Local Elections

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. I am always willing to come before the House and explain the impact of our programmes on local government. We remain committed to extending devolution to all corners of England. Under the last Government, we had a patchy and inconsistent approach, which meant that some areas were moving forward quickly on this and others had not even started the journey. Our commitment is to extend that devolution to all corners of England. We confirmed on 4 December the long-term funding offer for the six areas on the devolution priority programme, and we have committed close to £200 million collectively per year for 30 years to those new mayoral strategic authorities—some of that funding will be released earlier. This is really important. In my long experience in local government, we have put off these decisions around local government for far too long, and we have ended up with local government that is not sustainable for the long term. It is time to change that now, and I am committed to doing that. I am happy to report back to the House on how that is going.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I declare an interest in that the Green Party candidates were already working hard in these four elections and at least two of them had a good chance of winning next year. The MHCLG has said that Ministers still intend to lay the statutory instruments for the creation of the four mayoral strategic authorities as soon as possible to allow an interim period of preparation before the delayed mayoral elections. These areas will, at that time, have access to some powers, functions and funding. Will the Government clarify what this means in practice and what powers and functions will be available during the interim period?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Yes, I am very happy to do that. The strategic authorities are being set up and we will have no delay in laying the statutory instruments—it is very important that those statutory instruments go ahead as quickly as possible. Those mayoral strategic authorities will have a number of functions available in the interim period to their mayoral election to make sure that they are working to encourage the investment that we all want in their areas. I will write to the noble Baroness with the detail but, just to run through quickly, they will have a general power of competence; a duty to develop a local growth plan; power to pay grants to constituent councils; power to borrow to an agreed cap; adult skills function powers; a health improvement and health inequalities duty; functions to acquire land, provide housing and build infrastructure; and responsibility for public transport and local transport planning. There is a lot for them to be getting on with.