Local Government Reorganisation

Debate between Alison McGovern and James Cleverly

Thursday 26th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for tabling the urgent question and you, Mr Speaker, for the—[Interruption.] I am always happy to be at the Dispatch Box; I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. I would like to thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to set out the latest steps in local government reorganisation.

For too long, many areas have been served by complex two-tier structures that divide responsibilities, slow down decisions, duplicate costs and blur accountability. The Government’s aim on local government reorganisation is simple: clearer structures, stronger councils, quicker decisions, more homes and better services for local people. We are getting on with delivering that aim.

Yesterday the Secretary of State announced the next steps on local government reorganisation in six areas of England. He has decided, subject to parliamentary approval, to implement proposals for 15 new councils in Essex, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock; Hampshire, Southampton and Portsmouth; Norfolk; and Suffolk. In addition to the Isle of Wight, that will see 16 councils operating across these areas in place of the current 44. The proposals are supported by two thirds of councils within these areas and many local communities. They will help to expand key towns and cities, deliver housing and growth, and simplify public services for residents. We will bring forward the secondary legislation to implement the proposals for the new local councils in due course.

On East Sussex and Brighton and Hove, and West Sussex, we have carefully considered the four proposals submitted alongside the views expressed during the consultation, but no final decision has been taken at this stage, reflecting the need to address a number of important matters. Proposed modifications will form the basis of a further technical consultation to be carried out after the May local elections, which will allow councils and partners to provide focused views before any final decisions are taken. Taking the time to get this right now provides the strongest foundations for delivery, supporting improvements to people’s lives in the places where they live and enabling councils to operate effectively from day one.

We have set out the timetable, with elections to new unitary councils taking place in 2027 ahead of them going live in April 2028. Reorganisation for the benefit of all residents is a shared endeavour, and we will continue to work with councils to see that these reforms are implemented with the interests of residents at heart.

[Sir James Cleverly]

People will ask whether this is an act of gross gerrymandering and political opportunism or an act of gross incompetence and stupidity, but I can inform the House that it is both. There is no mandate for this; there was nothing in Labour’s manifesto. It is an imposition from Whitehall. If the Government were so proud of this work, why did they try to sneak it out in a written ministerial statement and have to be dragged to the Dispatch Box to justify their decisions?

Unlike the hon. Lady, I have spoken to local government leaders in the areas affected. They were presented with a plan and told to comply—the outcome was predetermined. This is a stitch-up. Labour is redrawing boundaries from the centre and overriding local identity and local consent to maximise party political advantage.

The Government have announced £63 million for this transformation, yet it turns out that that is the same £63 million that they have already committed to deal with the consequence of their botched attempt to cancel local elections. How can they now claim that that money will fund wholesale reorganisation?

The Government are telling well-run councils to subsidise poorly run councils. Money that should be filling potholes will actually be filling black holes; resources that should be for collecting waste and supporting vulnerable residents will instead be diverted into restructuring and bureaucracy. Estimates point to a borrowing requirement because of these changes running into the hundreds of millions of pounds, potentially approaching £1 billion, all to fund their vanity project, and the cost will fall on local people.

I have some questions for the Minister. How can she claim that this reorganisation is locally led when it is being imposed on communities? Why are Ministers determining the boundaries rather than the independent boundary commission? What estimates will be made of the total borrowing requirement? How much money has been set aside for the inevitable judicial reviews that will flood out after this announcement?

This is not reform, but vandalism; it is not empowerment, but imposition. It is local people who will pay the price for this Government’s incompetence and arrogance.

[Alison McGovern]

Nobody could accuse the right hon. Gentleman of not saying what he really thinks about the proposals; I am glad that he had the opportunity to do that. He asked about proposals being locally led. Of course, all the proposals have been put forward by the areas they affect. Residents and others had their chance to feed into the consultation, and we weighed those consultation responses alongside other factors that he will be aware of. He mentioned some of them, including finances.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the Boundary Commission. Officials have engaged with it extensively. I have met it to talk through the process, and I am confident that it can do the work needed to make the process a success. Finally, on finances, I have spent the past six months or so listening, day after day, to councils that have deficits caused by a failure in the special educational needs and disabilities system, a failure in children’s care and a failure in adult social care, presided over by a Government of which he was an active part, so if I was him, I would be cautious about lecturing other people about council borrowing.

Local Elections: Cancellation

Debate between Alison McGovern and James Cleverly

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government if he will make a statement on the cancellation of scheduled local government elections in May 2026.

[The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. We are undertaking a once-in-a-generation reorganisation of local government. We have now received proposals from all areas, and from councils across the political spectrum. For decades, the two-tier council system, where it still exists, has made local government more complicated and more bureaucratic than it needs to be. This Government are bold enough to change that.

We will put in place single-tier councils everywhere by the end of this Parliament. That will mean faster local decisions to build homes and grow our towns and cities. It will bring services such as housing and social care under one roof, making them more effective and responsive to what communities need, and it will end the duplication that sees two sets of chief executives and two sets of councillors, which creates confusion and waste for local taxpayers. This is a proven model, and when we change to unitaries, we never hear calls for a return to two-tier local government.

On 18 December I updated the House on our plans to seek councils’ views on their elections in May. There is clear precedent for postponing elections due to local government reorganisation—the previous Government postponed many elections between 2019 and 2022 in order to smooth the transition to new councils. I therefore wrote to 63 councils undergoing reorganisations with elections in May to ask them if postponing their elections could release essential capacity to deliver reorganisation and to allow it to progress effectively. It is only right that we listen to councils when they express concerns about their capacity. Local leaders know their areas best and are best placed to judge their own capacity. As we have said, should a council say that it has no reason to delay, we will listen; if a council voices genuine concerns, we will take those seriously.

We are running a legally robust and fair process, and all representations are now being considered before decisions are made. The Secretary of State has written to four councils to ask for more clarity on their position by 10 am tomorrow. These councils are Essex county council, Norfolk county council, Oxford city council and Southampton city council. As I have said, no decisions have been made, but we want to make them as quickly as possible in order to give councils certainty, and we will update Parliament on those decisions in the usual way.

[Sir James Cleverly]

This Government have moved seamlessly from arrogance to incompetence, and now to cowardice. Some 3.7 million people are being denied the right to vote. It was the Government who rushed through a huge programme of local government reorganisation, imposing new structures and timetables, and it is the Government who are failing to deliver them. Rather than take responsibility for their own failure, the Secretary of State has chosen to dump the consequences of their incompetence on to the laps of local councils.

The Government’s own local election strategy said:

“The right to participate in our democracy…should not be taken for granted.”

Cancelling elections was not part of that strategy. The Electoral Commission has been clear that the scheduled elections should go ahead as planned and that capacity constraints are not a legitimate reason for delay. Why was the Electoral Commission not consulted on these cancellations? Why is this being done at the last possible moment? Do the Government accept the Gould principle that at least six months’ notice should be given for any changes to election administration?

Ministers say that they are following the wishes of local councils, and the Minister said at the Dispatch Box that the Secretary of State has written to, among others, Essex county council. The leader of Essex county council has been clear that these elections should go ahead, yet the Secretary of State still cites Essex, among others, to justify the cancellations. It is all well and good for the Secretary of State to write to councils basically to ask them the same question, but they have already given an answer. When does the Secretary of State intend to lay the statutory instruments for these areas, and does he think it is appropriate to use secondary legislation under the Local Government Act 2000? Did Parliament really allow Ministers to run scared and cancel elections at will?

I have always said that these elections should go ahead, but the Secretary of State was the one who called these elections “pointless”, so why does he not have the courage of his own convictions, take responsibility for his own ineptitude and stop laying the blame on local councils?

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making those points, which I will certainly relay to the Secretary of State so that he can take them under advisement. We wrote to notify the Electoral Commission, and we are grateful for its ongoing engagement. We will certainly have regard to all views and representations made, including those of the Electoral Commission, but this is fundamentally about local councils and their capacity, and that is why we have asked for representations from them.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the Gould principle. That principle is underpinned by the need for certainty, so if there are technical changes, those responsible for the delivery of elections have time to adapt, but this is not about technical changes. We are listening to councils’ views about their capacity in the context of local government reorganisation.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman asked when the Secretary of State will make decisions. We have moved quickly to get these representations from councils, and the Secretary of State will make a decision as soon as he possibly can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the attention and care that he gives to these issues. He gives me the opportunity to come back to the underlying reason for this whole process, which is reorganisation to get councils in a good position. In those areas that are undergoing reorganisation, once we have got the new institutions set up, which we are doing without delay, people will be able to elect representatives to those new institutions. That is what happened when we had reorganisation previously—as has been mentioned, this process has been gone through recently—and it will mean that people can elect their councillors, and have their say about the kind of public services they want in their area.

[Sir James Cleverly]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Minister referred earlier, and did so again in her final comments, to the cancellation or delay of the 2020 local government elections as being justified by the reorganisation of local government. That is a factual error; they were, quite unambiguously, delayed because we were in the middle of a global pandemic. How is it best to correct the record with regard to the reason those elections were delayed?