Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, but let me just point out to him that politicians do not want elections when they know they are going to lose, and they like elections when they know they are going to win. The fact behind this decision is that, despite the Conservatives’ regret Motion, most of the councils that are postponing their elections are Conservative-controlled. They know that they had a very good year in 2021—an exceptional year—and that they were going to lose control of most of the councils that had elections this year. Sadly, with Labour in government, it knows that its vote is going to be difficult to get out and it has concerns about how well it is going to do. We know we did quite well and have to accept that.

The top-down model that the Conservatives were talking about—in respect of the reorganisation of local government—is actually pretty much the model they had in government, for what they were going for. Their main motivation is that they would lose against the results in 2021. In my area, there are no elections in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. I understand that the Government want their reorganisation, but I think they could have either postponed the consultation a little bit by a month or two, or, indeed, arranged that the elections should be held in June, a month or two later, after the consultation.

I will give you the example of my own patch of Hampshire. We have big financial problems in Hampshire. The Conservative-run county council has a deficit coming up of £183 million next year. It wanted to put council tax up by 15% and asked the Government to put council tax up by that much. A lot of the problems go back to their Government, because they did not provide the money, but that is the reality in Hampshire. We are going to end up, in Hampshire, as a result of having no elections, with a fag-end county council, which I would say is unrepresentative, having to impose pretty severe cuts on services when it knows it probably will not exist in three or four years’ time. Probably, in our patch, we will have no elections until 2027 or 2028, unless the Government promise we will have county elections next year. If we are going to have county elections next year, we might as well have had them this year.

There are three conclusions I draw. One is that it is better to have elections this year than wait for possible elections in 2027 or 2028. I think the Government should declare whether we are going to have elections next year or, if there is a reorganisation, whether we are going to have a further extension of councillors’ remit, so that they will have been in power in the county council for seven or eight years by the time we get around to having elections.

The second thing that is really important is that, for God’s sake, we must sort out the finances of these councils. Southampton is Labour-controlled and Hampshire is Conservative-controlled, and they are frankly in deep, deep trouble. If those problems are handed over to a reorganised Hampshire local government organisation, it will not succeed. That is why we need reform, but we do not benefit that reform by getting a postponement of the elections. Unless the financial situation is sorted, reorganisation in my county of Hampshire will not get off on the right foot. We will have all the local authorities in that area blaming each other for the fact that it is not going well, and trying to push the financial deficits on to each other. It will be a disaster.

Let me just give your Lordships a bit of hope, which I hope, by having elections, we might see. Southampton, Hampshire and Farnborough in the 1930s were the Silicon Valley of the United Kingdom. We had a very successful aviation industry, with the invention of the Spitfire; Farnborough was also a big centre of research and Southampton was one of the main ports to America. The Blitz and the war led to a lot of those industries moving north or to the south. What we need in our county is a well-funded series of unitary authorities and a mayor who will lead us back to that growth that we want and which the Government want.

However, we are not going to do it if we start off with unrepresentative councils as a result of elections being suspended. The county council is hugely unrepresentative now, because it had an exceptionally good year in 2021 and will probably be in power for six or seven years through this period. The county council is going to be leading some of the discussions on reorganisation in Hampshire, and that is the problem. We want to start with representative councils and do not want to postpone the elections.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, it is a funny thing when the unelected House of Lords has to regret the cancellation of elections. Democracy is the foundation stone on which the fabric of our nation is built. It is not to be carelessly discarded and requires the most careful consideration. I accept that general elections are far more important than most, but local elections are not any less valuable in shaping the local doorstep issues that people value the most in their towns, villages and cities. I am a councillor, and a veteran of many local elections, so I know more than most how they keep councillors on their toes, and refresh and reinvigorate those councils.

I accept that elections have been cancelled before—under the Local Government Act 2000 and in special circumstances such as Covid or foot-and-mouth. Those are truly exceptional circumstances, mostly in cases of national emergency where all elections in all areas are cancelled, but that is not the case here. We are not cancelling elections in an emergency, where Section 87 of the Local Government Act 2000 is engaged. No, this is a case of devolution and local government reorganisation, where, last week, the Minister in the other place could give no assurance that the process would be complete even in this Parliament, by 2029. Time is clearly not of the essence, so what is the rush today?

When the Secretary of State wishes to move the local government deckchairs around the deck, Parliament has determined the process to be followed in bespoke legislation: Section 7 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. It lays out in excruciating detail the particular processes, statutory tests and consultation requirements that must be engaged before elections can be cancelled in local government reorganisations. I am grateful to the Library for all the research it has done on this.

The Government say that they are following the precedent set in 2021, when Somerset, Cumbria and Yorkshire were reorganised, but they are wrong, and I will explain why. Back in 2021, the process started in October—fully seven months out from the proposed elections. Back then, all principal authorities and other interested parties were invited to make proposals. Those proposals resulted in the number that came forward, and Members of Parliament and the public were fully engaged. Later that February, the Government expressed a preference in a well-defined timetable and laid orders and cancelled the elections, following the process established by the Labour Government in 2007.

Let us contrast that with this time. This time, the majority of the cohort of principal authorities were excluded from the discussions, as the Minister will know. Only about 30 of the 200 or so principal councils affected by the proposals were engaged before the Secretary of State made her decisions. How does she justify that? Invitations were circulated to those 30 or so councils, mostly the county councils, to endorse the concept of a mayoral devolution, with carrots—nods and winks—to agree that they would cancel their elections. There was no public consultation. Consider for a moment the conflict of interest in asking the councils facing elections whether they would like to cancel those elections without asking the other principal authorities what they thought of the idea, to say nothing of asking the public what they felt. In January, 18 of the councils wrote to say that they would quite like to dispense with those elections in exchange for a connivance on the mayoralty and, oh yes, early LGR.

I am reminded of my noble friend Lord Pickles, who is no longer in his place. He told me, as a young council leader, “If you don’t trust the folks, don’t go into politics”. So in February, when the Secretary of State said that nine of them had got lucky, if that is an appropriate phrase for denying electors their democratic right, it was announced that their elections would be cancelled. You have to feel for the 10 that were suckered into asking for cancellation but got the mayor anyway.

The Government have wilfully conflated two separate, albeit linked, ideas: devolution and the creation of a mayor; and LGR and the abolition of councils. We were told that the population size for the new councils would be at least 500,000, with no upper limit. We now learn from the Minister that the figure is between 350,000 and 500,000, with the possibility that 500,000 may just be the average within a territory. The 30 councils that connived were misled and entered into the process on a false prospectus. They were suckered. Councils and mayoralties are different. You do not speed the creation of one by cancelling elections to the other. That exposes the dishonesty of the Government’s approach and is why we are right to regret their actions.

--- Later in debate ---

The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, mentioned that county councils were involved in this. I have met with all the groups that are concerned and they have very much been working in collaboration with their district councils. It has been really good to see the way that this has brought about local governments working together. County councils were consulted about the postponement because they were their elections: that is quite straightforward. The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, mentioned that. Of course, it has to be local government reorganisation and devolution going hand in hand. The two work together for that.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

Does the noble Baroness accept that, under Section 7 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act—which governs local government reorganisation—it is a statutory requirement that all principal authorities are engaged with? By that I mean not just the county councils but all the districts, upper tier unitaries and so forth—not the parishes but the principal authorities. Does the noble Baroness further accept that only 30 or so of the 200 or so councils that should have been consulted were actually consulted?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I will answer the noble Lord’s point further in a moment. Following a question he asked me earlier, I checked the legal requirements, and my understanding is that all the legal requirements have been met in this process.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Jones and Lady Fox, raised the issue of democratic accountability and elections. To clear up a point, there are no elections postponed in Devon. I do not know whether that was raised with the noble Baronesses, but elections are not postponed in Devon. Nothing is being imposed on local areas. The commitment to join the devolution priority programme and the emerging proposals for new unitary councils were all bottom-up. All requests for election delays to unlock reorganisation and devolution to the fastest possible timeline followed direct requests from the leaders of affected upper-tier councils—not the Secretary of State, as was stated by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.

Devolution and strong councils with the right powers mean that hard-working councillors and mayors can focus on delivering for their residents. That will strengthen the democratic accountability of local government to local residents. Postponing this small number of elections will enable mayoral devolution to be delivered in parallel with reduced timescales, so that working people and communities get those benefits—the powers, funding and freedoms—far more quickly, with mayoral elections and elections to new councils increasing democratic accountability, not reducing it.

We do not agree that there is a lack of consultation. We are consulting now in eight of these council areas on mayoral devolution, and we have asked councils to engage widely as they develop their proposals for reorganisation. Once a proposal has been submitted, it will be for the Government to decide on taking a proposal forward and then to consult, as required by statute. Some 13,000 people have responded to those consultations already, so people are engaging with the process.

A number of noble Lords mentioned the timetable. I think there has been some misunderstanding, so I will cover this. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked for clarity on the timetable, and I understand why she would want that, as did the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Scott and Lady Fox, and the noble Lords, Lord Stoneham and Lord Fuller. The starting point is for all elections to go ahead, unless there is strong justification. In May 2026, we intend that mayoral elections for new strategic authorities will take place, alongside those district and unitary elections already scheduled and elections postponed from May 2025. For any area in which elections are postponed, we will work with areas to move to elections to new shadow unitary councils as soon as possible, as is the usual arrangement in the process of local government reorganisation. For areas in the priority programme, this will mean mayoral elections in May 2026, alongside and in addition to the rescheduled local elections. We will work with areas to move to new shadow unitary elections as quickly as possible.

Postponement is essential for the delivery of the devolution priority programme, with inaugural mayoral elections in May 2026 and complementary reorganisation. We have no plans to postpone district council elections in 2026; we intend these to take place as scheduled, alongside elections postponed in 2025. The date of any unitary council elections will depend on the nature of proposals for local government reorganisation and progress on the development of those proposals. They are moving on different timetables.

On the issue of strategic planning, raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Pinnock, local plans will still be the responsibility of local authorities. Strategic planning at mayoral level will inform that planning, not replace it. It is done at mayoral rather than national level, so this is increasing devolution, not reducing it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made a point about saving money. We have had a PwC report, which set out the opportunity for areas undertaking reorganisation to achieve efficiencies when moving to a single unitary structure. In fact, North Yorkshire Council, established in 2023, expects to achieve more than £40 million in savings by March 2026. There is precedent for significant savings.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned Surrey. This single-year postponement is intended to give local leaders the time and capacity to plan for new structures, with local leadership in place until after the full reorganisation proposals have been submitted. We agreed to delay elections in Surrey to expedite local government reorganisation because of the perilous financial state of some of the authorities in that locality. The Government are getting on with delivering this.

All two-tier areas have been invited to develop proposals for reorganisation. I am delighted to confirm that every single area, comprising councils of all political stripes, has responded to the invitation to reorganise and submit an interim plan by 21 March. A Written Ministerial Statement has been laid before the House today, setting out the details.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. I think the noble Lord, Lord Khan, probably replied better than I could on this. In response to her question about the date, we do not have powers to delay a date; we can delay only the year, not the date. It would require primary legislation to postpone until June.

The noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Fuller, raised the issue of precedence in postponing elections. Between 2019 and 2022, the Conservative Government legislated to postpone 17 local council elections for one year and cancelled a further 13 elections as part of legislation giving effect to unitarisation proposals, with the latter having the effect that the elections did not take place, as the councils were abolished. All local elections scheduled to take place in 2020 were subsequently postponed, of course, because of Covid. I could go into further detail, but I will not take up noble Lords’ time.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, raised the issue of boundary review. I am very happy to write to her further on the timetable. On the process for local government boundary review, I know, because we have just gone through it in Stevenage, what a thorough process that is. There is no intention to curtail the process of extensive consultation as we go through this process.

My noble friend Lord Bach referred to the process of devolution and the need for a modern and efficient local government system, and I agree with him 100%. We have had three decades of delay in moving this forward, so to noble Lords who said this is rushed and hurried, can I just say that it does not feel that way to me? I have been in local government for 30 years, and we have been trying to do it for all that time. In relation to the English cities, for councils which have not already been part of a reorganisation process, if those areas feel it is appropriate, they will have submitted those changes in their plans or they will be working them for the second stage of planning.