Local Government Reorganisation

Lord Bach Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for mentioning our new Prime Minister, because he is quite keen on devolution—that might have something to do with his background in the last few years. I am sure he will want to see those building blocks of strong unitary authorities in place so that we can get on with the devolution process without further delay. Local government reorganisation is an existing policy that is already well under way, and the £63 million of funding that places will receive to support them with transition costs had already been agreed. We have announced this now, and I expect that my department will have active discussions—through our new Secretary of State, Angela Rayner, whom I welcome to her role—about how we do this. We have already asked those local authorities to consider the footprint they want to see for their foundation strategic authorities. The noble Lord asked about bandwidth in the department. The department has been outstanding so far in managing this process, providing us with the information that we need to take effective decisions against the criteria we set.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the Minister and the Government on their decision to extend the boundaries of the city of Leicester. Does she agree with me that its current boundaries are absurd and should have been extended years ago, as half of what is really the city is presently administered by other authorities? Does she agree that the city of Leicester desperately needs more land for business and housing, and it needs much greater local funding to be able to satisfy its inhabitants?

Finally, does the Minister agree that the gerrymandering accusation is laughable? If anything, this decision allows other parties that have not had a look-in for many years a way into Leicester’s governance. It is something they should stop complaining about.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend, as ever, particularly for his championing of Leicestershire, which he does admirably. The Government were always clear that boundary changes could be considered where there is a strong justification. Where proposals set out a credible case, we have considered them on their merits. This reflects the aim to ensure that new councils are able to deliver effectively for their communities over the long term, including supporting future growth. The point that my noble friend makes is really important in this. Some of our cities and towns are constrained by boundaries which came from a different era. If we are to maximise the growth in those areas, we needed to accept that there may have to be boundary changes. They are not a deviation from our stated criteria; they were absolutely part of our considerations to make sure that we met the challenge of growth for our towns and cities, but also that we enabled our local authorities to come forward with proposals that made sense for their local area.