English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 13th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for her amendments on local government reorganisation. Before I comment on the amendments, I wonder if the House would indulge me for one moment so that I may pay tribute to Lord Jeremy Beecham, who died during recess.

Jeremy Beecham’s passion for local government, his wisdom, kindness, fierce intelligence and sharp wit, as well as over 55 years of service to his community in Newcastle, with 17 years as leader of Newcastle City Council, made him a powerful and committed ambassador and advocate of local government, including when he came into your Lordships’ House. My thoughts are with his family, the people of Newcastle—to whom he committed a lifetime of service—and our local government community, where his legacy will be enduring and powerful. There was a wonderful levaya yesterday in Newcastle which the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and I attended, along with other Members of this House. I hope that Jeremy will rest in peace. May his memory be a blessing.

On the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, the Government are committed to fixing the foundations of local government. Our vision is very clear—stronger local councils that are equipped to drive economic growth, improve local public services and empower their communities. We want all residents to benefit from strong unitary—

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

Is the Minister winding? A number of us wish to get in as part of the debate. I would hate to cut her off, but I think there are some contributions to be made.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It was my understanding that we had moved on to winding speeches.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I did not realise that we had moved on to winding speeches. I wholeheartedly endorse what the Minister said about the late Lord Beecham and add my condolences.

With the leave of the House, I would like to comment briefly on Amendment 187, tabled by my noble friends Lady Scott and Lord Jamieson. I support the intentions of their amendments, which seek to restrict the power of the Secretary of State to direct mergers of single tiers of local government to cases where all the local authorities concerned have given their consent. I strongly agree with that. Of their amendments, I prefer the two which are more far-reaching, Amendments 188 and 194, because the provision for local authorities to merge exists already. Clause 57 and Schedule 26 are there only to implement the power of the Secretary of State to enforce such mergers, without the consent of the authorities involved.

The addition proposed by Schedule 26 of the Bill to the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 concerns a

“district or county council for an area for which there is currently a single tier of local government”.

I understand that a county council can be a single tier, but I cannot understand how a district council can be a single tier. I would observe that the Bill is concerned with mergers of principal authorities. Can the Minister tell your Lordships if it also provides for the dismemberment or breakdown of principal authorities into smaller units, such as is happening under the current local government reorganisation? This is seeing many counties being divided up into smaller unitary authorities, which will certainly result in a massive increase in costs, which will have to be borne by hard-pressed council tax payers.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in the strongest possible support of the amendments tabled by my noble friends on the Front Bench. I would like to make two introductory remarks.

First, I was the leader of a council for 20 years and had a ringside seat for LGR in my own area and as part of my chairmanship of the District Councils’ Network. I saw at first hand that, far from saving money, LGR has precipitated the bankruptcy of Somerset and in Yorkshire created a so-called local council spanning the whole width of England at that point, bar 9 miles, encompassing Skipton, Selby and Scarborough.

Secondly, I note that a lot has changed since we were in Committee. The Government have published their LGR proposals for Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Hampshire. The lofty ideals of strategic leadership, better value for money and economies of scale, together with the published criteria, which the public took at face value and responded to, have been dashed on the rocks of partisan gerrymandering. I do not know why I am surprised that the party that sought to rig the local government elections would seek to pervert the process as it has, but we can see what has happened here. The Labour authorities that connived with the Government to cancel the election on the flimsiest grounds—so weak the Government would not take their chances in the court—have been rewarded with small unitary councils designed to fail. The goalposts have been moved. That is why Amendments 189 and 191 in particular are so important. They would stop the abuse of process whereby the public, who play by one set of rules, are stymied by Ministers playing by another.

Let us compare what Ministers advertised in the current round of LGR against what has been delivered. It was said that LGR proposals should, in all but the most extenuating circumstances, respect and be based on existing councils as building blocks—themselves grounded in the historic county boroughs, Poor Law unions and ecclesiastical hundreds. There were good reasons for this. The Government are in a hurry, and easy building blocks make aggregation simpler, better value and quicker.

While there always might have been extenuating circumstances, perhaps to bring the awkward extremities of a national park within the ambit of a single unitary, we have been served by a gerrymander, where cities have been given the choicest parts of their neighbours, ignoring travel to work areas, breaking communities of interest and making the process more expensive, longer and disruptive at precisely the moment councils are meant to be delivering growth, not shuffling the deck chairs.

In the case of Norfolk, we see the announcement of a conversion of seven districts into three unitaries. It will not just merge seven into three, which will be hard enough as it is; in this proposal, which breaks up the existing councils as building blocks, we will see 14 disaggregations and weldings together in a cut and shut job that would shame Arthur Daley. Of course, the consequences of all that are only just becoming clearer: breaking long-term contracts for refuse collection, orphaning leisure centres and disrupting the local plan. There are unknowable permutations around allocating staff, who will need to think which of the 14 functional parts of our county, each of which delivers 136 council activities, they will need to stitch together contractually, financially and legally, and in terms of software and staffing, in just a few months without even being clear about the parishing in the former county boroughs. It is designed to fail.

People were told to propose new councils based around a population of at least half a million. We were told that was the economic optimum that combines scale with efficiency. I know we cannot be precious. Counties are not exactly in 500,000 increments. I would not have been surprised to see a 10% or 15% variation around that 500,000 figure—in other words, perhaps anywhere between 425,000 and 575,000. But we have been served a set of councils, many of which will see a population beginning with a “2” by as late as 2040— Condemned by design and scale to that special council death zone with populations similar to the existing unitary cohort that is in trouble in are places such as Swindon, Slough and Stoke. If that is what the Government had in mind, they should have been up front and open at the outset. It would have stopped the nods and winks to the counties that are clearly doomed but whose consent was required to endorse the mayoral elections.

The Government have acted dishonestly in their dealing on this. They have said one thing and done another. They have abused their position and spoken with forked tongue. They told us it would strengthen democracy. I led South Norfolk Council for nearly 20 years. Norwich is to be inflated like a balloon, but not by so much that Labour’s client vote will be diluted. A few wealthy parishes will be peeled off here and there to pay off the city’s historic debts without regard to the rump authority left behind. Labour’s unthinking approach has been that the rest of the countryside can go hang.

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[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Forgive me for interrupting. The noble Lord is giving us a lot of very interesting information, but we are on Report and I just wonder how much more he has to give us.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

The answer is not very much. I am getting to the nub of the point.

The Government have said one thing and done another. That is an important legal point, because in 2007 when they tried to use these same provisions that they now seek to rely on under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act, Mr Justice Ouseley, in his judgment in January 2010, found that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government had changed the decision-making approach in an unfair and unlawful manner. He said:

“the Secretary of State set out repeatedly the basis upon which he would refuse proposals, and without any warning adopted a wholly different approach, and reached decisions which, on the original approach, he would not have reached. … On the face of it, the decisions taken by the Secretary of State … made a mockery of the consultation process”.

This amendment would stop the jiggery-pokery and the changing and moving of the goalposts during the process that we have seen today. Furthermore, a previous part of that botched process in 2010 was quashed by Mr Justice Cranston, a former Labour MP, because the tabulation of costs and benefits alongside a full plain English explanation of what it would mean to the man on the street, which included a full statement of the total forecast cost to the council tax payer had not been done—and of course it has not been done. Our counties, subject to LGR in this round, are being pushed into a financial leap in the dark—brought to you by the same people who told the nation that business rates would not be put up for pubs.

I hope that my learned friends run the rule, following the 2010 judgments by Justice Ousley and Justice Cranston as a guide, but it is now clear that the Government never intended to follow the rules and have not even bothered to run the numbers anyway, resulting in a no man’s land of councils being too small to be big or too big to be small. We were promised better than this. I strongly support the amendments because we have seen gerrymandering in this process. That is not good enough, and these amendments would prevent it happening in future. I hope councils do not waste too much time on this until my learned friends have completed their deliberations, because they sorely need to.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, there were an awful lot of questions there for the Minister to answer. It would be better for the House if she responds to them, in particular to the nub of the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard.

I hope the Minister will not mind if I pay tribute to the late Lord Beecham. He was a councillor in Newcastle for 55 years, 17 of which were as leader of the council. He was the first chair of the Local Government Association. I spent a number of years as leader of the opposition to Jeremy when he was leader of the council, and we enjoyed sparring, as indeed we continued to do after 2010 across the Floor of this Chamber. He was a new broom in the late 1970s in the era after T Dan Smith. He was young. He created the social services department. He fought an unrelenting battle against poverty, creating a welfare rights service in Newcastle, but he also understood the importance of growth in the city. We discovered yesterday—I did not know—that he convinced the Chancellor that there should be bus passes for older and younger people; I am particularly pleased about that.

I know that Jeremy’s family have appreciated the large number of tributes that have been paid to him nationally, locally and in the media. There is a book about what he did in those 55 years—there is a copy in the Library and, I think, in the Government Whips’ Office—to which I was privileged to contribute chapter 2. It is an interesting work on the history of local government over the past 40 years. I add my tribute to Jeremy’s huge contribution to Newcastle and to the country as a whole.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments neatly follows the previous group as it concerns further empowerment to be strengthened for the most local tier of our democracy. Amendment 195 in my name would ensure that Governments had a responsibility to maximise geographical coverage of town and parish councils, and would require an annual report to Parliament on the progress made in expanding that democratic footprint.

The creation of large unitary authorities by the Government, as we have just heard, resulted in making local government more remote and, crucially, more focused on the narrow remit of being the service delivery arm of national government—for instance, the delivery of adult and children’s social care, which constitutes three-quarters of a budget of a unitary council. The focus on key service delivery is at the expense of understanding the differences within large council areas and the attention to very local detail that only a parish or town council can provide.

My own experience as a councillor in a metropolitan authority that serves 450,000 people supports that view, hence the importance of encouraging and supporting the creation of an effective local voice for a village, a small town or even a suburb of a large town. A failure to do so will result in people being disfranchised and more remote from decision-making at a large local level. They will feel that their voice does not count, and that is a danger for our democratic institutions.

Those of us who care about local democracy care that people’s voices are heard. Amendment 196 follows that, because it would create a statutory duty to consult. Where parish and town councils have been created or exist, under this amendment the local authorities would have to consult relevant town or parish councils on matters that directly affect them, such as planning applications, parks and open spaces and other very local services and amenities.

Amendment 196 says that a local authority must—I stress the word “must”—have regard to the representations from those councils before a final decision is reached. Consultation has become rather a dirty word in local areas. Anybody who is a councillor, as I am, will know that consultation is regarded as a way in which a tick can be put against the box indicating that local people have had a say, and then it is disregarded. This amendment would make it statutory. People would have to listen and take note of representations.

In supporting these amendments we would ensure that the promise of community empowerment in the Bill is a reality. So I look forward to the Minister’s response, so that we can give our smallest democratic units the standing they deserve. I beg to move.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendments 216 and 318 in this group, which relate to parish and town councils. Amendment 216 makes provision for unparished electors in the unsatisfactory neighbourhood governance arrangements contemplated by Clause 60 to petition to incorporate into properly constituted and sovereign precept-raising parish councils. Separately, my Amendment 318 applies to the largest town councils, most of which have been wholly or in part district billing authorities before, but which henceforth will be unconstrained in their ability to raise council tax.

I turn first to Amendment 216. In Committee the penny dropped for the first time that those parts of England that were former county boroughs—20% of the land mass, so much greater by population—such as Kings Lynn, Ipswich or Great Yarmouth, or new towns like Stevenage, which is home to the Minister, would be for the most part unparished, and thus second-class citizens in the new arrangements. That is recognised by Amendment 214, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, and the noble Lords, Lord Jamieson and Lord Shipley, which I endorse entirely. I have no problem with it. But I think we need to go further and move beyond the simple promotion of parish councils to the right for unparished areas to become parishes if the measures in Clause 60 are found to be unsatisfactory.

The Government tell us that community or neighbourhood governance will be provided by councillors from the parent unitary authority in unparished areas. Those of us who have been around for a while have heard that duck quack before. We know that these structures are just talking shops, with no resources, capacity or status. This is what we discovered in Committee. People literally from out of town will try to sweep up the crumbs left over, once social care has feasted on the precept, to find what money is left to sweep the pavements, cut the grass, breathe life into the theatre and heat the swimming baths. But with social care consuming two-thirds of the precept, what resources will those toothless talking shops have? These are the things that the larger parishes do, with the consent of their parishioners to raise a precept.

I make no apologies for talking about Norfolk. There are 900 parishes there, and some 10,000 nationally. But when Labour gets its way, 20% of England will be disfranchised and have no parish at all—no money or say, for the most part, in how England is run. That includes the whole of Ipswich, for example, or Oxford. The so-called strategic authorities and the mayor are not going to be interested in the carnival floats, the local antique street market, the food festival or those local culture groups that town and parish councils spawn. The civic life of town mayors will evaporate altogether, with their soft convening and ribbon-cutting powers. No, they will go the way of the local pub, the park café and the high streets, in the vandalisation of high-street Britain.

Do not talk to us about Pride in Place when they disband that whole panoply of civic life, with the sheriff and the burgesses, that illuminates our nation’s story. No, under the dismal and undemocratic Clause 60, the unitary and its councillors will hold all the cards—the budget, the representation and the staff—to hold everyone else over a barrel, because there is no parish council. Of course, they will have no incentive to cede powers either, and all the incentive, on the other hand, to hoard powers and pet projects.

My amendment offers hope to these places: to reject the way in which the Bill creates sock-puppet sinecures for out-of-town councillors from miles away. Where an appointed community council is established, those residents can petition to incorporate—creating the empowerment that the Bill purports to foster and encourage—to create a town or parish council with proper elections, a proper budget and a precept that local people can vote on and endorse, so as not to rely on cast-offs after the social care monster, LGR costs, the recast debts and pension fund liabilities have eaten the rest. I want to help people make their part of England better: more local, more responsive and more accountable. My amendments give hope for democracy for these places, including the cathedral cities, coastal communities and new towns—places such as Stevenage and, for the other part, Gorleston, from where I take my territorial designation, within the historic county borough of Great Yarmouth.

I will listen closely to the rest of the debate and may signal my intention to divide the House on this. The requirement and the ability for local people to force incorporation of their neighbourhood arrangements is important.

Moving on to council tax for our largest town councils, I will be brief. Many of the former principal authorities and districts may become parishes under the new arrangements—or perhaps not, if my Amendment 216 is carried. By charging council tax where they have been districts, they have been able to benefit from formula grant, redistributed business rates and whatever the local government finance system has delivered. But there is a real risk that the parishes will be suckered into taking many of the expensive cast-offs from the home authority in a deliberate cost-shunt. Parks, playgrounds, theatres, moorings, cemeteries and all manner of public buildings will be flipped on to these parishes. They will need to find space in their precept to pay for them, but they will be on their own because they will have no central support and will be living hand to mouth.

My noble friend Lady Scott hates me using this example, but the facts speak for themselves. Council tax under Salisbury City Council is up 44% in just four years and its band D is £383. In my own district, South Norfolk, where I am a councillor, we collect the bins, clean the streets, house the homeless and have built a new generation of housing for just 180 quid—less than half of the parish. The problem with the Bill is that it lumps tiny little Howe, a hamlet of 50 souls in my own ward, in with the village of Hempnall, where next week we will welcome a new vicar, the Reverend Austin Uzoigwe—gosh, I should have practised this—and which has perhaps 1,000 people, together with Horsham, a district of 146,000. In law, all places of 50 to 150,000 will be equivalent. That is crazy, because there is no equivalence between Howe and Horsham, but the people of Horsham need to be spared what has been visited on the residents of Salisbury.

My amendment would create a new sub-class of third-tier authority where there is a population of 50,000 or where the precept exceeds £1 million, so that they fall under the same budgetary constraints as the larger principal authorities. I do not want your Lordships to think that this is anti-town or anti-parish. In fact, it is quite the reverse. The wholesale reconditioning of local government is already going to cost a bomb and create those perverse incentives to pass off the expensive stuff to the parishes. My amendments would strengthen parishes’ hand in the negotiations, as part of LGR, so that they will be able to push back and say no. If they think they cannot afford these gift horses, having looked them in the mouth, they would not have to take them on.

I am seeking to strengthen local democracy and accountability by putting the largest parishes on a proper financial footing, so that they can do the work they do at a price residents can afford. This is not a dig at parishes; they do a lot of valuable work at the level closest to the people. With this amendment, I have their back, as it would stop those councils with the broadest shoulders imposing liabilities and cast-offs on those with the most limited means.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I looked last night at Labour’s 2024 manifesto and would like to quote, extremely briefly, a few phrases from it. It said:

“Labour is committed to strengthening our democracy”.


It attacked the Conservatives for failing to encourage

“full participation in our democracy”

and said that Labour was committed to encouraging such participation in our democracy and to increasing

“the engagement of young people in our vibrant democracy”.

If we do not have local councils and local elections, we have no way of increasing participation, of gaining a real sense of active citizenship or of encouraging the sort of people many of us are now going around to talk to in schools, who will have the vote for the first time. This is why local councils, throughout the country, are extremely important in maintaining and strengthening the sense that every citizen in this country can take some part in public life.

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I return to my main point of comparing the Government’s plans with those in my Amendment 219: under the Government’s plans there are still too many ways in which it would be too easy for a Government to delay too many elections for too long. I hope noble Lords will support the stronger, clearer protections for our democracy in Amendment 219.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, of course, I support all the points on elections made by my noble friend on the Front Bench, but they focus on council elections and LGR, ignoring the simple truth that local mayors, as in my Amendment 225, and police and crime commissioners, in my Amendment 224, are also part of that local government landscape. My amendments would bring the mayors and PCCs into scope of the wider changes that the Government have been dragged to Parliament to repent.

Democracy is important. We know that; we sit in the mother of Parliaments. The people of this nation go to the ballot box to select those who represent them, in pursuance of better lives and all those other things that the state should provide. That consent lasts until the next election, but I concede—this is where I depart from the noble Lord, Lord Pack, on his Amendment 219—that there may be some quite exceptional circumstances, perhaps because of war, where a delay, subject to parliamentary consent, of course, would be justified. In those circumstances, my amendment would ensure that the powers existed on the statute book for a two-step super-affirmative process, where permission must be sought and received from both Houses and then only an affirmative resolution would be laid before the House. In the circumstance of war, for example, there would be some much more important things to sort out than passing a Bill to cancel local government elections.

I do not go entirely against what the noble Lord, Lord Pack, said, but, to echo the words of my noble friend Lady Scott from the Front Bench, I think it is unworkable. My amendments would remedy those matters but, in any event, my resolutions would be to cancel the elections no less than three months before the date of publication for that election, simply so that parties and individuals could have enough time to prepare the manifestos, select candidates, raise funds and address all those practical points. My amendments would ensure that preparation could take place effectively, allowing voters to mark their choice clearly on the ballot, with lots of notice—not just for the councils, but for the mayors and PCCs—without hog-tying Parliament to pass primary legislation when super-affirmative secondary legislation can achieve the same outcome more quickly, more cheaply and in the right way.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

I want to say one thing in response to this group and will try not to repeat anything that anybody has said. I am very puzzled by the Conservative Party’s stance on our first past the post electoral system. I think it has passed its use-by date. It is hopelessly out of date and inappropriate for candidates to be elected, as will happen a great deal in the local elections coming up, with less than 30% of the vote. Candidates who get elected and are then trusted to spend public money should have the confidence of a much larger number of people at the poll. To count on a system which is simply about the person who comes top in that ballot, when that could be on between 25% and 30% of the poll, seems totally out of date these days given the multi-party system that we now have.

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[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, like many others, I had a leading position as a councillor during Covid. I recognise my noble friend Lady O’Neill, the noble Lord, Lord Forbes, and many others from those Covid conversations, including the Minister.

Remote working worked well during Covid, but there were some famous failures. Who could not remember Jackie from Cheshire, who had no authority, but she still managed to press the “off” button for the chap who was needling her? Some councillors—not in my own authority, I hasten to add—fell asleep in Covid. I saw some clips on YouTube where others had gone to the toilet or left to shower or where children bumbled in, but for all those mishaps, by and large, it worked pretty well. So, yes, it can work.

In Committee, I found it difficult to support all the various remote working amendments. They were widely drawn and somewhat nebulous, but I am very taken with my noble friend’s Amendment 244 because it constrains it to certain circumstances that encourage participation and engagement, that limit it to those cases with disability, bad weather and other emergencies, which could happen—foot and mouth, war. I am also persuaded by the amendment because we need to recognise that in local government there are different types of meeting, each with different consequences and purposes. Yes, there is the full council meeting where everyone gets together, and it is important that everyone has their vote. There are executive meetings, like cabinet meetings, and there are scrutiny meetings which are not executive but sit on the other side of the scrutiny/executive divide. Then there are policy formation committees which are not for decision-making, are part of scrutiny but do not often vote. So we have the distinction between what is decision or non-decision-making. And then there is quasi-judicial planning and licensing. In-person attendance is really important for those; the decisions taken in those meetings carry the weight of law. This amendment allows for all that texture to be captured and limited so we have the best of both worlds. As I say, I favour it.

Also, we need to recognise that local government is becoming more complicated. There is certainly the need to travel more, particularly in the large authorities such as North Yorkshire, home to my noble friend. There are more combined authority meetings. Upon the passage of this Bill, there will be an even greater need for people on a much wider canvas to come together more frequently over long distances. One has to account for, and allow for, remote meetings in some of those circumstances. In my own authority, we have trading companies where councils, which may not necessarily be neighbours, club together at arm’s length. They are not the council, but they are owned by the council. We have to take that into consideration too.

On that last point, we cannot just leave this to the councils alone. In the case of a trading company, with these regulations, what would happen if one council in the partnership permitted remote meetings and the others did not? How on earth would that work? Having the sort of regulations contemplated by my noble friend is therefore really important.

This is a big improvement on the proposals that came forward for Committee. They are now capable of going forward. I support them, especially with the affirmative safeguards proposed.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering for bringing forward this amendment, and to all noble Lords—well, my noble friend Lord Fuller—who have contributed to the debate.

We recognise the intention behind this proposal. As my noble friend Lord Fuller pointed out, I look at many faces in 3D here, having seen them in 2D on a screen during Covid. Flexibility is important in exceptional circumstances, and when those exceptional circumstances arose, we had the powers for remote meetings. But we are not persuaded that it is the right approach in more normal circumstances. Local authority meetings are the cornerstone of local democracy. They are not simply an administrative exercise; they are forums for debate, scrutiny and accountability, conducted in public and rooted in the communities they serve. There is real value in councillors being physically present, in engaging directly with one another, officers and members of the public.

We are also mindful that existing arrangements already allow for a degree of flexibility in truly exceptional circumstances. Moving more routinely to remote or hybrid meetings risks diminishing the quality of debate, weakening transparency and weakening accountability and public engagement. For those reasons, while we understand the motivation behind the amendment, we cannot support it.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we have had three—

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

May I say something before the Front Benches? I hesitate to follow my noble friend Lord Banner and the noble Lords, Lord Grabiner and Lord Pannick, but I support Amendment 248 in the name of my noble friend Lord Banner. We heard in the debate that this has all come at the last minute but, by my reckoning, this is the fourth time I have sat through this debate. If I were to go back in Hansard, it might actually be the sixth, as I have not looked at whether it was mentioned at the Second Reading of both the Planning and Infrastructure Act and the Bill before us.

I have listened very carefully. The Supreme Court, under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, has told us to sort it out. There clearly have to be safeguards and we have quite a shopping list of those in this amendment. In the age of social media, there is no chance of pulling the wool over people’s eyes or trying to hide an advert in small print at the bottom of page 78 of the local newspaper.

The wider issue is that we cannot orphan land or blight places in perpetuity. It would be perverse to do that just for want of being able to find an advert in a 100 year-old copy of a newspaper, in a publication that does not exist anymore. That is the prejudice before us. Sometimes you have to look forward and offer a remedy—which is not only in the public interest but in the interest of natural justice too.

This is not just about Wimbledon—that has been sorted—but we have heard in this debate that the shadow exists elsewhere. The matter is not resolved and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, told us to get it sorted. If we do not, nobody can. It seems to me that the proposals before us are fair, transparent and have a very strong public interest test. Now is the time and opportunity—a chance for certainty on all sides, including the protagonists in this issue. Now is the moment.

We have heard so much about how difficult it is to get stuff done in this country. We have a Government in a hurry and sites that are stalled, with people hanging about and waiting. Now is the time to stop the procrastination. Let us get on with it and make a decision. Let us pick up the baton laid in front of us by the Supreme Court and get behind Amendment 248. It is time that we got it done.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I shall start again. We have an amendment signed by three noble Lords who have, in their usual lawyerly way, made a powerful case for one side of the argument. Here I am, however, to speak up for the community in a debate on a Bill labelled in part the “community empowerment” Bill. I have two fundamental issues of concern with this amendment. The first is an issue of parliamentary process and the second a matter of principle.

As to the first—the issue of parliamentary process—one of the difficulties I have with this amendment is that it has not been, and if it is passed this evening, will never be, put before the elected Chamber of Parliament. The amendment has been introduced on Report in this House, and we are the second House to consider this Bill—

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[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Good morning, my Lords, and indeed it is good morning. I support Amendment 318C, which has just been spoken to by my noble friend Lord Thurlow. I should start by declaring that I have a son who works for a commercial property company.

My noble friend Lord Thurlow made a series of powerful points about the effects of this amendment, and I agree with him that a one-size-fits-all approach to rent review clauses is not appropriate, given the very wide range of properties rented by businesses, from perhaps a single office or lock-up garage rented by an SME to thousands of square feet of custom-designed and built warehousing rented by a global corporate.

The Government’s intention of assisting SMEs by preventing upwards-only rent reviews is consistent with protecting tenants from exploitative landlords, and I have, and I am sure most noble Lords have, no difficulty at all with that. However, negotiations between large corporates and commercial property companies are conducted between well advised and experienced professionals. Such tenants are large, powerful and of high value, and commercial property companies make great efforts to attract them and agree terms across a variety of issues, of which rent reviews are but one. These often complex negotiations between large organisations are conducted by staff with, I suggest, a good deal more detailed training, knowledge and experience of the subject than, with the greatest of respect, most parliamentarians. Neither party needs any help or interference from Parliament about the specifics of rent review terms they negotiate to include or exclude as part of their discussions.

This all seems very far away from government business, much less any manifesto commitment, and more like a hastily considered afterthought to the Bill for the residential sector that was before this House some months ago. As my noble friend Lord Thurlow has set out, for large businesses it will introduce instability, destroy value, damage the confidence of lenders, shareholders and investors alike and harm the much mentioned growth agenda.

That brings me back to where I started: dealing with the difference between an SME and a large business and how we determine the cut-off point between them. Will the Minister consider revising this aspect of the Bill so that a prospective tenant that is a publicly listed company will have the ability to opt out and retain it as a negotiating point, rather than have this aspect of their negotiations predetermined by the Government? These are not SMEs brow-beaten by a grasping landlord but large and powerful entities quite capable of navigating the give and take in negotiating leases that meet their needs. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this suggestion as a practical way to improve this amendment and mitigate the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, the hour is late, so I will be brief. I support the valedictory amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow. I also associate myself with what may be valedictory comments from the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. It is going to be a shame to lose their surveying expertise and that of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who has contributed so valuably over the last year in all manner of property-related matters covering the built environment which underpins our economy and social infrastructure.

Clause 85 and the related Schedule 34 provide for an amendment to the Landlord and Tenant Act, but it is going to have so many unintended consequences that will chill new investment in all manner of privately funded capital projects. I note that this provision was not in the manifesto nor trailed prior to the publication of the Bill. It has simply been fly-tipped at the end of this Bill, where it sticks out like a sore thumb in a jarring juxtaposition with the Bill’s other provisions.

I support Amendment 318C and its intention to protect small and medium-sized enterprises, but there is a serious risk of further damaging overseas investor confidence in the UK. If we are to attract private investment in large-scale developments, which may include data centres, city office blocks, mixed-use developments with residential property above them, the City of London and huge warehouse fulfilment centres, some sort of revenue growth is required over the life of the asset, without which investments will be placed elsewhere in other countries and other jurisdictions.

Setting small and medium-sized enterprises to one side for the moment, the large-scale tenants of these buildings are, so to speak, grown-up adults. I am not sure that Amazon needs additional protections from the law when contracting for a distribution warehouse. It is for the market and the law of contract to determine that precise equilibrium between those who take the risk of putting up the building and those who take the risk of occupying it. It is certainly not for government in a market economy to insist on a one-size-fits-all approach. This will chill not just future building but also the existing carrying value of those property assets which are owned by pension funds and whose rents support our senior citizens in retirement. Once again, it is the poorest in society who will be adversely affected by this misguided and misdirected sixth-form debating society approach to our economy.

I am grateful to the former Ernst & Young ITEM Club chief economist Martin Beck, who tells me that a blanket ban, as contemplated by this Bill, will cause an £11 billion downgrade of pension fund assets, meaning £2 billion less construction investment per year in the UK—and overall, when everything is taken into account, a £4.2 billion a year hit to our national economy. We need large-scale investments to grow the economy and to provide work for groundworkers, brickies, roofers, painters, decorators and our pensioners.

Schedule 34 represents yet another act of self-inflicted harm to our economy and our way of life, reducing our international investor confidence in the stability of UK plc with our rule of contract and well-established property rights, chasing away inward investment by a Government who say they are keen on growth but act in every respect to damage it.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, the government amendments in this group are technical and consequential in nature, relating to Parts 4, 5 and 6, and we do not intend to challenge them in any way.

I am pleased that I have this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, and possibly the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, as well, although he has not actually said that this is his valedictory speech. When I was a Minister on the other side of the House, both noble Lords were supportive at times but challenging at other times. We had quite a lot of fun doing Bills such as what is now the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, and I sincerely thank them both for the knowledge of the industry that they brought to the House. That has been excellent and has helped me a great deal to understand the industry much better. They are going to be really missed. I thank them very much for everything that they did to help me in government—and they have helped me a bit in opposition, as well.

The amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and my noble friend Lord Fuller, raises important questions about the scope of provisions relating to upward-only rent reviews and their application, particularly to SMEs. All I can say at this time of night is that I am really looking forward to the Minister’s response on this one because there are questions to be answered.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 26th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Fuller]

129: Clause 42, page 43, line 20, leave out "develop" and insert "promote"
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, together with other amendments from Lord Fuller in Clause 42, seeks to make clear the separation of duties between Mayor and Local Government Pension Scheme to avoid any potential conflicts of interest between the mayor and pension scheme.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I will speak briefly to this group, and I am grateful to the Minister for engaging with me on the narrow point. These three amendments, which are mostly the same, are supportive of what the Government are trying to achieve.

In Clause 42, there is a requirement for mayors to co-operate with the LGPS to finance infrastructure. I have no problem with that—in fact, it is to be welcomed. My amendments are based on the simple truth that if they are to grow the economy, mayors need to have a complete understanding of how money is raised, deals are put together and bright ideas are turned into investible opportunities.

In essence, mayors need to understand the difference between funding and financing. Funding is writing the cheque; financing is putting that deal together. Of course, they are completely different disciplines. My amendments simply substitute “develop” with “promote”. This recognises that it is the role of mayors to produce investible opportunities but not necessarily that of the LGPS to buy them. This is not purely semantics; it is a simple word change that stops accusations of a degree of connivance or collusion between the mayor and funds, which could lead to conflicts of interest.

This group ensures that there is a proper separation of duties between the mayor and the funds. The word “promote” helps everybody be clear: it is the mayor’s job to punt the opportunity, but the scheme is not necessarily mandated to accept it. Promotion makes it clear that the mayor needs to work harder to be clearer about what the market and investors require, to turn that idea into a proposition. In so doing, the important point is that this encourages the wider uptake of good opportunities, not just by the home fund but by the wider pool of investments in the LGPS and beyond.

There would be fewer accusations of connivance, a greater clarity of roles, greater professionalism and understanding of how financing works, and a better separation of duties, which would allow other pools to jump on the bandwagon of good ideas, rather than just being a closed shop. Words matter. This substitution would strengthen the clause and make actual investments more likely. Two minutes—I beg to move.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Fuller, which all address an important and practical issue: the clear separation of duties between the mayor and the Local Government Pension Scheme. At its heart, this is about avoiding conflicts of interest, as we have heard.

Under the Bill, mayors will rightly have a central role in promoting investment opportunities in their regions, championing growth, attracting capital and supporting local economic development. That is an essential part of the devolution agenda. However, we must be equally clear about who is making investment decisions and on whose behalf. Pension funds exist to serve their members and local taxpayers. Their primary duty is fiduciary: to act in the best financial interests of those beneficiaries.

There is a distinction here that matters. The mayors may promote opportunities, but they should not be in a position to directly or indirectly influence the allocation of pension fund assets. In simple terms, one body promotes the opportunity and another independently decides whether to write the cheque. As has been noted, there are important differences between funding and financing and between providing the capital and structuring the deal. Both require clarity of responsibility and robust governance.

Co-operation between mayors and pension schemes is not only desirable, it is inevitable, but the co-operation must not drift into anything that could be perceived as pressure or direction. We must guard against any blurring of lines. What begins as collaboration must not become, even inadvertently, connivance. These amendments are therefore modest but necessary. They seek to put beyond doubt the separation of roles to protect the integrity of pension decision-making and to give reassurance to local taxpayers and scheme members alike. For those reasons, I support them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I think I laid out that relationships should be close but not cosy between the mayor and the funds. I accept the reciprocity between this Bill and the Pension Schemes Bill, which we debated earlier. I accept the Minister’s assurance and, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 129 withdrawn.

Non-Domestic Rating (Rates Retention and Levy and Safety Net: Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the Grand Committee’s attention to my interest as a councillor on Kirklees Council.

This is a very technical measure and a bit of a mixed bag. The reset of the business rates retention system is long overdue and welcome. For too long, the distribution of resources has been based on figures from when the system was introduced in 2013, so recalculating each authority’s assessed need and business rate tax base to redistribute funding on a needs basis is welcome. Given that aim, it is surprising that the Government have not produced an impact assessment. The Explanatory Memorandum says within it that most authorities will find that the system works for them, but some will not, so an impact assessment would be very welcome to understand the winners and losers, and to what extent they are winning or losing. Can the Minister provide some basic impact assessment, not for all authorities but for those that will benefit most and least so that we can see how this will work in practice?

The safety net established in this SI is to be supported because, while any fundamental changes in the business rates system take place, it will enable local authorities to have stability in their known income. That is positive, but as far as I could see it is not explained how authorities already in a pooled system will be impacted, such as those in West Yorkshire. All the data provided is based not on a pool of authorities but on individual ones, so it would be helpful to understand how that works. The proposal for Section 31 grants is welcome, because it will also help remove the impact of volatility in the system.

The downside is, I guess, the move away from the whole purpose of the business rates retention system, when introduced 10 or 12 years ago, as an incentive for growth. The introduction of marginal tax rates—which is what they are—on growth that exceeds the limits could be viewed as a tax on success. That is somewhat at odds with the Government’s fundamental position that growth is everything. It does not seem to apply in this case. How far do they think that these marginal tax rates of 30% and 45% will encourage or discourage investment and growth in particular areas?

This is a mixed bag. The reset is necessary for fairness and a safety net is good for stability, but having worked figures would have been really helpful so that we could understand the consequences.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

If I may speak before my Front Bench, of course we welcome the introduction of multi-year settlements. Local authorities have been crying out for that for many years, and I can see that this is part of the path that we are going down.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, identified the importance of incentives—incentives for councils to do the right thing and go the extra mile. Sometimes those incentives help the council, as a promoter or joint enterprise with those people who wish to invest in an area, to make the case to local residents who may not necessarily welcome development. In my nearly 20 years as a council leader, I used the new homes bonus, as well as business rates retention, as powerful examples to otherwise semi-hostile or reluctant residents for us to make those investments.

Back in those days—the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about 10 years ago and it must have been all of that—there were really powerful and compelling reasons for our authority, which was a high-growth authority, to pal up with all our neighbours, not all of which were quite so pro-growth as we were. By giving away some of our growth, the pot over the entirety of Norfolk was greater; there was that compelling case for co-operation. But I can tell the Committee that, over subsequent years, particularly more recently—I should stress that I am no longer the council leader doing these negotiations, but they are fresh in my mind—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I was mid-flow. I was making the case that, in the early days of business rates retention and pooling, there was an exceptionally compelling case to co-operate. Even if we gave away a little of our own growth as a local authority—I was the leader—the pot was large enough that we did not lose out. However, ever since, the incentive to grow through business rates retention and, in particular, pooling has become weaker and less compelling. It has been harder to demonstrate the benefits of growth to a sceptical population.

The trouble is that, through this instrument, it is not just that the train tracks have narrowed and the bid offer spread has become more constrained; a series of disincentives have made it significantly less attractive. I understand why there has to be a reset, but the cliff edge of the reset means that those councils that have worked hard to do the right thing are seeing that growth be snatched away. That is a pretty powerful disincentive to do the right thing.

Increasing redistribution means that, however well you do above the baseline, more and more gets taken away. That is a further disincentive. Now, there is an additional factor that weighs against the co-operation that makes everybody better off: the tweaks. It is more than a tweak, in fact; it is a tilting of the playing field against those who are growing hard and in favour of the indices of multiple deprivation.

I do not deny that some areas are poorer than others but, when you take into account each of these detractors from the incentive to grow, you find out that there are rewards for sitting back and not pushing the envelope. Those councils that can just sit back and wait for the others to do well are the undeserved beneficiaries. This is not to say that there should not be any redistribution—I am not making that case at all—but through this instrument and, in fairness, others over the past three or four years, we are getting to a situation where, if nobody is really incentivised to do the right thing, why should anybody do the right thing? Why should any council leader go out on a limb, as I did, to sell the benefits of growth and explain to residents and businesses, “If you come with me on this one, you’ll pay less council tax, the economy will be stronger, there’ll be more jobs”, and so on?

There is no taste in nothing. Diluting the incentives to do the right thing even more, as this instrument does, means that we will all end up in a rather tasteless situation that achieves neither what the Government crave nor what this nation deserves.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, first, I draw the Committee’s attention to my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire. I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. I agree with the two previous speakers that it is positive that there is a three-year settlement.

This instrument forms part of a wider set of reforms to the business rates retention system ahead of the 2026 reset. It makes a number of technical changes to how the system operates in practice, particularly in relation to the levy on growth, the safety net and the treatment of compensation for reliefs and multiplier changes. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and my noble friend Lord Fuller have said, these regulations will have an impact on growth and incentives.

We recognise the Government’s stated intentions both to realign local government funding with need and to ensure that the system continues to function smoothly as wider reforms are introduced, but those objectives cannot come at the expense of undermining incentives for local economic growth and for high-performing councils. It is the Government’s stated intention to promote growth; I query how this instrument fits with that intention.

These regulations replace the existing levy cap with a system of marginal rates on growth. In many cases, the effect will be that local authorities retain less of the proceeds of the very development they are being asked to support. That raises a fundamental question: if councils see a diminishing or even negative financial return from growth, why would they take on the costs and complexities that often come with approving new development? As my noble friend Lord Fuller said, new development is not free; you may need to invest in infrastructure or provide incentives for someone to come to your area. There are also social costs in the wider sense, such as busier roads, the loss of green fields, busier doctors, a lack of GP surgeries and so on. What is the incentive for local councils and councillors to promote growth if there is no financial recompense that they can use to invest in their communities?

Local authorities are not passive actors in this system. They make those difficult decisions concerning planning, infrastructure and local services. If the link between growth and local benefit is weakened, the Government risk tilting the system away from enterprise and towards dependency on redistribution. I ask the Minister directly: what assessment has been made of the impact of these changes on councils’ willingness to bring forward new development? Can the Minister set out more clearly which types of authorities stand to lose out under these changes? What assessment has been made of the impact on local financial planning and rates collection as a result? This largely mirrors what the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised around the idea of an impact assessment.

Local Government Reorganisation

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an important point. As we go through the reorganisation process, it is important that we continue to pay tribute to the local government staff who are driving this forward, and that we continue to keep a focus on what local government has to offer in terms of employment. One thing that really surprised me when I first became a local councillor was the huge range of employment in local government. We must strive to make sure that students and others know about that, and that we continue to protect the wide range of apprenticeships and training opportunities that local government provides.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I was surprised that the noble Baroness did not give a more positive response to her noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord John of Southwark, because he knows that there are more councillors within the M25 than in all the county councils of England. It takes just 3,108 electors to elect a London councillor, but in other parts of the country it takes over 10,000. That is an unacceptable dilution of democracy. What plans do the Government have, when they make their announcement by the end of March, to ensure that there is broad electoral equality across all the councils in England so that, directionally, people’s electoral votes are equal?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Proposals have come from all areas, which have put their own proposals forward; they have worked on them locally. In the areas that we are considering, we have a number of different proposals, but they have focused absolutely on making sure that there is proper representation for people in the new councils. That is very much part of the consideration as we make the decisions on these new areas, and we look at that as carefully as we look at all the other evidence that has been submitted in those proposals.

Local Government Reorganisation

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I do not want to add to the embarrassment that the Government must be feeling about the U-turn on the election cancellations, but I am grateful that the Secretary of State is going to look at some of the amendments, including those in my name, that would extend the cancellation to PCCs and mayors. Now is the time to look at what the cost of LGR may be, not only to the individual but in terms of council tax. Those who said LGR would save money now say it will not. We know that there will be about a billion pounds-worth of pension strain costs from those retiring on efficiency grounds. We know, from arithmetic, that nobody will pay less council tax as a result of this, but 50% will pay more, and there will be more layers of local governance, each able to raise council tax without limit. What assessment have the Government made of the cumulative impact of all this? When will the Minister honestly explain to the electorate that LGR is going to cost them more? They have been kept in the dark, but at least they will have an opportunity to express their views at the ballot box in May.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It is a shame that the noble Lord has not had a chance to look at the proposals as I have. They set out very clearly the anticipated savings. More importantly, they provide a much more cohesive form of local government for those who will be on the receiving end of these services. Taking out layers of chief executive and finance director salaries all helps to push money back to the front line, where it is needed to deal with much-needed services such as filling in potholes, looking after vulnerable adults and children, and making sure that our environment is taken care of. All the things that local councils do so well will be done more effectively and the public will understand where to go to, instead of having two councils responsible for their area.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Grand Committee

I do not agree that it makes sense to split my own county of Hertfordshire into two, three or four unitaries any more than it would have done to split Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire or Dorset. I know that they all have one or two additional bits that are unitaries but, basically, the historic counties—and the sense of place and identity that their inhabitants feel towards them—have survived. In the case of Hertfordshire, this will not result in any savings. According to my research, many of the councillors who support the splitting of the county into at least two unitaries do not believe that there will, in fact, be any savings. In Hertfordshire’s case, it is likely to lead to years of internal dissent and argument, with a highly damaging effect on people’s sense of identity. I certainly support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the clause stand part notice in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, uncharacteristically, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam.

Clause 57 and Schedule 26 should play no part in the Bill because the claim that larger units of local government are more cost-effective has been thoroughly debunked. We will just end up with larger, more expensive units that deny the pattern of life that people live. The 500,000 argument was comprehensively debunked by the Blair Government in 2006 with a seminal document that is still available on their website. More recently, the claim that this current round of unitisation will save money was initially made by the County Councils Network, citing evidence dating from 2020. Last year, the people who wrote the report said, “Actually, we made a mistake and there are no more savings to be had”. The savings that were promulgated in 2020 had already been made.

Bigger is no longer better. A forced reorganisation across the entirety of this country is likely to crystallise at least £1 billion-worth of unaccounted for pension strain costs for those who would be entitled to retire on a full pension up to 10 years early, having been forced out on grounds of efficiency. There is special meaning to those words. However, those billion pounds or so have not been taken into account, and it is local people who will pick up the tab. Through the Bill, we will end up with more expensive additional layers to have mayors who can raise taxes on things for which they are not even responsible.

I do not intend to relitigate the arguments I made on Monday, but there is no clarity on where the new town and parish councils will sit. This is unfinished business that we will need to revisit on Report. We must ask: is there even capacity in national government, let alone local government, for this reorganisation at a time when councils should be in the van of building homes, growing the economy and picking up the pieces for those who have fallen on hard times?

I ought to alight for a moment on the consequences of council tax equalisation in a territory, none of which has been considered at all. I am a veteran of several rounds of local government reorganisation over many years. In the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, there were some statutory tests, including on value for money, equity between areas and consistency of electoral quotient. There needs to be a broad cross-section of support, but none of this is included in the Bill. The requirement for consent has been abandoned—this is something that is going to be done to people.

Last night I was at a dinner in London and people told me how, 20 years ago, they travelled from all parts of the country to go to Norwich to celebrate their octocentenary; it was 800 years. Among them were lord mayors, honorary aldermen, the sheriffs and the reeves. The Bill is silent on how this important civic part of our nation is to be treated. In an unthinking reorganisation, the civic life of our nation will be vandalised. In future, there will be no more trips to Norwich, or anywhere else for that matter, for those people who are part of the social grease of the way our nation works.

I have heard it said that this will make local government simpler and more straightforward. As we have learned over many days in Committee, however, it will cost more, there will be plenty more expensive layers and there will be more complication. Last week we discovered for the first time that, among the 40 fire authorities in this country, there will be 10 different structural arrangements. What a missed opportunity this is. Rather than reorganising the deckchairs in local government, perhaps we could do something about simplification. But no: there will be less accountability and it will be more impenetrable.

Ultimately, families, businesses and the economy outside the M25 will suffer while London and the mets get to sit this one out. There is no equity there at all. People will be paying more for less, having powers taken further away from them. Nobody wants it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I feel bound to remind the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, that the Bill is a Labour continuation of a local government reorganisation started under the Conservatives. This is very much the Michael Gove—now the noble Lord, Lord Gove—view of how England should be governed, with mayors as the key element and large units imposed regardless of place.

I have done my politics in Yorkshire over the years. I think the imposition of a single unitary council, against the preferences of almost all local authority members in North Yorkshire—except York, because York was, by and large, a contest between Liberal Democrats and Labour—was a crucial example of ignoring place-making in everything else.

When I do my politics in Bradford, I am conscious that it is a large unitary authority and I see good councillors struggling to represent their wards, and councillors who are not so good leaving their wards pretty much unrepresented. I support very strongly everything that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said about the importance of place, and of recognising that different areas require different patterns. I also regret the tendency of successive Governments to go in for restructuring when they are not sure what else to do, the unlikelihood that this will lead to better government and, sadly, the likelihood that it will leave more people across England feeling unrepresented and ignored.

I was very struck by a letter I saw this morning from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Fire Safety, Building and Democracy. That seems to me to place the importance given to democracy in the appropriate place according to the Bill. This is supposed to be a democratic Government and a democratic country. All politics is local. The figures on public trust that I see every year show that the public trust Westminster less than they trust local government. Weakening local government is a very bad idea but, unfortunately, that is what the Bill is all about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

Yes, but the town council will be on our current boundaries, presumably, whereas to work with the last 30 years of building and development we really ought to incorporate all those large areas of housing and commerce that Wealden has stuck on our boundaries rather than elsewhere. Understanding how the Government intend to proceed on this is relevant to the decisions that we are being asked to take now. I very much agree with what other noble Lords have said. Representation is important, as are the concepts of parish and local identity. We would like to take what will be a rather challenging decision in the full light of knowing what the alternatives open to us really are.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a really important debate because it has emphasised and demonstrated the muddle that is in the Bill: the vacuum that will be created following the local government reorganisation process. How is it that Clause 60 cannot even bring itself to mention the town and parish councils that have formed the bedrock of our society?

I know it is inconvenient to have those pesky politicians interfering in that administrative competence: why do we want delegates and deputies at that lowest level? I can understand why the dead hand of Marsham Street has written Clause 60 as it has, but it is not good enough, because it does not have the golden thread of legitimacy that comes only with elections or democratic accountability. We are not seeing authoritative governance, but authoritarian governance; we will be leaving it to local authorities to impose relationships in some smaller parts of their territory without any regard or requirement for democratic legitimacy.

We have had an interesting discussion. The number bandied around was that 20% of places are unparished. It is not equally spread throughout the nation but, by and large, the historic county boroughs have not been parished because they have been billing authorities and districts in their own right. Areas such as King’s Lynn —a proud Hanseatic town—are currently going through a consultation to form their own parish so that there is not a vacuum. I am very attracted to Amendments 207 and 210, and especially Amendment 209A from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, because they would prevent a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum, but there will be one unless we have these absolute requirements here.

In our discussion about parishes, there was some confusion over what we might call ecclesiastical parishes —those parts of a town with a parish church—but we have not really got to constituted, incorporated parishes that are part of a parish council. It is important that our nomenclature is straightened out. I will talk about civil parishes as opposed to ecclesiastical ones.

There are already multiple arrangements. In my electoral ward, the two parishes of Alpington and Yelverton are inconveniently at both ends of the alphabet but have come together to form a community council—a joint parish council with warding for periodic elections. A minimum number of councillors from Alpington and a minimum number from Yelverton must come together as part of that. Put together, about 400 or 500 people live in those two parishes. Where is the equivalence between Alpington and Yelverton working together and Weston-super-Mare? We are trying to shoehorn this. The Bill should be clear.

In the previous session on the Bill on Monday, I ploughed a lonely furrow as I tried to make some sort of size distinction between these smaller parishes and the larger towns. I was on my own; had that debate been held today, I feel I might have got more support. Nevertheless, we must make sure that we end up with properly constituted, incorporated bodies to govern these smaller bits. Just establishing a joint committee or sub-committee of the new body that sits above it will not be any good, exactly because of the library point that was made so well.

The Bill is deficient because none of this texture is explained or laid out. There is just a muddle, with no legitimacy. This must be brought back on Report with significantly more flesh on the bones and I encourage the Minister to do so. I am not sure whether even Stevenage is parished; it was certainly a new town. That is a whole new class of authority that we may need to look at in this regard. We must try to bring together all those bits from my noble friend Lord Lansley, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and others to bring some order to this. Otherwise, it will be disorderly.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I apologise for intervening, but it is not just about legitimacy—it is also that local areas occasionally want to pay for local amenities that the large unitary does not want to pay for. Shipley, in which Saltaire is based, now has a town council because Bradford decided that it could not afford to pay for public toilets. Ilkley had its own town council so it could do it, and the other tourist destination, Haworth, has a Brontë museum, which pays for its own toilets. Saltaire is a world heritage site, but it had no money to pay for its toilets, so we had to form Shipley Town Council to reopen an absolutely essential part of our local community and economic area. That is a new tension that we have; for libraries and other things, we need some degree of fundraising power for local activities.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I did not want to come back, but I shall, to amplify my noble friend’s point—I think that I can call him my noble friend in this regard. The incorporation point is really important, because elsewhere in this Bill there are provisions for the community infrastructure levy to be passed down to neighbourhood areas. These bodies need to have a bank account and governance; they need to have representation and must have legitimacy. The Bill is silent on that and deficient in that regard. We must move forward, or we will just end up in a muddle.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, what a helpful discussion we have had about this group of amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, has rightly called this clause a muddle and said that we need to come back to it on Report with some flesh on it, because there is absolutely no detail here.

As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said in relation to Sussex, there is no local structure for when it goes unitary. That strikes me as fundamental. Clause 60 says nothing about town and parish councils. We have had a whole set of amendments trying to address this problem, but it should have been addressed before we got to Committee. It must be addressed by the time we get to Report.

I think that we have understood now what the problem is. My noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said at the start, in introducing this group, that he had an unease about Clause 60, which he called a “most dubious clause”—how right and prescient he has turned out to be. The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, complained that he had said a number of things on Monday about the muddle, gap or vacuum that there is. I raised this matter, and I am happy to agree that that is the case, but on day 1 in Committee, I talked about the importance of local authorities devolving power to town and parish councils—to lower tiers. At every level there should be a statutory requirement on all the bodies to devolve power to a lower level, wherever there was a case for so doing. The Government did not support that, but I remind them of that debate on and the amendment to Clause 1, as it would help to get them off the hook with this very poorly drafted Clause 60.

On a final point, as my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said, there is a confusion in terms in the Bill between local, neighbourhood and community—the three words I think he used—to which I add “area”, because we get that as well. The words start to become interchangeable because nobody is quite sure what they mean. They are not properly defined in the Bill. They ought to be, but the difficulty we have is that the Government do not quite know how to define them. The solution to the problem is to change Clause 60 to include, as part of the local government structure, town and parish councils, then to insist that areas of competence should be devolved to the lowest level possible for the management of that service.

I hope that the Minister is taking very seriously that we must have something much more substantial on Report.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, London does have a parish. It was set up in 2014 after a local referendum, and it is Queen’s Park—just so your Lordships know. There is nothing at all to stop the greatest city becoming parished.

I agree with many noble Lords that Clause 60 is a muddle. While it places a duty on local authorities to make appropriate arrangements for effective governance, it does not say whether that effective governance should be elected or non-elected. It also says that the Secretary of State would have powers through regulations to define neighbourhood areas and to specify the parameters of what arrangements may be considered appropriate. I find that very odd. I do not know which Secretary of State would understand the neighbourhoods of my now county of Norfolk, let alone the whole of England. However, we welcome efforts to bring decision-making closer to the communities that it affects. From previously setting up unitaries, it has been very clear that it is important to set up some more local organisations, but we need much more clarity on what they should be.

Neighbourhood committees or area committees—whatever they are called—are not the same as elected town or parish councils. They are unelected and in the control of and usually paid for by the unitary authority. I have experienced these committees and they work very well. They are probably needed for a bigger unitary authority, but they are no substitute for elected councils, such as town and parish councils. In fact, one of the strengths of neighbourhood or area committees is the inclusion of those local town and parish councils, so that all issues will be discussed locally by everybody concerned. Town and parish councils, because they are elected, are required to look at local plans and neighbourhood plans, and even at the budgets of the councils, to give a local perspective on those big issues for the unitary authorities. In that spirit, I welcome the intention behind Amendment 205, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, which seeks to strengthen the role and authority of locally elected councils and affirms the principle that neighbourhood governance must be rooted in democratic legitimacy and local accountability.

Amendments 206, 207, 208, 209A and 210, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Bassam of Brighton and Lord Lansley, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, are important because they quite rightly seek, in different but complementary ways, to enhance and secure the role of town and parish councils within this emerging framework of what the Government are calling neighbourhood governance. We all know, from long experience and evidence on the ground, that genuine community empowerment through elected town and parish councils is central to effective neighbourhood governance. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, is absolutely right that town and parish councils are a way for the larger authorities to test what is going on right down on the ground.

Parish and town councils are often the most immediate and accessible tier of democratic representation. They are closest to the lived experience of local people, they understand local priorities and they are often best placed to translate national policy ambitions into practical, locally sensitive action. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will think that that is a good thing for them to do.

Building on that point, I would be grateful if the Minister would therefore clarify how the Government see the roles of parish and town councils evolving within the wider framework of neighbourhood governance in this Bill. It is interesting that the Minister’s responses so far have been far from encouraging to town and parish councils. Why not encourage new unitary authorities to look at setting up more town and parish councils in their areas? That could go into a change to Clause 60.

In particular, can the Minister say how the Government intend to ensure that town and parish councils are meaningfully involved in the decision-making that affects their communities? That happens now, but will it continue to happen? Finally, can she confirm how the Government will ensure that any move towards greater neighbourhood governance will be underpinned by clear lines of democratic accountability, so that locally elected parish councils are empowered to deliver more as we, hopefully, get more of them and they are embedded?

Throughout our consideration of this Bill, we have spoken at length about the importance of parish councils in general terms. In the specific context of Clause 60, that importance becomes even more pronounced. If neighbourhood governance is to be effective, it cannot be imposed from above. It has to grow from what we have already in large parts of this country, which could be created elsewhere.

We are therefore clear in our commitment to continuing the central role of town and parish councils in providing effective neighbourhood governance. That brings continuity, it brings local trust and it brings democratic legitimacy. Town and parish councils provide an institutional memory and a community connection that, as we have heard from other noble Lords, transient structures simply cannot replicate without democracy.

In closing, while we must ensure that the framework set out in Clause 60 retains sufficient flexibility to reflect the diversity of local circumstances, that flexibility should not come at the expense of democratic clarity and local voice. The amendments in this group speak to that balance, we believe. They remind us that effective neighbourhood governance is about trust in local institutions, trust in elected representatives and trust in communities themselves; it does not come top-down from government.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I would like to make a point before my noble friend sits down. In her opening remarks, she spoke about the experience that she has had in local government. She talked powerfully about the important role that parish councils and the like can play, and I agree, but I had expected her to say what success does not look like. I have been on the receiving end of self-appointed pressure groups with an axe to grind and of transient social media campaigns. If we are not careful, an aggressive reading of Clause 60 could see us sleepwalk into legitimising transient organisations with crony co-option. We have all seen what that looks like. This is what we have to be careful about. I know that my noble friend has had experience of that to her cost. It is important that, going forward, we safeguard against the mistake being made again.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

In any local democracy, you will get that happening. That is right: people should get together to lobby, to make sure that their local representatives understand what they want and what they do not want. However, when you have town and parish councils, they have the legitimacy because they have been through the electorate. Also, if what they are saying is not what the local community want to hear, the electorate can get rid of them at the ballot box.

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Multimember wards elected proportionally can help counter the sense of distance that people feel from increasingly centralised local government, while also allowing councillors to share responsibilities and remain rooted in their communities. Giving councils and communities the ability to move towards proportional representation is a way of encouraging participation and ensuring that decisions genuinely reflect the people they serve. I think there is a growing recognition across parties and Benches that the current system is failing to reflect the diversity of opinion in our local communities. In future, even Conservatives might start to think that it is fairer.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 216A, 216B and 216C. I also associate myself with most of the other amendments, certainly the ones in the names of my noble friends. The noble Lord, Lord Pack, in Amendments 211 and 212 proposes a sort of ban. I do not agree with this, but we do need to allow for emergencies, so I agree with the thrust of what he is trying to say.

I agree with my noble friends about the importance of not cancelling elections for LGR, but this does not take into account the funny business around cancelling mayoral or PCC elections or council polls when LGR is not the reason. My amendments are therefore drawn more widely than those of my noble friends Lady Scott and Lord Jamieson.

There has not been a revolution here for about 350 years. Your Lordships might say that this is because the British are a placid race, but they can easily be stirred. The reason the rule of law has been sustained for so long is that we are a democratic country. We sit in this House, in a building that is the cradle of democracy and mother of Parliaments. The people of this nation go to the ballot box to select those who are to represent them in pursuance of a stronger economy, better lives, robust defence and all those other things that the state provides. That consent lasts until the next election, at which point those elected are either replaced or re-elected.

I know that this is obvious, but it needs to be said because the Government have forgotten it. The democratic principle is the cornerstone of our society and our civility. It safeguards the boundaries between the state and the individual. It takes something pretty important to disturb that delicate equilibrium, such as national emergencies. The foot and mouth epidemic and Covid were two cases in point, when elections were delayed for proper purposes.

But this time last year, elections were cancelled. Last March, we had a debate and the Minister made it quite clear that the 12-month cancellation was strictly a one-off. Back then, LGR was nothing more than an outside possibility. No detailed plans had been submitted, there had been no consultation and it was not clear what type of reconfiguration might be proposed. Surrey thought it was getting a mayor until it was not, and London was most definitely in until it was not. It was all just nods and winks. Local government reorganisation was no more certain then than saying now that the Prime Minister will be in place until the next elections—which would have been in May, until they were cancelled.

I am not saying that the Minister misled the House last March, but events have shown that she did not have the authority to give the reassurances that she did. She certainly did not advance the ridiculous notion that decisions to cancel elections should be made by those who are already elected and have the most to lose. Had she explained that process back in March, she would have been laughed out of the Chamber, but that is her Government’s position today.

I have been a councillor for many years. I can tell noble Lords that you do not go into local government for the money but, once you are in, the money can be pretty handy, so asking those people whether they ought to stay on is both a conflict of interest and a moral hazard. Part of the justification for the delay was that economic growth was the number one priority. Mayors were to be the conduit through which growth would be delivered. Those elections have been delayed by two years, which says all you need to know about the commitment to growth. The mayoral angle is why I prefer my amendments over those of my colleagues, because I have amendments that would not just go for local elections but mayoral and PCC elections.

I am sure that the Minister will want to say that three elections were cancelled in Yorkshire, Somerset and Cumbria in 2021, and therefore there is precedent, but I do not accept that for a moment. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will be reassured that I argued forcefully with the Minister that, in the case of Yorkshire, putting Skipton, Selby and Scarborough in the same so-called local authority was crazy. But at least, by that moment, although I disagreed with the outcome, orders had been laid and proposals had been made and consulted on. There was certainty about the creation of local government reorganisation when the elections were cancelled—and, in any event, it was only a single year’s delay. None of that relates to today’s situation. It is dishonest to draw some equivalence between the circumstances in 2021 and those of today. That is why the law needs to be changed to stop the abuse.

Those who want to dodge democracy have advanced quite a few bogus reasons. The county councils talk about capacity issues, forgetting that it is the district councils that run the elections in the shires. They said that it was all rather expensive—but democracy has its price, and the money has already been salted away, accrued and set aside. So that argument holds no water. I have heard it said that staff are busy with other things, but running elections is a specialist task and the electoral registration officers tend to focus on that alone. They are not the people who are engaged in LGR and consultation on the big strategic matters with other authorities, including matters such as disposal of assets. All these arguments are bogus when measured against the fact that free and fair elections should be operated separately from those standing in them, which is one of the fundamental separations of duties and one for which the Electoral Commission, among other bodies, was established.

In an earlier group we discussed local government reorganisation. One problem is that the public have not been offered a chance to express an opinion on LGR, just in case the electors do not share the same view. My noble friend Lord Pickles told me in 2008, “If you don’t trust the folks, don’t go into politics”. He was right, but that does not suit a Government with a tin ear for democracy and the value of civic history. Democracy is being denied in councils; it has already been denied in the mayoral elections. While the Government are signalling that the police and crime commissioners are on their way out into the sunset, my amendments would at least require that the strongest possible relationship between the state and individual is not to result in a reckoning, because society has been abused by these proposals.

My proposal is that only the super-affirmative process can be used when you might want to cancel elections. I cannot think of reasons why you might want to do that in future but, if it was so, this would ensure that there was a two-step process whereby permission must first be sought to enter secondary legislation and then only by the affirmative method would it be separately approved by resolutions laid before both Houses. In any event, any resolution to cancel an election should be made no less than three months before the date of publication of the election, because it is important for parties and individuals to have enough time to prepare a manifesto, select candidates, raise funds and address all the practical matters that need to be taken care of. My amendments would ensure that the preparation could take place effectively, allowing voters to mark their choices clearly on the ballot.

It is not just that it is the right thing; it is wrong that confidence in elections has been undermined. That infects, contaminates and taints democratic structures and processes. Democracy is the underpinning of our society, the stability of our nation and the integrity of all we hold dear. Here is the paradox: this evening, in this Room, the unelected Chamber is standing up for the elected rights of the population. I am not going to go on about Schedule 28 and the funny business against first past the post, but by this debate, noble Lords are being seen to be on the side of the people. Those who would reform your Lordships’ House can see what a slippery slope would happen if we are shoved out of the way: more cancellation of elections. What an irony that would be. The law should be changed so that elections cannot be cancelled for ministerial convenience, except in the most extreme and robust cases of national emergency, such as Covid or foot and mouth, but not local government reorganisation.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 216D seeks to deal with a consequence of the correct and necessary but sad development that councillors and those standing for council seats and in other elections are allowed to hide where they live. It has become necessary. I am sad about it, but it has meant that in these elections it is extraordinarily difficult for an elector to contact people who are standing for election. There is no way of getting messages to them if they are not part of a mainstream party. Even where they are from a mainstream party, you send the message in and it sticks with that party’s central office and does not get out to the candidate because the candidate is allowed to have only the authorised views of the party. I would like to restore that connection between voters and candidates by making sure that there is a way in which voters can contact candidates and hopefully receive replies from them.

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[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 219 and 220. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has indicated, they attempt to achieve something very similar to Amendment 218 but go a bit more broadly. All three of the amendments in this group get at the idea that it is reasonable—in some carefully defined and carefully protected circumstances—for councillors to be able to participate in council business even though they are not able to be physically present.

One of the reasons for putting forward these two amendments is, frankly, a bit of embarrassment. Both Houses of Parliament, in their own way, allow some degree of remote or proxy participation. Although every noble Lord is undoubtedly very special, are noble Lords and Members of the other place really so special that, while it is okay for us to be able to do that, oh my goodness, we must not let councillors do it? Frankly, it is a little embarrassing that, although we understand that these powers need to be carefully protected and defined, we say that this is okay for ourselves, yet, so far, we do not allow councillors the same thing.

This is also a matter of pragmatism. Through the experience of the House of Lords, through the experience of the other place, through the experience of councils in lockdown and through the experience of councils in the UK but outside of England, we have a lot of accumulated knowledge and experience of how measures such as those set out in the amendments in this group work. The answer is that they have worked well. They have worked successfully. They are good ways of dealing with, for example, some of the challenges of geography and weather that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, mentioned earlier. They are good ways of dealing with some of the challenges around increasing participation in politics and the diversity of our elected representatives.

These are not just my views. The Government helpfully carried out a thorough consultation last year, asking for views on remote attendance and proxy voting in local authorities. Just as I did in the case of my earlier amendment on cattle grids, I will quote approvingly from the Government’s words—with more success, I hope, than I had on that amendment.

In the consultation, question 2 asked:

“Do you agree with the broad principle of granting local authorities powers to allow remote attendance at formal meetings?”


A resounding 86% said “yes” in response to that. Similarly, question 8 in that consultation asked:

“Do you think legislative change to allow councillors to attend local authority meetings remotely should or should not be considered for the following reasons?”


Reason number one was:

“Councils would be more resilient in the event of local or national emergencies”;


91% agreed with that. This was another option given:

“It would likely increase the diversity of people willing and able to stand for election in their local area”;


79% of people agreed with that.

The government consultation rightly concluded that, in the Government’s own words:

“The government is of the view that in-person authority meetings remain vital for local democracy”—


I agree—

“but that hybrid and remote attendance, and proxy voting, will enable local authorities in England to develop more modern, accessible and flexible working practices”.

The Government went on to say:

“We have carefully considered arguments for and against remote attendance and proxy voting, and we plan to legislate to support permanent provision in relation to both policies, when parliamentary time allows”.


Having raised this at Second Reading and listened carefully to what the Minister said in response, the puzzle for me is that we have in front of us a piece of legislation that would enable exactly those conclusions from the Government’s consultation to be implemented. The Government say that they need parliamentary time to do this; well, the parliamentary time is immediately in front of us.

The Government like talking about how they are taking action on many issues at pace. Here is the opportunity to act at a swift pace on the results of that consultation from last year. I very much hope that, when we hear the Minister’s response, even if we do not get my most optimistic outcome—a straightforward, “We agree to these amendments”—we will at least get to unpick this mystery a little. Why, when the consultation and the Government’s own conclusions were so clearly in favour, and other arguments so clearly stack up in favour, are the Government not taking the opportunity of the Bill in front of us to proceed at pace and implement what they themselves have said they wish to do?

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, like many others, I had a leading position as a councillor during Covid. The Minister and I corresponded on many calls. Remote working worked well during Covid, but there were some famous failures. Some councillors fell asleep live on YouTube—not in my council, I hasten to add. Others went to the toilet, got undressed or got out of the shower. Children bumbled in. There was that famous meeting where a woman had no authority but managed to cut the other chap out; I cannot remember her name, but we all know the one. So, yes, it can work, and there are safeguards.

I completely disagree with proxy voting, so I have no truck with Amendment 219. However, I am broadly sympathetic with Amendments 218 and 220, which are trying to ask how we can participate remotely, although I find it difficult to support them as they are currently constructed.

This is complicated. There are different types of meeting, and each has different consequences. There is the full council meeting, in which everyone gets together. It is important that everyone gets together to cast their vote as a council rather than as a set of individuals sitting at home—in their underpants, let us say. There are executive meetings and cabinet meetings. They are really important, and people want to see them; there are rights of attendance, and people will want to lobby. There are scrutiny meetings, but that is not an executive function. Then there are policy-formation committees, which are not for decision-making but are part of scrutiny. So we have the distinction between what are and are not decision-making committees. Then there are quasi-judicial meetings, such as those on planning or licensing; in-person attendance is really important for those. None of this fine-grained texture is in the amendments but, if they are to progress, it should be.

Local government is becoming more complicated. There is certainly a need to travel more, particularly in the larger authorities such as North Yorkshire. The answer to that is not to have something quite as big as North Yorkshire, but we are where we are. There are going to be more combined meetings under these combined county authorities. There are also more trading companies involved in local authorities now. They are at arm’s length from the council—they may be owned by the council but they are not of the council—and we have to take them into consideration, too. There are significantly more partnerships, some of which are joint committees of more than one council. We would have to work out, if two councils came together and one had the freedom to do online meetings and the other did not, how that would mesh in joint committees, of which we are seeing a lot more. We have development corporations as well. There is a lot of public money there, so will they be meeting in private or in public?

We have to sort out some of the ground rules. It is not quite as simple as the noble Lord, Lord Pack, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh said. I am interested in taking this forward, but it will need a lot more work before Report before any of it could really be considered a realistic proposal, rather than just a good idea for probing.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to this debate and wish to speak briefly on this group of amendments. They address fundamental questions about how local democracy is conducted, how local councillors discharge their duties and how we maintain the integrity of local decision-making. These amendments are well intentioned—we have certainly heard about the difficulties that there can be in arriving at meetings, particularly where significant distances are involved—but I fear that they do not sit easily with the principles of genuine devolution and open, accountable, transparent government where you can see where the decision is being made.

Amendment 218 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Amendment 220, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pack, would allow for remote meetings or remote participation in meetings. A cornerstone of our democratic life is the principle that significant decisions should be taken in person and in public, where elected representatives can be directly observed, challenged and held to account, and where the debate is in the room. During the pandemic, remote arrangements became an unavoidable necessity, yet many of us witnessed—my noble friend Lord Fuller alluded to some of the issues we saw—how public engagement was diminished, the debate became thinner and the essential character of our democratic exchanges was damaged.

I do not believe that we should return to arrangements that bring back that distance, both literally and figuratively and in terms of participation, between elected representatives and the people they serve. The default expectation of democratic office ought to remain that in decision-making councillors come together, face to face, to deliberate in the public view. Any move to the contrary, even in limited circumstances, would, I fear, be a slippery slope.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th February 2026 Grand Committee

My question to the Minister, which relates to that, is: to what extent do different departments in Whitehall consider, as they restructure the various public services, the need, first, for boundaries to coincide wherever possible and, secondly, to ensure that accountability is not simply to one part of Whitehall at each local level but that there is the maximum possible co-ordination? Chapter 6 of the strategic defence review talks about the need for local leadership and local resilience across various public services, absolutely including fire and rescue, but in the Bill as it currently presents I do not see that sort of cross-boundary and cross-departmental set of issues being addressed. It seems that we are dealing with a Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Bill that has not really been sorted out with other departments in Whitehall.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, some time ago in the teens, from 2015 until about 2022, I was a member of the fire services pension fund, which exposed me to a world that I had had no real previous experience of. I learned that there were 40 fire and rescue authorities in the UK and it astonished me that, of the 40 fire and rescue authorities, there were seven different structural constructs within them. I am speaking in violent agreement with the noble Lord who has just spoken.

For example, there were the single county authorities such as Norfolk or Suffolk, and there were the joint county authorities such as Dorset and Wiltshire, working together under a single canvas. There were joint committees, for example, as you might find in the West Midlands—I am not quite sure whether the Yorkshire ones that the noble Lord just referred to are in the same bucket as the West Midlands or indeed whether they form an eighth different variant. There are the mayoral ones in Manchester, the London Fire Brigade stands alone and, of course, within the police and crime commissioners there is the one in Essex, for example, which is different from the one in Hertfordshire. We are now going to add combined county authorities, so I think that makes eight, and now within the mayoralties there will be a case A or a case B, each of which may have in addition a commissioner or a deputy mayor.

This is crazy. For 40 types of authority there are—I have nearly run out of fingers—10 different constructs, I think. The Bill should be bringing order to that complexity. Instead, it is obfuscating and adding a further cat’s cradle of complication. I know that we are in Committee and that we will come back on Report, and I understand the complexity and the interaction with the police, because the police and fire and rescue work together in so many cases, but we have to bring some order to this chaos.

Although I do not necessarily support the entirety of the text of Amendment 170, it has probed the necessity of bringing some sensibility to what is a nonsense in the way in which our brave fire and rescue firefighters deal with not just fires. During my tenure as a trustee of the fire service’s pension scheme, I learned that the average fireman goes to a fire once every 12 days or so; this is about the other important work they do, in prevention and in attending road accidents and other national emergencies. They deserve better than the structures they have today.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 170 would require a mayor who holds fire and rescue authority functions to delegate those functions to a deputy mayor for fire and rescue, creating governance arrangements that mirror those already in place for policing.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, raises a number of interesting and important points, as we have heard from this short debate. I look forward to the Minister’s response, particularly on the issue of democratic accountability, as raised by my noble friend Lord Trenchard, and on my noble friend Lord Fuller’s point about making sure that public services all work from the same geographic area. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ensure that; it might take a little longer, but I am sure it is worth doing.

During our consideration of the Bill, it has become clear that fire and rescue services are not listed as statutory consultees in the devolution framework. For me, that raises a number of important questions for the Government. As we have heard, fire and rescue services play a central role in public safety, resilience, planning and emergency responses, yet when decisions affecting land use, building standards, transport corridors or climate adaptions are taken without any requirement for fire service input, there is a risk of the safety and resilience considerations being added only after decisions have been made, rather than being embedded right from the outset.

In that context, I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why fire and rescue services are not statutory consultees, whether the Government consider this omission appropriate, and whether steps are being considered to strengthen their formal role in devolution and governance arrangements.

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[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 196C. For me, this is a really interesting group because it is quite wide: part of it is to do with wanting to enable local revenue raising and part of it says, “Hang on. Hold on a minute, we need a bit more accountability here. Should we not put up some guardrails?” I am somewhere in the middle of that argument, I guess.

My amendment would allow mayors to levy a business rates supplement to fund local priorities. The first question is: why do that? These mayoral authorities are going to be quite large—perhaps not on the scale of Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, the West Midlands and so on, but they will be large geographic entities. One would think that they will want primarily to drive projects that relate to bits of infrastructure kit and transport, such as buses, trains and trams, and to ensure that they have adequate local funding to do so. It is welcome that the Government are consulting on a tourism levy but, even following the Bill, established mayoral authorities will still require considerable central funding and approval for major projects.

I do not quite buy the argument that the Bill is about decentralisation, not devolution; I think it is a mixture of the two. It is good that we are looking to decentralise more because that will eventually underpin a greater level of devolution. My amendment would change who can levy the supplement and under what circumstances. It would allow established mayoral areas to levy a business rates supplement without a referendum, as was the case for Crossrail. I am sure that most colleagues will remember that the Crossrail funding was a mix of central funding and local funding. The Crossrail business levy was an important element of that; it also meant that businesses across the capital had to think about what they were going to get out of Crossrail and make their voices well known.

Currently, the relevant legislation says that only the Greater London Authority, county and district councils can do this in England, subject to a referendum of businesses in those areas. My amendment would change this so that only established mayoral areas would be able to do so, but without the requirement for a referendum. This would align the economic growth policies of the mayoral tier with the fiscal incentives from a business rates supplement, as is the case in London. It would mean that the referendum requirement, which was put into the Localism Act 2011, would be withdrawn or would not apply. Crossrail has been a major success—everybody can see that. It has major benefits. I am sure that mayoral authorities, combined mayoral authorities and so on will want to see the sorts of improvement that have been gained from Crossrail spread more widely across the country.

I argue that we should lift those restrictions so that mayors can get on with delivering for their areas. This cuts to the point on central funding that the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, talked about. Most local government services are, in the majority, centrally funded, but that was not always the case. I think back to my time as a borough councillor in the early 1980s, when much more of the revenue was raised locally through business rates and rates on properties. That gave us more autonomy and more freedom, and it meant that local people could see that their local authority was spending their money. That increased the level of interest in local elections, which I believe is a very positive thing. I therefore hope that this will get some favour from the Minister, and that colleagues will find this an interesting solution to local financial support for combined mayoral authorities.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad that I am following the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, because I could not disagree more with his Amendment 196C. When I was the leader of a district authority, we had control over the business rates, and we were able to get full reliefs to the last pub, shop or community sporting club in a village with a population of less than 3,000. That was the source of a huge community empowerment. The effect of the noble Lord’s amendment would be another nail in the coffin for rural pubs and small businesses, and I reject it on that basis. I will also speak to my own Amendment 256A, which is a rag bag. We are talking about Clause 56 at the moment, but this would go right at the end, beyond Clause 85; perhaps I should have asked for it to be de-grouped, but here we are.

My amendment is consistent with the Government’s Clause 11, which relates to constraining the council tax-raising ability of the larger, newly created mayoral combined authorities. But I am looking at the other end of the spectrum, because I am concerned that, following local government reorganisation, the former district councils, which are currently defined as “billing authorities” under the Local Government Finance Act 1992, will disappear. In Section 39(2), they will become local precepting authorities. In other words, the district council, once abolished, will be converted to a third-tier parish or town council. This will affect places like King’s Lynn, a historic county borough; cathedral cities like Norwich or Oxford; county towns like Ipswich and Chelmsford; and coastal communities like Hastings, Eastbourne and Great Yarmouth.

Some of these places have large populations—for example, Norwich City Council, when it is abolished, will have a population of more than 150,000—and there will be lots of new large locals formed. The problem is that the majors are constrained in their ability to put up council tax—5%—but the locals are not. This amendment would change the definition of “local precepting authority” to include authorities with a population below 49,999. Where a local precepting authority exceeds 50,000, it would become a major precepting authority for the purposes of raising council tax and be subject to the same rules as other larger councils.

Of course, it is not just the former billing authorities that will flip into parishes; the former boundaries that flowed from the hundreds, the poor law unions, the urban and rural district councils, and the predecessors of the county boroughs in the Reform Act 1832 will disappear. This is why my amendment proposes a size scale, rather than being limited solely to the former district councils. These places will be joining that benighted club: Salisbury, Shrewsbury and Scarborough, which have all fallen out of previous rounds of LGR and must now stand on their own two feet in the sense that, unlike their predecessor billing authority constructions, they will get no formula grant in the future; they will need to earn what they spend.

We already know already that over 100 councils, existing principal authorities, want exceptional financial support this year as the Government shamelessly tilt the formula away from being population based. That is a denial of the simple truth that people consume services that need to be paid for and that it is more expensive to deliver them in the countryside, but that is a debate for another time.

But, under LGR, there will be a powerful incentive for authorities to cost-shunt the most expensive things to these newly created third-level authorities to get the liabilities off their books and on to the small fry. I am thinking of leisure centres, municipal theatres, parks and open spaces, youth groups, civic activity, and community pride events such as carnivals and festivals.

My wife was a parish clerk for over 10 years in a small parish with 500 souls, spending about £3,000 a year, so I know the value of what these unsung volunteers—real community champions—in parish councils can achieve. But I am focusing on the new large class of parish, town or even small city authority, with plenty of staff, plant and equipment, miles away from that “Vicar of Dibley” stereotype.

These residents need protecting from unconstrained tax rises, cost shunts from principal authorities and the smaller populations being made to afford the costs of facilities that have been previously amortised over a much larger canvas—that hinterland of surrounding parishes where people are able to chip in. This is not an idle concern. The noble Baroness has certainly mentioned Salisbury before, which has let rip. Its precept is up 44% in just four years. Its own website tells long-suffering residents that their council tax is the highest in Wiltshire. At £383 for band D, it is over twice the level of my own district council. I have looked at Shrewsbury. Following LGR, its parishioners’ band D is up 218% in 10 years—although I will concede that, at £87, it appears to be offering slightly better value for money. To those against my amendment, I say: look to Shrewsbury, because limiting council tax in these third-tier authorities can be done.

I have also looked at Stevenage, which is likely to be consumed and subsumed into the larger construct—taking power further away from residents and damaging the distinct identity that came from it being the first post-war new town, alongside all the other accoutrements. It is funny how all my examples begin with an S. In Stevenage, the band D was raised by just 3% to £246.41. If it carries on like Salisbury, a band D in Stevenage would pay £354 by 2030—a raise of nearly 50% or over £100.

We must be clear that these are burdens in addition to the new mayoralties that will be created—the huge new bureaucracies with the ability to raise precepts for things they are not even responsible for. There will be new mayoral CIL on top of existing CIL and new authorities where the effects of council tax equalisation within the canvas have not even been ventilated yet, and the costs of LGR have not been determined. We know it is going be subject to at least a £1 billion black hole from the accelerated pension strain costs.

Do not let the Government tell you there will be fewer layers; there will be more and at more cost. The public will be rinsed by LGR. People will pay more for less—that much is certain—but my amendment would at least seek to constrain those billing authorities that are already principal authorities and are constrained in their ability to raise council tax. That will still apply to them when they are transmogrified into third-tier councils, to make sure they cannot do a Salisbury too. That is right not only by residents but by the authorities, because as they approach this forced reorganisation, which will see a transfer of assets, they will know by this amendment that there is not a blank cheque. It will sharpen the minds.

This is not a dig at parish councils or the third tier. They do a lot of valuable work at a level that is closest to the people, but I have got their back, because it will stop those councils with the broadest shoulders from imposing liabilities and cast-offs on to those with the most limited means. That is an essential safeguard if the community empowerment part of this Bill is not to be undermined. I would be creating equity between the cathedral cities, the market towns, the new towns and so forth, so that council tax after LGR does not become an intolerable burden for those who live within the cities and provide perverse incentives for those just outside to become free riders.

I know the Minister is concerned about this and we have spoken for some time about it. I have suggested a £50,000 threshold in Committee, but as we move to Report I would be open to saying that perhaps there should be a £1 million precept or some other measure. But we have to have a measure between the small and the major authorities to protect parishes from having their leg lifted and, in turn, protect their residents from being rinsed.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down, I would like to clarify something. You cannot compare Salisbury as it is now to Salisbury as it was before as a district council. It was a far larger area; it was Sailsbury and south Wiltshire, not just Salisbury city.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th January 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and my noble friend Lord Pitkeathley, I have added my name to Amendment 72 and the others already spoken to by my noble friend Lord Harris.

I have to say only two things. These amendments would provide the appropriate vehicle, as some of the tasks that fall within London are cross-borough. A lot of tasks and responsibilities fall to the GLA, and some fall quite clearly to the boroughs, but some are cross-borough. It is important that we have the correct vehicle for that to happen, both for statutory consultations and, as has already been mentioned, to make it possible to spend money in that way, rather than it having to be funnelled through a particular lead borough. It is therefore useful and probably necessary.

I do not agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, said about it being another level of government. That is absolutely not the intention. There is a non-statutory vehicle there, which is immensely useful, but there are a couple of things that it cannot do. It seems to me that defining it in statute would fill a gap and would be better for the people and boroughs of London.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I am not a London councillor, nor am I a vice-president of the Local Government Association, so I suppose I have a bit of an independent view here. I am just a provincial councillor from Norfolk. However, I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. It is time to have a look at governance in London, because 32 plus one is quite a lot. There is also an assembly and a mayor—arguably, London is over-governed.

It is time to have a look at this, because it is out of kilter with elsewhere. Outside the M25, the Government are proceeding on the basis that all local authorities must be half a million people or more, covering huge territories. Norfolk, where I come from, has over 900 parishes. It is 85 miles wide and 40 miles long. If you were to start here in Westminster and then travel down to the south coast, the width of Norfolk would take you 30 miles past Brighton and out into the English Channel before it ran out. That is the size and scale of the territories we have in the shires. In Norfolk, over 9,000 electors are needed to elect a councillor. In Essex and Kent, it is between 12,000 and 15,000. In London, just 3,108 electors are required to elect a borough councillor—and of course there are other representatives too. These London boroughs are much smaller territories and much more tightly defined—they do not have 900 parishes. As a result, not only is democratic representation diluted to an unacceptable extent outside the M25, but we end up with the nonsense of the borough bike wars. If you ride a Lime or a Forest, there is an inexplicable invisible line in the middle of the road that applies the brakes as you ride up the King’s Road.

London is overrepresented; there are more councils and more councillors. In fact, there are more councillors within the M25 than in all the county councils of England. This review should happen. I associate myself with the remarks of the London councillors who have spoken. You cannot reorganise local government everywhere else and leave London to sit it out. That is not good for democracy, councils, governance or the country, and it certainly is not good for the principle of equality of democratic representation.

In the other place, all the constituencies have been equalised, plus or minus 5,000, so that there is an equality of representation. The value of everybody’s vote is the same, wherever you are in the United Kingdom. In London, because of the excess number of councils and councillors, the vote representation is up to five times greater than it is outside the M25. That alone should be an example and a reason to go into a governance review. London cannot just sit it out any more while, elsewhere, there is wholesale reorganisation.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I too have a history in London local government, though nothing like as illustrious as that of my noble friend Lady O’Neill or the noble Lord, Lord Tope. I was a councillor for 28 years, in a borough that has been Conservative for 60 years. I am looking forward to it continuing to be Conservative for another four, or indeed 40, years, so that it reaches its centenary as a Conservative-held borough. I was a member of the executive of London Councils, and chairman of the transport and environment committee of London Councils for a number of years.

That is probably half my speech, and I only felt obliged to make it so as to keep up with the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and all the others who have recited their credentials for participating in this brief debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my opposition to Clause 16 standing part of the Bill. It in no way conflicts with the series of amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, so ably presented by my noble friend Lady O’Neill. I agree with the thrust of all she said. There is no doubt that, if Clause 16 is to be sustained, improvements to it, alongside those in the government amendments, would be useful. However, I do not favour that approach. I just do not believe that any part of Clause 16, which amounts to an unjustifiable fettering of the electorate—elect a good candidate or otherwise hand it to an elected mayor in office—should be sustained. Therefore, none of it should stand part.

The public are tiring of funny business in elections. I have laid amendments to later parts of the Bill that would make the cancellation of local council, mayoral and PCC elections illegal without the super-affirmative procedure, which would require a vote in both Houses. Labour is playing fast and loose with democracy—a cancellation of a vote here and a postponement there, asking those with the most to lose whether they would like to stay a little longer, and bogus capacity excuses from councils that do not even run the elections. We read today in the Daily Telegraph a Labour NEC member of many years standing disclosing threats with menaces to Labour council leaders to connive to strip the franchise from more than 4 million electors this May.

When I was a young man, my noble friend Lord Pickles told me, “If you don’t trust the folks, don’t go into politics”. He was right then, and that advice is still correct today; it should never go out of fashion. We need to encourage as many people as possible to serve the public at every level. In my public life in local government, I took the view that I did not have the time to be a double hatter, or even triple hatter, by seeking to serve my community as a parish, district and county councillor—combining it with a business career was quite enough for me—but that is not how it is for others.

The fundamental principle here is that the public should get to choose their elected representatives. If somebody wishes to serve at more than one level, that option should be available to them, but they should be accountable to the electorate, not anyone else. It is the public’s choice. We often have people who serve at more than one level, amplifying the experience they gain at one level to the benefit of another; that was not for me, but it worked well for others.

I listened carefully to what my noble friend said, but Clause 16 is nothing more than a grubby stitch-up to prevent the public having their free say. It would stain a banana republic for certain citizens to be denied the chance to stand, especially those who had demonstrated a track record of success. I have not had time to consult my noble and learned friends but I am sure that I could get an advisory opinion that such action is contrary to international law. You would think that that would be enough to put the black spot on it, but not for this Government.

I sense that, in drafting Clause 16, there was some intent to prevent my noble friend, who served with distinction as mayor in the north-east—and whom the public elected once, then again—standing as a mayor and being in the legislature. It might have been the case that, as in the last Parliament, a county council leader is also an MP. In those cases, the Bill would force that person to choose, but, if you believe in democracy, it is not for him to make that choice—it is for the public, via the ballot box. Clause 16 is state overreach and a case of party-political interference. That why it should be deleted. I read the newspapers and have been in politics long enough to know what is going on here.

It transpired in the past week that the Labour Party’s own internal rules prevent a Labour mayor from sitting in Parliament. That is a choice for Labour and one that should be available to other parties, but it is not a compulsion to be forced on parties that have a different outlook and better principles. Do not just take my word for it. There are others who cherish democracy more than this Government. The Electoral Commission and the Speaker of the other place have had cause to criticise the debased commitment to the sanctity of the vote. We heard from the Prime Minister himself earlier this week that the reason why the Mayor of Manchester cannot stand in this mother of Parliaments is that it is part of Labour’s rules and has nothing to do with the candidate’s suitability—it makes no judgment on whether the candidate has the appropriate experience. No, the Prime Minister told us that the decision was driven solely by the unwelcome financial cost to the Labour Party of running a second-order mayoral election—so not by statute but by internal rules, which we all know change from time to time. That was coupled with the inconvenience of spreading more thinly the campaigning capacity of Labour’s demoralised and depleted activists.

The Government may have thought that they were being clever with Clause 16, by preventing local leaders from exercising national influence, but they have been pricked by the back-draught from the good folk of Gorton and Denton, which tells me that there is widespread support for the notion that Clause 16 should be excised from this Bill. The public know a lemon when they see one. The former Deputy Prime Minister, who introduced this Bill in the other place, now appears to have a case of buyer’s remorse, as the measures that she published are now being used to deny her Manchester mate from putting himself forward to the voters. That is some irony: it is not just back-draught; it is blowback. Of course, in the case of the Manchester man, that is for future service. However, I am anxious that in other cases there might be a question of retrospection. My noble friend highlighted Johnson and Khan, which is a case in point.

When I was the leader of the council in South Norfolk, which is an electoral authority, I was always careful, in so far as elections were concerned, to separate my role as leader of the controlling group from the administration and operation of the election and electoral matters. If successive returning officers who served me were here, they would confirm that approach. However, that is not how it works in Clause 16. The Prime Minister told us that he would put country before party, but those who continue to promote this Bill clearly did not get the memo, because Clause 16 is about putting the wants of the Labour Party before of the needs of the electorate. It prevents the electorate from having their say on who should be elected, especially somebody who has done rather well in one area of politics and who might do well in the other. It is an abuse of the people, the law and democracy.

We have heard it said that your Lordships’ House is standing in the way of the will of the Government and somehow it is improper and, as a result, we need to be reformed. However, with these amendments, we show that noble Lords are standing up for democracy and community empowerment. The denial of a free vote on candidates is the pure expression of community disempowerment. Labour should be ashamed of itself for Clause 16. It does not trust the folks, as my noble friend Lord Pickles advised all those years ago. No, for them, it is party first and public second. This clause proves this, which is why it must go.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

Can I just make a brief statement? While it is right and proper that each and every amendment and clause is debated, I deeply regret how party-political the last two contributions have been. What we are all doing here is trying to do the best for this country and not make these things party-political. I deeply regret some of the comments that have been made by people opposite.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I am sorry if the noble Baroness regrets those, but the facts stand. A mayor who has done a rather good job in one part of the country is now going to be prevented from standing as a result of applying Labour’s rules for all the other parties. That is a statement of fact. I do not deny that Labour has the right to have its internal rules, but those rules should not be forced on all the other parties. I am sorry that the noble Baroness feels that way, but that is how we in the other political parties feel when another party’s internal rules are applied to everyone else. It is anti-democratic. As I say, I am sorry that she feels that way, but the feeling is equal on this side of the Committee. That should be placed on the record, too.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, these have been an interesting set of interventions. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that it is important that party-political contributions are kept to an absolute minimum when we are debating a Bill.

There is a basic issue in this group. The public have a right to expect that elected individuals do not end up with two jobs: being a mayor and being an MP. In some circumstances, it might be possible for the electorate to knowingly vote for that. However, that would be most unlikely to be the case. There is a question as to where, geographically speaking, the mayor might be the MP; it might be within the mayoral authority and it might be elsewhere. Either way, there is a clear conflict of interest, because Parliament judges the allocation of funding, for example, to the mayoral authority.

I do not think that you can have one person doing two jobs. Amendments 76 and others in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, would allow that, for whatever period, there could be an overlap of both mayor and MP retaining both offices. To be absolutely clear, we think that that is wrong. I say to the Minister that these matters are important and should not be for political parties to judge alone. It should instead be clearly understood that, when people have been elected to one of the posts, they should carry out the responsibilities that they have been given by the general public.

On Tuesday, I said that if, in a mayoral authority, there had been a large number of commissioners appointed by the mayor but then that mayor decided to become a Member of Parliament, he or she would leave the mayoralty and, as the Bill is currently drafted, all the commissioners would lose their jobs as a consequence. When politicians are elected to a job, they must see the job through and do it to the best of their ability, given that the public have expressed confidence in them doing so. They have an obligation to fulfil their contract with the electorate.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a brief comment on Amendment 196B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, which is worth discussing further, especially given how it fits with Amendment 191 from the Lord, Lord Bichard, which I strongly support.

The question I asked myself, perhaps trying to anticipate the Minister’s response, was: would it duplicate existing audit and scrutiny arrangements? I came to the conclusion that I do not believe that it would. Audit answers the questions of whether the accounts were properly kept and whether the acceptable processes and procedures were legally carried out. But this amendment addresses a different and much more important question: is public money being spent effectively across the whole system? Audit is retrospective, siloed and looks at individual organisations after the event. Local public accounts committees, as proposed in this amendment, would look across organisations in real time. They would look at how councils, mayors and public service partners are actually working together—they are not the same things.

The Bill deliberately—and correctly, in my view—will push power and spending into shared collaborative arrangements, but our scrutiny remains fragmented, organisation by organisation. This mismatch is the gap that Amendment 191 would fill. Without it, no one body would be clearly responsible for asking very basic questions such as: is it the case that joint working is working? Is it delivering value? Are overlapping budgets aligned with agreed priorities? Are partnerships working as intended? Audit does not do that—and scrutiny committees, as currently structured, will struggle to do that.

In contrast, this amendment would enable that. It is not more bureaucracy; it is better oversight. It is not another unnecessary new layer. The amendment is enabling, not prescriptive, and it allows Ministers to integrate these committees within existing audit and scrutiny frameworks. It provides coherence and not clutter, and in fact good system-level scrutiny actually reduces duplication by exposing it.

My main reason for supporting the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, is that devolution without strong, visible accountability risks undermining public confidence. If power and money are exercised at a mayoral strategic level, scrutiny must exist at that same level. Otherwise, we are asking people to trust structures they cannot see being properly examined.

In conclusion, Amendment 191 strengthens the Bill by aligning power, spending and accountability. It complements audit and scrutiny; it does not replace them. In fact, the financial cost of not having effective system-wide scrutiny could lead to duplicated programmes, misaligned budgets and failed collaboration, which will almost certainly cost a lot more than the modest investment required to make this work well. For these reasons, I hope that the Minister will give both ideas serious consideration.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I support the principle of Amendment 191 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. I observe that, for the first time, we are bringing local, parish and community councils substantially into scope, for I believe that the definitions provided in Amendment 191 will do so. What has not been fully understood is that one of the second-order effects of the Bill is that it will create a significant number of larger community councils as a result.

As a result of local government reorganisation, large numbers of cities, such as Oxford, Exeter and Norwich, and former county boroughs, such as Ipswich, Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn, which have been billing authorities hitherto, will now fall into the lower tier of local authorities. Those authorities have no constraint or cap on the amount of council tax that they can raise. In Salisbury, they have jacked up council tax by 44% in the past four years—they have let rip, and it is not good enough. There has been no scrutiny, there has been cost shunting, and the council tax payers have paid more.

I have laid amendments, which we will discuss later, that will make provision for those larger smaller authorities to fall under the constraints that all the other authorities will have. I do not seek to fetter the smallest parish council, but if you have a population that hitherto has been part of a billing authority, it is right that they should be constrained going forward, as they have in the past.

I am not sure that I entirely welcome all the provisions in Amendment 191 on local public accounts committees, but the amendment shines a light for the first time on where we will go with these smaller community parish councils. There is merit in the thrust of what has been proposed here. I wait to hear how the Minister reacts to what constraints will be placed on this new class of large parish or town council as a result of the changes proposed in the Bill.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I will take a step back to reflect on what this debate is really about. It is not simply about committees, processes or institutional design—it is about trust that power, once devolved, will be exercised well; trust that decisions will be open to challenge; and trust that the public will be able to see how and why those decisions are taken.

Amendment 53, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, speaks directly to that question. The requirement for mayors to establish scrutiny committees for commissioners recognises a simple but important truth: as we add layers of responsibility and delegation within combined county authorities, scrutiny cannot remain an afterthought. If commissioners are to exercise real influence, there must be clear, visible and credible mechanisms through which their actions can be examined, questioned and, where necessary, challenged. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain how the Government envisage scrutiny operating in practice where commissioners are appointed and whether they are confident that existing arrangements will suffice.

Amendment 191 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard proposes local public accounts committees. The noble Lord has raised a very important point: there has been a tremendous amount of devolution, just not to local government but to unelected quangos and devolved bodies. Anyone who has led a council will tell you how much difficulty they have trying to get those bodies to do things that are best for the local area because they have to report to Whitehall. This is an interesting proposal to try to oblige those bodies to work together with local government. I do not seek to speak specifically to that design—more to question of principle, because it goes back to the heart of scrutiny as we have more devolution and deal with these other devolved bodies. How will the Government ensure that appropriate scrutiny happens across an area where not only the combined authority but those other bodies are essential to deliver some of those services? As I said, local public accounts committees are one possible solution, and I am very interested in seeing what the Government’s suggestion on that is.

I also press the Minister on a number of broader points. First, has the department assessed whether existing local scrutiny arrangements are adequate for the scale and complexity of devolved expenditure now envisaged? Secondly, what assessment of the fiscal governance risks that arise when large multiyear funding settlements are devolved without strengthened independent financial oversight at the local level? As was raised earlier, how do the Government intend to identify problems earlier rather than having the audit function of explaining what went wrong afterwards?

Thirdly, I would be grateful if the Minister could address the question of cost—not simply its narrow budgetary terms but the strategic ones. If the Government do not believe that local public accounts committees are the right answer, what is the solution? If we are serious about devolving power, responsible scrutiny must sit alongside it, not trail behind it.

Local Government (Exclusion of Non-commercial Considerations) (England) Order 2026

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I will take away the issue that the noble Lord has raised, review it and write to him on it, but it looks clear to me that the order says

“where there are two or more relevant authorities which intend to enter into a relevant contract … the areas of those authorities, or … the areas specified in (i) and any of the areas of the counties or London boroughs that border those areas”.

I think that it is clear, but I will take it back, review it and come back to the noble Lord.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, has spoken in the debate.