Local Government Reorganisation

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The process of local government reorganisation will do that. We want to move at a pace that is right for the local authorities concerned. That is why we have set out a four-track approach, depending on where people are with their readiness to go forward. We believe that unitary councils can lead to better outcomes for residents, save significant money which can be reinvested in public services, and improve accountability, enabling politicians to focus on delivering for their residents. Generally speaking, as I said earlier, residents do not care about structures; they just want good public services, delivered at value for money.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, it looks as if the provisional local government finance settlement for 2025-26 will disadvantage rural areas, with the removal of the rural services delivery grant making the situation even worse. What steps are being taken to ensure that the needs of rural communities are being considered in the devolution process and that the strategic policy approaches developed by the combined authorities meet the specific needs of service delivery in our rural communities?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his question and for his continued interest in rural communities. We believe that part of the process of devolution will mean that the people who are taking the decisions for rural communities will be people who have skin in the game in those rural areas; that is very important. Places with a significant rural population will, on average, receive an increase of around 5% in their core spending power next year, which is a real-terms increase. The rural service delivery grant does not properly account for need, and a large number of predominantly rural councils receive nothing from it. That is clearly not right, and a sign that we need to allocate funding more effectively. We are keen to hear about rural councils, as well as others, as we go through the spending review, so that we can work on what would work best for them in the new funding system.