Local Government Reorganisation

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pack, referred to the some 250 councillors who could face seven-year terms under the Government’s plans. Four of the county councils are majority-Tory led, and they last held elections in May 2021. Noble Lords will have to cast their minds right back: Boris Johnson was Prime Minister; since then, we have had two Tory Prime Ministers and, thus far, one Labour Prime Minister; Suella Braverman had only recently been sacked as the Tory Attorney-General—for the first time. Politics is changing fast, and sometimes the Government are asking electoral officials to act fast also. The Gorton and Denton by-election is going to be held on 26 February, on the fastest possible timetable. As a measure of the degree of change in that, I note that, at the last election, the Labour Party got more than 50% of the vote, and a notional calculation for 2019 gives the Labour Party 67% of the vote in that seat, but the bookmakers today have the Green Party as favourite to win that by-election. With politics moving so fast, is this not a particularly dangerous time to be postponing elections and not giving voters a democratic say? Is this not damaging and dangerous, threating the whole concept of democracy by taking it away from people when there is so obviously a desperate desire for change?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am certainly not calling the result of the Denton by-election at this stage. I do not think we even have a candidate yet, so I think it would be unwise.

In response to the noble Baroness’s question on timing, we have been clear throughout that elections should go ahead unless there is strong justification otherwise. Many of the local elections that are due to take place in May will take place. We were very clear that if councils said they had no reason for postponement then we would listen to them, but that where a council voiced genuine concerns—we had significant evidence from those councils whose elections have been postponed—we would take it seriously. To make sure that everyone knows that this was not a rubber-stamp exercise, where anyone who asked for a postponement got it, there were two councils where we did not think the evidence was sufficient, Nuneaton and Bedworth and Pendle, and their elections are going ahead. We do not do this lightly. However, with an unprecedented reorganisation going on in local government, it is right that we took account of what local government was saying to us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As I stated earlier, decisions on the six devolution priority areas will be made by March 2026. Their geographies will be decided by then. We are going out to consultation on the remaining 14 areas, and it is important that we do that. The local authorities have come forward with their proposals. We want to find out what the local views on them are, so they have gone out to consultation. That consultation closes in May 2026, and we will make decisions on the geography of those remaining authorities before the Summer Recess.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The Minister said, and I very much agree, that the officers, staff and structures of the councils that have asked for extensions are extremely stretched—I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. One of the alternatives would have been for the Government to provide the resources to ensure that those councils were able both to hold elections and to continue with the plans for reorganisation. Can the Minister say whether the Government made any calculation for what allocation of funds from the Government here in Westminster would have been necessary to allow those elections to go ahead? What would the cost have been if those resources had been provided?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

With respect to the noble Baroness, putting in new resources at this stage would not really help matters. Councils have their programmes of work under way. They are all working very hard on the reorganisation programme, as they are on the transition. They have an enormous job to do on working out the transition for key public services and on how they are going to drive growth and housing programmes going forward and put new resources into that. When you have new councillors and council officers coming in, it takes quite some time for them to get up to speed and be able to deliver at pace. Councils have considered that very carefully and will have made their own decisions. That is why we had 29 of them submit requests to postpone their elections.