish a forward devolution strategy (“the strategy”).
(2) The purpose of the strategy is to set out the proposed timeline for the establishment of new strategic authorities, or the expansion of existing strategic authorities, in areas of England that are not currently within the area of an established mayoral strategic authority.
(3) The timeline set out in the strategy must include a period within which the Secretary of State intends to issue invitations or directions for proposals for the establishment or expansion of such new strategic authorities for those identified areas.
(4) Any annual report required under section 1 of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 (inserted by section 19 of this Act) must include a statement on the progress made in implementing the strategy, including information on any revision of or replacement for the strategy.
(5) Before preparing, publishing, or revising the strategy, the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the mayors for the areas of established mayoral strategic authorities; and
(b) the constituent councils of combined authorities and combined county authorities.”
This new clause would introduce a commitment to publish a strategy and timeline for further devolution.
Manuela Perteghella
The amendment and new clause 46 are about giving devolution in England a clear direction and fair footing, and replacing uncertainty with a proper plan and accountability. It will create a clear road map for devolution.
The Bill already includes a requirement for an annual devolution report to be published, but there are currently no plans to include any forward-looking strategy. Why is a commitment to publish a strategy and timeline for further devolution important and necessary? The local authorities that were left out of the devolution priority programme are facing a cliff edge in terms of funding streams that are now being redirected to mayoral strategic authorities.
Right now, devolution is happening, but unevenly. Cumbria, Cheshire, Warrington, Greater Essex, Hampshire and the Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Sussex and Brighton are all in the devolution priority programme, putting them on a fast track towards improved transport opportunities, housing and economic growth. Regions such as Kent and Wessex, which were left out of the devolution priority programme, are left not only without the benefits of funding and the regional voice of an elected mayor, should they want one, but without the knowledge of when they can expect those things. The amendment would require the Government to report annually to Parliament on progress made. This transparency will prevent future Ministers from delaying or cherry-picking which regions get devolution next.
The amendments, which require a forward devolution strategy to be published, are therefore important to give councils like those in my area, which are at the beginning of their devolution journey, reassurance that plans are being progressed for devolution in their areas if they are not in tier 1. It is important that councils know not only their current financial situation, but how and when finance and governance are likely to change. The amendment would give local authorities certainty as councils could plan ahead, invest and prepare for new responsibilities. As I said earlier in the debate, devolution must be equitable and consistent, not a patchwork of deals and negotiations.
David Simmonds
The Opposition have sympathy with the points the hon. Member made. We can rarely have too much transparency, but we are conscious that these new bodies and devolution arrangements will be subject to a degree of political oversight. There will be manifestos, on which the public will have a vote. There will be the element of scrutiny, which we have not heard enough about yet but which we would like to think will be built into the new arrangements for these authorities. There will also be a regular process of elections, which will determine who provides the necessary level of leadership. Layered over that, there will be both the political priorities of the devolved authority and those things that are more part of the administrative function. Local authorities have historically had council plans and forward plans that set out decision making, all of which are part of this arrangement. Although the points have been well made, the Opposition are therefore not convinced that what the amendment would add is sufficient to justify its inclusion in the Bill.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I will respond to amendment 363 and new clause 46 before discussing clause 19.
In the English devolution White Paper, the Government set out clearly our ambition to have universal coverage of strategic authorities in England. That direction of travel is clear. It is also important that the process is led locally, and that areas can submit proposals for devolution that reflect their unique circumstances at a time that makes sense for them. A centrally mandated strategy would cut across that principle, requiring areas to work to a timeline set by Government. That would not only be challenging, but go against the grain of what we are trying to do. The new clause is therefore not necessary. We have set the ambition, and we will work with areas to enable them to come forward with proposals at the appropriate time.
Clause 19 amends existing requirements for the annual report on devolution to ensure that it reflects the introduction of strategic authorities as a category in law. To indicate how the report will look should the Bill receive Royal Assent in its current form, this year’s report was laid before this House and the other place earlier today, so Members can spend their evening reading the report with a glass of wine if they wish. It covers strategic authorities that were established and details of the new devolution framework as set out in the English devolution White Paper.
I commend the clause to the Committee, and ask the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon to withdraw the amendment and not to press the new clause.
Manuela Perteghella
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Deidre Costigan.)