Local Government Reorganisation

Lord John of Southwark Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have the greatest respect for Jonathan Carr-West and have worked with him on many occasions, but he has not seen the legal advice. It is a long-standing principle, as the right honourable Gentleman James Cleverly said at the other end—I could quote him if I had the quote in front of me—that the Government do not comment on or publish legal advice.

[Lord John of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the concerns expressed to me by colleagues in local government has been about the cost of preparing submissions and scoping work for local government reorganisation. My noble friend talked about the £63 million of additional funding that will go to local government to support it going forward. Can she give reassurance to those in local government that the £63 million will meet the costs that they are going to incur? As I say, some of the concerns expressed to me have been that previous government tranches of money have not met all the costs incurred.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I can reassure my noble friend that an unprecedented amount of funding has been provided to support the capacity that local councils will need to help them as they go through this transition process. It is important that we have also been working closely with those councils. I have done much of the engagement myself, and Minister McGovern has done an awful lot of engagement with councils as well. Our officials in the department have been hugely supportive to local government as they have gone through this process, so it is right that we provide some funding to support that as well. The £63 million is to undertake that reorganisation to support the implementation, and it will include those councils that have been impacted by the changes that were made on Monday.