English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Lord Gascoigne and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Committee stage
Monday 9th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak to my Amendment 185. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, with his rallying cry, and I hope that at least he supports what I am seeking to do with this amendment.

To me, a simple yet essential principle that I want to introduce is that devolution means real devolution—something that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, called for just then. I do not believe that you can say that you are meaningfully devolving a function while keeping the real authority and, crucially, the purse strings firmly in Whitehall. If you want to hand down power, you should not simultaneously hold on to it; you need to have a clean break and hand it over. With this amendment, I want to try to find a way to make real devolution happen.

As noble Lords know and as the Government were talking about only the other day, there has been a lot of coverage of and praise from the Government for their one-in, one-out approach to illegal migration. But I would like to propose a different one, one that perhaps works; it should be not just one in, one out, but one down, one out. When a function is devolved, it should be removed from central government entirely, except when the narrowest oversight is essential from central government or where there are international obligations. Without such a safeguard put into the Bill, we risk creating a system that is not devolved but duplicated with two bodies—or in some circumstances more than two—allegedly doing exactly the same thing, at the same time.

I say this because I come at it from the point of view that the public just want things to work. They want to know who is responsible and for them to just get on with it. I fear that, under the Bill as drafted, we risk a situation where powers are described as devolved, yet Ministers in departments in Whitehall still retain the same functions.

I was reading a brilliant book the other day, which I highly recommend, called the Unaccountability Machine by a chap called Dan Davies. He uses many examples from around the world when he talks about accountability sinks. I fear that the Bill is doing exactly the same, and the result is confusion, overlap and a lack of clarity about who is actually in charge. In some circumstances, it can be even worse: where accountability is not clear, decision-making becomes risk-averse or, at times, paralysed altogether. When no one is clearly responsible, no one feels empowered to act. Everyone waits for someone else to take the lead or people just assume, as perhaps is human nature, that it is someone else’s job.

It is easy for the Bill to lead people to think that the local authority will deliver a service now, only for the local authority then to say that they cannot deliver it, because the powers still lie in Whitehall. My real concern is that the result will be delay, drift and, ultimately, failure to deliver for the very people that the Bill is supposed to help.

I reassure noble Lords that I am not being melodramatic and I am certainly not game playing as, from looking at the Bill, there are three areas that could be used as examples of where this would happen. The Bill requires strategic authorities to produce local growth plans, to take responsibility for regeneration and to address health inequalities. We have talked about these objectives many times, including at Second Reading, and we support them all, but the broad powers and money to deliver them are not being handed down at the same time. They will remain in Whitehall.

Housing is something that we all talk about, which is covered a lot in the Bill. I know that the Minister is doing a huge amount on this in the department, not just on this Bill but in many other areas. But, if we want to build more homes, devolution means it should not be done just through the prism of national targets and central grants; we should be looking to empower and incentivise local authorities more by automatically giving them a fairer share of the revenue generated locally and the flexibility to deliver what they want. Let them feel the benefits of growth, and let them have ownership and buy-in. That will encourage them to do more.

On a related point, I know that the Committee has already talked about precepts and levies. The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, is not here, but I agree with his Amendment 135. It is entirely possible that there is a doubling up, where powers are held simultaneously both locally and nationally and people will be taxed twice for the same service. To me, that seems a little mad. If you want local leaders to sort these things out, give them the tools to let them get on and do it, because, as I say, the public just want clarity. They want to know who is responsible for what, and they want these things to happen and be fixed. They want a system where the body tasked with delivering an outcome actually has the authority and resources to deliver it. They want it to get on and deliver the outcome unhindered: “If it does not work, we can chuck it out at an election”.

So my amendment seeks to protect the taxpayer and the integrity of devolution. It would ensure that Whitehall thinks carefully before announcing that a function has been devolved. In this scenario, we would not need an army of folks in Whitehall second-guessing what local leaders are doing. Whitehall seems to be growing in number, yet local authorities are having to reduce their numbers because they are feeling the pinch. If we are serious about empowering these local areas, we should be serious about letting go of our powers at the same time. I know that the Minister cares about this, and I hope that we can find a way forward together.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

The noble Lord did not mention the questions of where the taxes are raised and who is responsible. For those of us on the Liberal Democrat Benches, the differences between decentralisation and devolution are tax and money. So long as the Treasury retains control of the spending, we will have only decentralisation. We will discuss some of the fiscal things in our next session, but, unless we address the question of fiscal devolution, we are not going anywhere much.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, it is a delight to kick off this group. I see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, leaving at this crucial moment. I know that there are lots of other people with amendments here, so I will not dwell too long on what I want to say. On my amendment, I believe it is reasonable and genuinely important that, before new powers are conferred on a strategic authority, the Secretary of State must be satisfied that the authority has a credible plan to improve local services, drive efficiency and deliver better value for money.

I was going to welcome back the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, but she seems to have dashed off as well. I confess that I was a little saddened on the first day of Committee, when I thought I could perhaps work with the Lib Dems, but they were not able to support one of my amendments that follows this vein. Given the breakout of love on that last group, I hope I can get their support. That was on Amendment 12, which sought to ensure that people receive the best possible service on the ground as part of that intended reorganisation. As I say, this is my second attempt to win them over.

I genuinely believe that, if we do not build in something along the lines of what I suggest in this amendment, we are effectively just rubber-stamping the creation of swathes of new authorities without requiring them first to demonstrate that they will spend the public’s money well, and without any obligation to show that things will improve. To be clear, my amendment here simply states that, when we create these new authorities—which we are in this Bill—we should do so with the taxpayer front and centre. After all, surely one of the main tenets of devolution is that not only do people have a greater say but they have a better service in their local area based upon local desire and need.

As part of the process of reorganisation, I am saying here that new authorities must develop a plan as part of that reorganisation, because I genuinely do not believe that there is any point in going through all this reorganisation, with all the costs, energy, rebadging, delays of elections, hirings and firings—you name it—if there is no guarantee or even a requirement or plan for services to improve as a result. I say to my Lib Dem amigos that, although their argument against my past amendment was that it was not in the vein of the Bill, if they feel this is not the right Bill, let us try to work together to make it better. Let us try to put devolution in and put local people front and centre.

If we are choosing to impose this system on the people, which we are, we have a responsibility to make sure that it works for them. It is worth stressing that point: we are forcing devolution on to the people—rightly or wrongly, whatever noble Lords’ views—so we have a duty of care, in my view. There is no choice in this matter. In this Bill, we are ultimately giving a blank cheque, with respect, to the Government, so I do not think there can be a credible objection to saying that we owe it to the people that services should improve before we do so. If the power to create these entities lies in the hands of the Secretary of State, surely he or she has a duty of care to ensure that what will now appear across the land will deliver and look after the people in those communities.

As I said on day one, we cannot trust that this will all be fine. Some local authorities are already working well and, for those people in those authorities, perhaps things will continue to work well or even improve. However, when we are forcing authorities to combine with perhaps less well-performing authorities, we again have a duty to the people on the ground before these changes happen. It forces everyone involved to deliver and to work up a plan in advance.

Finally, and briefly, I will not name names but it was suggested in Committee that, because I have worked in Downing Street, I perhaps have very skewed views when it comes to devolution. I do not. I assure the Whip that I am not going to err into a Second Reading speech, but my real concern with this entire Bill is that it completely misjudges what I think people want. For context, I grew up in a working-class family in a terraced house in East Lancs. It was a long time ago, but there were some issues and those issues remain. In many northern towns, there are some deep and real issues. Twenty years ago, there was some scepticism of politics and how London dominated everything—this was in Lancashire by the way, the right side of the border—and things needed to be fixed, yet nothing changed.

That feeling has grown. However, that desire for change does not, in my view, equate to local government reorganisation, nor wanting mayors for mayors’ sake. Respectfully, the reason I say that is, if we look at the polls and at what focus groups say—I will not be the first to say this—if we go outside Westminster, there is a world between what we think people think and what they actually think. People are not clamouring right now for tinkering, nor are the masses out there with their pitchforks demanding local government reorganisation, but there is a building, growing unease. It has not happened overnight or certainly not solely under this Government, but people are struggling. They are feeling ignored and let down, and they want things fixed.

I give one quick example. The other day, I stumbled across the Electoral Commission’s 2025 public attitude report—I highly recommend it—which states that:

“More people now believe Britain needs a strong leader willing to break the rules”.


A little later, it goes on:

“Support among Labour supporters rose from 27% to 38% following Labour’s victory”.


It has other breakdowns for other parties as well, but I will not go into that. To me, what that shows is exasperation. People want things fixed; they want things to happen.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who is sadly not in her place, talked about my views on levelling up. I worked for the guy who coined that phrase. We can have a debate about whether he did any good or not on that specific issue, but levelling up does not always mean devolution—certainly not this version. One of the many things that used to drive me into an absolute rage when I worked in Downing Street was that, whenever many in Westminster talked of devolution, it always felt that it was more Westminster, not devolution. The answer to everything seemed to be more structure, more governance and more politicians. We seem always to overlook the crucial thing, which is the people themselves. It is they who want things fixed and to work and, in my view, that is what levelling up is. That is also why I think we need to put something into this Bill that helps to deliver it and puts the people front and centre. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 187. There is a fair amount of agreement between myself and the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne—on both sides of the Pennines—about the nature of the problems. This is not a devolution Bill; it is a decentralisation Bill. The Government believe that delivery is what matters but have not yet understood that, unless the people on the ground are helped to understand why delivery is difficult and that they have some part in seeing what is delivered and in helping with delivery, they will not feel that it is them.

My amendment therefore starts from the need to re-establish public trust in the delivery of government on the ground, at the local level and, therefore, to provide a degree of financial transparency. Unless we have a more transparent process of fiscal negotiation about the distribution of funds between central and local government, we cannot succeed in improving the governance of England or in gaining the acceptance of people outside London and the south-east that the governance of England is fair.

There is a deep sense of disillusionment across the north of England that people have been neglected, that London does not understand them and that the Civil Service in London, as the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, said, has grown in the last 15 years while local government has languished and, in many cases, faced bankruptcy. The city of Bradford is not yet bankrupt but is struggling on the brink of it. We have to explain to local people why the services they used to have are no longer being provided. I challenge the Minister to explain how devolution, which helps to resolve the enormous crisis we have with public trust in our democratic politics, can take place without a more visible process of fiscal devolution, without beginning to reform local taxation and without Ministers as well as local council leaders explaining to their public what is and is not possible in strict financial terms.