Donations to Political Parties
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts(2 days, 23 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to respond to this QSD. As many Lords have said, it is timely indeed, as we are pleased to introduce the Representation of the People Bill today; I look forward to many further discussions as that Bill works its way through our House.
I thank my noble friend Lord Sikka for opening the debate, and other noble Lords for their contributions. My noble friend always brings an interesting approach to this subject. Although I do not quite share his conspiracy theory approach to matters, I would say, as a veteran of many elections, that the power of the vote is still as strong as ever. We all need to inspire confidence that the vote is mightier than the pound; I hope that we will all strive for that.
The speeches we have heard today illustrate a shared desire to protect our democracy from those who seek to disrupt it. We all know that this is a clear and present danger, which our Government are resolutely determined to tackle. The Government committed in their manifesto to strengthening the rules around donations to political parties, including enhanced safeguards against foreign donations. The threat of foreign interference is evolving and is becoming increasingly hostile and sophisticated, while the current rules are no longer sufficient to address these risks.
The Government take a zero-tolerance approach to foreign interference, and we cannot afford to wait. That is why the reforms set out today in the Representation of the People Bill put prevention first, reducing pressure on law enforcement, protecting parties from exploitation and delivering greater transparency and stronger safeguards against malign foreign actors. These reforms implement a number of recommendations made by stakeholders, including the Ethics and Integrity Commission, formerly the Committee on Standards in Public Life; the Electoral Commission; and the National Crime Agency.
I turn to the specific measures set out in the Bill. Current electoral law sets out who may donate and the basic checks that campaigners must make, but these rules no longer reflect modern anti-money laundering standards. So, we are strengthening the system by introducing new “know your donor” checks for donations over £11,180. I know that is a random amount: I did raise that. Recipients will now have to carry out a risk assessment, checking for signs of foreign or unlawful funding, before deciding whether to accept or return a donation.
Key stakeholders have warned that the current eligibility criteria for companies to donate are far too weak and expose political parties and other recipients to the risk of accepting foreign donations and proceeds of crime. This means that shell companies—companies that are registered today, owned by anyone and funded from anywhere, without a single day of trade—could donate to our political parties. That is why we are introducing new stringent eligibility criteria for companies wishing to make political donations. Companies will have to show sufficient revenue to cover their donation, be headquartered in the UK and be majority-owned or controlled by UK electors or citizens in order to be eligible to make a donation.
Stakeholders are also concerned that unincorporated associations could be used to funnel illegitimate foreign funding into our political system. Unincorporated associations can currently give large sums with limited transparency. This leaves clear vulnerability to foreign or illegitimate money, so we are tightening the rules. We are reducing the thresholds for when unincorporated associations must register with the Electoral Commission and for when unincorporated associations must report gifts to the Electoral Commission. We are also requiring unincorporated associations intending to make significant donations to check the permissibility of the political gifts they receive to ensure that they come from permitted UK sources. We are also reinforcing the principle that only permissible donors may fund UK politics.
Where illicit funds enter the system via impermissible donors, such as individuals not on the electoral register, they will be subject to full forfeiture, providing a clear deterrent and supporting compliance by political parties and campaigners. Beyond these measures, we will commence existing provisions in law, which will require anyone making contributions of more than £11,180 to declare any benefits linked to their donation. This will ensure that we can identify the true donor and prevent people acting as fronts for others. Forced declarations will be a criminal offence, supporting enforcement authorities to take action against illegal donations.
Robust regulation and enforcement of political finance rules are crucial for combating the threat of foreign interference. That is why we are addressing enforcement gaps by extending the Electoral Commission’s enforcement role and civil sanctioning powers. This will enable police resources to be directed towards the most serious criminal offences. We will also increase, via secondary legislation, the Electoral Commission’s maximum fine from £20,000 to £500,000 per offence, with safeguards to protect against disproportionate burdens on campaigners with fewer resources. This will create a more meaningful deterrent against serious breaches of the rules.
Finally, to ensure that we are leaving no stone unturned, we have launched an independent review into foreign financial interference in UK politics, which will make recommendations to government by the end of March. The Rycroft review will focus on the effectiveness of the UK’s political finance laws, as well as the safeguards in place to protect our democracy from illicit money from abroad, including crypto assets. The Government will carefully consider all recommendations made in that report.
I want to respond to a few of the points made. If I do not get to them all, I will reply in writing. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, asked about polls. Transparency requirements under electoral law exist for third-party campaign spending, including market research and canvassing. They are all in scope of the spending rules. The imprint rules also apply to those market research issues. On leadership elections, I am afraid they are a matter for political parties.
The noble Lord, Lord Pack, asked about donations and registers of interest. Parliament sets the rules around registers of interest, so that is a matter of parliamentary rule-making. I thank my noble friend Lady Shah for her points about voting for 16 year-olds. She hit on a crucial point. Extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds means that we must make sure that they have trust in the system, and we are increasing civic education to provide that background to their voting.
On the question from my noble friend Lord Watson, I am sure the Rycroft review will be looking at international models to make sure we learn from them.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, Irish citizens remain permissible donors in Northern Ireland, and political parties there can also accept donations from Irish sources, such as Irish companies, that meet the prescribed conditions. That is consistent with the Good Friday agreement.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, the issue about China is a Home Office question. I will revert to colleagues in the Home Office and get back to him on that one.
In reply to my noble friend Lord Sahota, there is no intention from the Government to cap donations at the moment. The new Bill is all about transparency, so I hope I have covered some of those issues.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Mott, political parties and other campaigners will remain able to raise sufficient funds to communicate their views to the electorate, while protecting our democracy against those who seek to covertly undermine it. We do not consider tax relief on political donations to be part of the solution, I am afraid.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, I think I covered overseas interference in my speech. Overseas electors are subject to the same counter-fraud measures as domestic electors, including having their identity confirmed as part of the registration process.
I hope that I covered most of the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in my speech. I will check Hansard, though, and respond further if I missed anything.
In closing, I thank my noble friend Lord Sikka for raising such an important debate and Members across the Committee for some very key contributions. I am sure we will have more of those as the Bill makes its way through the House.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, the Grand Committee stands adjourned until at least 2 pm, in the hope that we can get the clocks fixed.
Cheshire and Warrington Combined Authority Order 2026
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts(2 days, 23 hours ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That the draft Orders laid before the House on 18 December 2025 be approved.
Relevant document: 47th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 10 February.
Renters’ Rights Act: Implementation
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts(3 days, 23 hours ago)
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Lord Jamieson
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure landlords, tenants and local authorities are prepared for each phase of the implementation of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, including funding allocated; and what plans they have for communicating changes ahead of the tenancy reforms this spring.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, we have given the sector a clear timeline for reform in our implementation road map. Ahead of phase 1 of implementation in May, we have already published guidance for landlords and local councils, and launched our communications campaign using social and main- stream media and partners to raise awareness. We have also allocated £18.2 million in new burdens funding to local councils in 2025-26, alongside funding for the justice system and Shelter’s expert housing advice line.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire. I thank the Minister for her response. Unfortunately, landlords are voting with their feet, exiting the market in ever higher numbers: 93,000 in 2025 and a forecast 110,000 this year, according to the Black & White Bridging report. The English Private Landlord Survey reports that 31% of landlords are looking to reduce their portfolio and 16% to exit completely. Can the Minister explain how this helps those desperately looking for a home to rent?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
We know that landlords need time ahead of the implementation to make sure they are compliant with the reforms, and that is why we have published a full package of landlord guidance on GOV.UK to support the first phase of the Renters’ Rights Act on 1 May this year, including a draft written statement of terms so landlords know what information must be included in new tenancy agreements.
We continue to work constructively with the landlord sector. Officials recently spoke to over 1,000 landlords and letting agents at a webinar organised by Rightmove and attended the National Residential Landlords Association conference to speak directly to landlords impacted by the reforms.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
My Lords, the Master of the Rolls, who oversees the efficiency of our civil justice system, recently said that the Act creates an incentive for tenants to appeal every increase in rent to the First-tier Tribunal because, even if the appeal fails, the increase in rent will not be backdated. Ministers have said that they will intervene if the tribunal becomes “overwhelmed”, but, in response to a Written Question, they said they did not hold data on the average time the tribunal takes to process rent appeal cases. So how will the Minister assess whether the tribunal has become “overwhelmed”, so as to prevent the whole system falling into chaos, with longer and longer delays in the tribunal?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
We are working very closely with the judiciary and the Ministry of Justice. We had lots of discussion about this during the passage of the Bill. We want to ensure that the First-tier Tribunal has the capacity to deal with any increase in cases as a result of the rent increase changes. In the Property Chamber, work is progressing to increase capacity, as well as reviewing resource and working practices in readiness for that increase in demand. To ensure long-term sustainability, we have concluded that there is a case for the use of an alternative body or mechanism to make initial rent determinations, and we are continuing to work with partners across government to develop a rent determination function as quickly as possible. Hopefully, that process will take some of the pressure from the First-tier Tribunal.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, first of all, before I ask my question to the Minister, I congratulate the Government Chief Whip on continuing, on the excellent daily list, to refer to “His Majesty’s Government”, and on having no truck with the nonsense rebranding of “the UK Government”. Long may it continue.
I ask the Minister in His Majesty’s Government: does she think the changes in the Renters’ Rights Act are going to lead to more houses being available for rent or fewer?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
It will lead to better conditions for renters and will remove some of the barriers that stop people renting, as well as barriers that can prevent renters maintaining a tenancy. We have banned rental bidding, levelling the playing field for renters; landlords will no longer be able to encourage prospective renters to stretch themselves beyond their means; they cannot discriminate against the prospective renter because they are on benefits or have children; and rent increases will be limited to once a year at market rate, with tenants able to challenge unfair rent increases at First-tier Tribunal.
The work we have done with landlords and with tenant bodies—we have worked with both, through the whole passage of the Bill—means that we have a fair system that rewards good landlords and tenants but makes sure that bad landlords are held to account for the bad practices they have had in place.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, tenants are a group of people close to my heart. They have been promised that the Renters’ Rights Act will transform their security and will do so from 1 May this year. They will be relying on local authorities to enforce those rights. But I say to the Minister that there is still no evidence from government that local authorities have the staffing or capacity to use effectively the new powers in the Act that they gained at the back end of last year. So I ask the Minister: what confidence can the House have that on 1 May, tenants will not once again be left with protections only on paper that they cannot realistically enforce? Without that data, how do the Government know that the new burdens funding, designed to support enforcement activity, is actually sufficient?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I was with a group of over 300 councillors at the weekend, mainly council leaders and other councillors, who were very pleased to see the Renters’ Rights Act coming into force on 1 May. The noble Baroness is quite right to say that local councils will play a crucial role in making sure that this Act actually works on the ground. To help councils build enforcement capacity, we have provided new burdens funding for 2025-26 and a further funding allocation for 2026-27, which will be confirmed early this year. We have also funded the Operation Jigsaw network to deliver bespoke training on the Act, so that councils understand their new responsibilities. Detailed guidance covering the enforcement measures, like the new investigatory powers, has already been published.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, has it not been the case over recent years that many young couples have been outbid by private landlords for properties and therefore have been forced to rent and denied the opportunity of owner occupation? If these properties are now being put on the market and are available for couples, should we not be welcoming that, as they will then have a real chance to have a home of their own?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
We want to improve all parts of the sector and make sure that home buying is available for young people, as well as making the rental market fairer for them. I had a big round table last week with a group from across the sector —agents, conveyancers, the legal profession, financial services and developers—to see what we can do to make it both a faster and more accessible process for young people to be able to realise the dream, which many of us were able to realise, of buying their own home.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest in the private rented sector in Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire.
The Minister refers to the Renters’ Rights Act as producing better conditions in the private rented sector. Surely, this very much depends on the ongoing consultation on the home energy model methodology for assessing existing dwellings and producing new energy performance certificate metrics. I gather that this will conclude at the end of March. Will the Government commit to publishing their response and detailed guidance within six months of this date, so that landlords can have the clarity and confidence to prepare and budget for the necessary improvements?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
If the noble Lord is referring to the minimum energy efficiency standards implementation, we have published our response to the consultation on those standards in the private rented sector. We have listened to the voices from across that sector. The response confirmed our decision to set new regulations in the private rented sector for landlords to meet EPC C or equivalent by 1 October 2030 for all tenancies unless a valid exemption applies. The consultation also confirmed that landlords will not be required to spend more than £10,000 per property. Exemptions will last for 10 years.
Lord Watts (Lab)
It is nice to see that my fan club is still here. Has not the present crisis been caused by the Tory Government selling off social housing? This has led to a shortage of housing and also pushed up benefits, costing billions of pounds to the taxpayer.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My noble friend puts his finger on one cause of the housing crisis: there are many. Not building enough homes was a fundamental cause as well. We have taken steps already to address some of the issues around right to buy and to make sure that councils get the funding back for houses that they sell under right to buy. We are consulting on the other steps and will bring something forward later in the year. The Renters’ Rights Act was the biggest package of reforms to the private rented sector in nearly 40 years. It will improve the sector for 11 million private renters and 2.3 million landlords in England.
New Homes Target
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts(3 days, 23 hours ago)
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Lord Goodman of Wycombe
To ask His Majesty’s Government what recent progress they have made towards delivering 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, an estimated 309,600 net additional homes have been built in this Parliament, but we recognise the need to push further. We are driving progress through bold planning reforms, including the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, and a record £39 billion investment in social and affordable housebuilding. Investment in construction skills, our £16 billion national housing bank, rapid transformation of the building safety regulator—under the leadership of my noble friend Lord Roe—and initiatives such as the new homes accelerator programme will remove barriers and ensure that we build the homes we need.
Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer. Up to 100,000 new homes could be built were the Government to scrap the old, outdated EU-era nutrient neutrality regulations. Will the Government bring in new regulations to protect the environment, and scrap these old ones which are helping to deny young people and families the homes they desperately need?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
New measures were introduced in the Planning and Infrastructure Act to make sure that we deal effectively with nutrient neutrality. We have had to do this without causing the impact on housebuilding that had been done under the previous Government. We have taken the steps needed. We have the nature restoration fund. Developers can work as part of this to make sure that they are able to deliver the homes and meet the needs of the environment at the same time.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, in order to deliver these homes, local authorities need to co-operate with the Government, particularly in preparing local plans, allocating land, speeding up planning decisions, working with developers and communities, and so on. Are local authorities co-operating with the Government to deliver these 1.5 million homes in this Parliament?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
As I stated, I remind my noble friend that we see our partnership with local authorities as critical to delivering the housing numbers we need. The Planning and Infrastructure Act that we passed last year will accelerate housebuilding while preserving important environmental protections, making sure that we get the consenting process sped up and a more strategic approach to nature recovery, and improving certainty in the decision-making and planning system. We have supported local authority planning capacity with the funding and training that are needed. We are working together with our partners in local authorities to make sure that we get this moving as quickly as possible.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, the Minister mentioned that local authorities are vital to the production of homes. She is right, but how is it that the Labour-controlled Greater London Authority has produced only a third of what it had as a target? Do the Government understand that a large number of young people want to own their own homes? Where is the help-to-buy scheme? By all means, have a Labour help-to-buy scheme, different from the Conservative one. Surely, those two points would enable us to provide some decent housing for people who are desperate to have a home of their own.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
We have introduced a whole package of support, working with our colleagues in London to make sure that they are supported and helped to get building the homes they need.
In the previous Question, perhaps the noble Lord heard me say that I am working very closely with a whole partnership of people from across the sector on developing the support that young people need to get into home ownership, including on a new ISA that will help with this and making sure that the whole industry is focused on freeing up the system so that it is possible for young people to buy homes. It was good to hear, when I spoke to the sector last week, that both Lloyds and Santander have brought in very low-start mortgage packages. That was just last week. I am very pleased to see that, and I hope that will help some of our young people get out of high-cost renting and enable them to buy their own property.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, the 1.5 million new homes target is only part of the big housing jigsaw. It is about quality as well as quantity and regeneration as well as new build. All this is meant to come together in the Government’s long-term national housing strategy. This was due out about a year ago. I ask the Minister: when we will see the national housing strategy?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his patience on the long-term housing strategy. We will be publishing that in the first quarter of this year.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, obviously, the noble Lord was not quick enough today.
Research by Crisis and the National Housing Federation found that we need to build 90,000 social homes a year to tackle the current homelessness situation. We know that councils are spending around £2.8 billion a year on temporary accommodation. I ask the Minister: will the Government commit to a specific target for social housing within their overall 1.5 million homes target, alongside a detailed pathway to deliver these homes? We all know that that end of the housing market is the real logjam in the housing crisis.
Picking up on what the noble Lord said with regard to London, will the Government commit to looking again at their disappointing decision to slash the proportion of social homes required for all new developments in London?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The target for the £39 billion spend that we have is that 60% of that will be social housing. The whole amount will be spent on social and affordable housing. That is the most money that has been invested in social and affordable housing for a very long time, and I am very proud of that record.
In relation to the noble Baroness’s question on London, having discussed this extensively with London councils, the important thing is to get housebuilding moving in London. London authorities will decide the percentage of social housing. We are working closely with them on that.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend the Minister has outlined very clearly what a great opportunity this target is, for not only local jobs but local training schemes and use of local materials in building the houses. She mentioned local authorities, but what discussions are being held with developers and housebuilders to ensure that they commit to using local labour, putting on proper training schemes and using local materials whenever they can?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
It is very important that as we go through this process of building more homes, we also create the jobs to go alongside that. We have been working very closely with the sector and particularly with the developer skills group to make sure that we invest in skills as we go along this path of building. It has been very supportive, to the extent of investing £140 million in skills alongside the skills funding that the Government have put in. It is very much committed to this. We welcome the Home Builders Federation statement in July 2024 looking to rapidly increase the pace at which homes are built, deliver the high-quality affordable homes that the country needs and provide the skilled jobs that we know we need to deliver that.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, as the Minister said earlier, only a little over 300,000 additional homes have been delivered in the first 18 months of this Government. Given their target of 1.5 million homes, they will have to deliver at the rate of 342,000 homes a year. Previously, in response to my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook, the Minister said that they would achieve this by speeding up existing planning permissions. Given that housing starts continue to run at well below the average rate under the previous Conservative Government, can the Minister say when this will happen?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
It ill behoves the Government who caused the housing crisis to be pressing us on this. We have already taken very significant steps, which I have outlined, to move this forward. We updated the National Planning Policy Framework. It is early yet to see an impact from those changes. We expect to see the effects feeding through into a higher number of homes being granted permission later in the year. However, new figures show that already we are seeing some green shoots of recovery, with a 29% increase in housing starts compared with 2024. It will take time to turn the tide after decades of underinvestment and a failure to build the homes and infrastructure that we needed to keep up with demand. We expect housebuilding to ramp up, particularly in the later years of the Parliament, as our reforms take effect. We will continue on our mission to deliver those 1.5 million homes.
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, I return to the question of social housing. Since 1990, the UK’s population has grown by around 20%—an additional 12 million people. In that same period, our stock of social housing has not grown but contracted by nearly 10%. We now have fewer than 400,000 units of social housing than in 1990. Precisely how many additional units of social housing do the Government expect to have by 2030?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The Government are committed to the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation. That £39 billion social and affordable housing programme I spoke about will combine the best elements of previous programmes with new design elements to make sure that we maximise the delivery that we want to see, enabling providers to build the types of homes that the country needs. The ambition is to deliver around 300,000 homes with at least 60% social rent. We have also provided long-term income stability for social housing providers with a 10-year rent settlement, which will help to give them the stability and confidence they need to invest even further in funding for social housing. It is a comprehensive policy package. We want a simpler, more transparent system and are driving forward. We know that social housing is important.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage ExcerptsWednesday 11th February 2026
(3 days, 23 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 View all English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 150-VII Seventh marshalled list for Grand Committee - (10 Feb 2026)
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 Bennett of Manor Castle, and my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton for addressing the local government reorganisation measures in the Bill. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for speaking on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, opposes Clause 57 and Schedule 26 standing part of the Bill. Reorganisation is a crucial part of the Government’s mission to fix the foundations of local government, creating unitary councils that can be sustainable for the future and deliver the high-quality services that all residents deserve. The Bill amends the existing legislation to enable the Secretary of State to direct areas to submit proposals to reorganise.
We are committed to working in partnership with local areas and are already doing so on this current round of reorganisation. All two-tier areas that were invited in February 2025 have now submitted proposals for reorganisation, which have either been consulted on or are now subject to consultation, because they acknowledge that the status quo is not feasible or sustainable. Therefore, this power would only ever be used in the future, where areas had failed to make progress following an invitation.
The new merging provisions enable existing unitary councils that believe structural change will be beneficial to submit proposals for reorganisation. This aligns the process for reorganising single-tier areas with the current process for reorganising two-tier areas. With devolution and local government reorganisation progressing concurrently across the country, mechanisms are needed to ensure that these reforms work in harmony.
The ability to convert a combined county authority into a combined authority is a common-sense and necessary measure. Without it, there would be no streamlined route to ensure that the existing combined and combined county authorities remain intact once their constituent authorities implement reorganisation. The ability to abolish a combined authority or a combined county authority could be used only in very limited situations. It ensures that, if a reorganisation proposal would render a strategic authority obsolete, the proposal can be implemented and the strategic authority abolished as necessary. Any such proposal requiring the use of the abolition power would need to consider how it would impact future devolution in the area, as the Government’s reorganisation criteria set out. This ensures that these areas will not be left without a viable pathway to devolution.
The noble Baroness mentioned the Government’s approach to funding. This week we publish the local government finance settlement, which has restructured local government funding to ensure that the areas that need it get the most funding. We have put more than £5.6 billion of new grant funding over the next three years into local government. We know that unitarisation can unlock significant savings. Unitary councils reduce duplication, cut waste, improve services and give better value. Of course, exact savings from each proposal will vary from place to place, depending on the proposals implemented.
The noble Baroness also mentioned casework. I take her point and I know the bit about growing daffodils out in the garden—I still often get stopped when I am doing my garden and I am not even a councillor now. Casework support varies from council to council, but it is perfectly possible to provide support for casework at any level of local government. I know that many councils do this extremely well—I hope that those that are not so good will learn from the best.
I turn to Amendment 196EC, tabled by my noble friend Lord Bassam. I shall correct myself, because I did not thank all noble Lords who spoke in the debate, as I should have done at the beginning, so my apologies. My noble friend’s amendment seeks to introduce criteria that the Secretary of State must consider when taking a decision on the merger of existing unitary councils. The new merging provisions set out in this Bill enable existing unitary councils that believe structural change will be beneficial to submit proposals for reorganisation. This aligns the process for reorganising single-tier areas with the current process for reorganising two-tier areas.
I reassure my noble friend that having regard to the size, geography, public services and local identity of an area is already embedded in our approach and decision-making when it comes to reorganisation. This is demonstrated by the statutory guidance that we have issued to areas that have been invited to prepare proposals for local government reorganisation.
My noble friend mentioned the size of areas. I point out that the invitation letter to two-tier areas in February made it very clear that the aim for new councils to have a population of 500,000 or more is a guiding principle. Instead of presenting a top-down solution for each area, our starting point is to support and empower local leaders and respect their knowledge, expertise and insight. This approach is in line with the new partnership between government and local government. In discussions with individual councils, with parliamentarians and in interviews given throughout the process, the Government have further reinforced that position to aid the local discussions. I have seen a huge variation in the proposals that have come forward in terms of size. People have taken that as guidance and taken it very seriously. Yesterday, we had a debate on the new authority that has been set up, Cumbria, which has a population of much less than 500,000, because that was appropriate for that area.
Furthermore, the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 already requires that the Secretary of State may invite or direct a relevant principal authority to make a proposal for the merger of single tiers of local government only where it would be in
“the interests of effective and convenient local government”.
The 2007 Act also requires that affected local areas must be consulted before a proposal for local government reorganisation can be implemented. This gives local residents the opportunity to voice their opinions on the criteria outlined by the noble Lord in his amendment.
Next to my council is a council called North Hertfordshire, which includes four towns. The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, will know these towns very well—Hitchin, Letchworth, Baldock and Royston. These places have not ceased to exist because their council is called North Herts. The noble Baroness mentioned Wiltshire, which I know she feels was greatly strengthened by the introduction of unitary government. Wiltshire has survived in spite of its unitary status and I am sure that Hertfordshire will equally survive long into the future, no matter what happens with local government.
My noble friend’s questions can all be answered by the criteria that local authorities have been asked to respond to as part of the invitation process, including issues of local identity and cultural and historic importance. Although I appreciate the spirit in which my noble friend has tabled this amendment, it is the Government’s view that placing further legislative conditions on the merger of unitary councils would be duplicative and unnecessary. For these reasons, I hope that noble Lords feel able not to press their amendments.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I thank the Minister for her answer. I know she has huge experience of local democracy and councils, but there is quite a lot of experience in this Room as well. If noble Lords from the Conservative Party are agreeing with the noble Lord over there, I think there might be a problem. I just hope the Minister can perhaps think about some of the things that we have said and that we are concerned about. The Government are doing quite a lot of good things, but they are very bad at telling us about them, and that is part of the problems that they face at the moment. I will not come back on all these things. My concerns are still very much there, so this might come back later.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I wish to continue what seems to be an emerging consensus and a Sheffield love-in. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, was the leader in Sheffield when I was at Sheffield University and I will always be grateful for the 10p bus rides that I was able to take.
As we have discussed, these amendments concern the committee system. Let us be frank: this is a devolution Bill. I reiterate yet again that this side of the Committee and these Benches believe in democracy and in devolution. If you believe in those two things, this is about allowing and empowering local communities to decide what is best for them.
I was leader of Central Bedfordshire and operated under the strong-leader model, which worked well for Central Bedfordshire. I am sure it will work well in many other places but, if local communities believe that the committee system is best for them, they should be given that opportunity. Does the Minister believe in devolution and local democracy and will she allow local communities to decide the governance model that best meets their needs?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Blunkett and the other noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I turn first to my noble friend’s intention to oppose the clause and Schedule 27 standing part of the Bill.
This clause and the related schedule will bring further consistency to local authority governance arrangements across England. As your Lordships may know, the Government still have a strong preference for executive models of governance. We believe, and I believe because I have operated in both, that the leader-and-cabinet model, already operated by over 80% of councils, provides a clearer and more easily understood governance structure and can support more efficient decision-making.
To answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, there are several individual examples that highlight the challenges of the committee system. When Cheshire East switched to the committee system in 2021, an LGA corporate peer challenge found that its structure was large and meeting-intensive, with six policy committees and nine sub-committees, involving 78 out of 82 councillors. Co-ordination across individual committees is a persistent challenge. The same peer challenge for Cheshire East flagged the siloed nature of the council, with poor joint working across departments, contributing towards challenges of service delivery and communication.
Several councils that have tried committees have later reverted to the leader-and-cabinet model, for example Brighton and Hove in 2024. This is wasteful of both time and resources. With collective decision-making spread across multiple committees, it is not always clear who is in charge. Councils that return to the leader-and-cabinet model, such as Newark and Sherwood District Council and Nottinghamshire County Council, have judged it to be more transparent, agile and accountable.
At the same time, we recognise the genuinely held concerns of those councils that have adopted the committee system following a public referendum or a council resolution. That is important and I take seriously the words of noble Lords who have raised that. The Government’s amendments made in the other place to these provisions were intended to allow some councils that have recently adopted the committee system, following either a council resolution or a public referendum, to continue operating that governance model until the end of their moratorium period. At that point, the local authority will be required to undertake and publish a review of whether it should move to the leader-and-cabinet executive model or retain its committee system. The Government believe that this approach strikes the right balance between encouraging a more consistent governance model for local authorities across England and respecting local democratic mandates and voter expectations where councils are currently operating a committee system and are within their current moratorium periods. With these points in mind, I invite my noble friend to support these measures.
I turn to the government amendments in this group. As I have set out, the Government introduced an amendment in the other place to allow certain councils operating the committee system to continue to do so where they were within their statutory moratorium periods. The Government are now bringing forward additional amendments to clarify the circumstances in which a local authority’s committee system may be protected from the requirement to adopt the leader-and-cabinet executive model. This will mean that the protection period applies only where the council has previously adopted the committee system following either a council resolution or a public referendum and is within its statutory moratorium period at the point this provision is commenced.
The amendments clarify that the prior resolution to change governance must be made under Part 1A of the 2000 Act. This will ensure that the Bill strikes the right balance between encouraging a more consistent local authority governance model across England and respecting more recent local democratic mandates and voter expectations. It will also reduce disruption where councils are operating a committee system within their statutory moratorium period.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that response. I shall of course not press my amendment at this stage. I cannot promise the Liberal Democrats what I shall do when we reach Report, not least since—as I said in a meeting a couple of days ago—I am a critical friend working very hard on the friend bit rather than the critical bit, and I will continue to be so.
I have only one further remark to make; I think it will be well worth my noble friend taking this back to the Secretary of State. Sadly, from my point of view, from May, there will be a large number of local authorities that will have possibly five substantive representations of political parties. In those circumstances, the cabinet form of government will be extremely difficult. With just three big groups in Sheffield, the only way that the current leadership of the council has been able to make it work effectively is by sharing the committee system. I think we should bear that in mind as we move towards a very turbulent time in local government.
Member’s explanatory statement
The Local Government Act 2000 does not provide for a local authority to pass a resolution to retain the Committee system and so this provision does not need to deal with such a resolution.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I support the principles behind this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, which has attracted widespread interest from both within and without your Lordships’ House.
At its heart lies a simple question: how do we ensure that the public continue to have clear, independent and accessible routes to information about the decisions made by their local authorities? For a long time, local newspapers have played a vital role in this. Our local journalists are there not only to report news; they scrutinise local decision-making, as we have heard, and act as guardians of local democracy. They are often the only regular observers of the workings of local government. In many parts of the country, it is only local journalists who regularly attend council meetings, who probe and challenge, and who ensure that decisions are brought to the attention of residents.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said, all of us here who have been in local government have been at the end of the pen of many journalists—sometimes in a positive way, but often in a negative way. Local newspapers have always been the starting point for many young journalists who have gone on to be better and more successful journalists. As a local council leader, it is always interesting to watch that progression. I have always been pleased to give as much support as possible to local journalists learning their trade.
The requirement for councils to place statutory notices in local newspapers has long been one of the practical mechanisms that enable this transparency and accountability. It ensures that important matters handled by local authorities reach their residents where they are most likely to see them. Crucially, they reach residents through an independent medium—not one controlled by the authority. That independence is a safeguard we should not discard lightly, even in part.
It is true that the local media landscape is changing. Many local news organisations now operate both in print and online or only online, and audiences increasingly access their news digitally. However, as we have heard, the answer to such change cannot simply be to remove this duty—altogether, in some instances—and, in extremis, to see people rely solely on council websites. Many residents seldom visit council websites, as we all know. Some find them difficult to navigate. They are not used to being widely used as a source of day-to-day information on their local authorities. If statutory notices are placed only there, this would be not modernisation but invisibility. There is evidently concern, as reflected in the broad support for this amendment, that the Government’s current proposal would weaken transparency rather than strengthen it.
I listened with interest to the compelling cases in this debate, and I cannot help but wonder whether there is another way. If this policy requires updating, modernising or broadening, why do we not consider doing precisely that? Rather than the Government removing the requirement completely, allowing publication
“in such manner as the local authority thinks appropriate”,
would they consider expanding its scope instead? It could be broadened to include reputable independent local news websites, trusted digital publishers and recognised social media channels, operated by established local news providers. I defer to those who know the industry better than I do, but would this not reflect the realities of contemporary media consumption while preserving the more core democratic principle that notices should be published through independent and accessible outlets?
Above all, we must avoid a future in which councils become the sole gatekeepers of information that should be publicly available, easily accessed and subject to external scrutiny. The partnerships between councils and local media remain essential to the health of our local democracy, and we consider that any move to weaken that would be a big mistake. For these reasons, I believe that the principle of the amendment deserves serious consideration and I hope the Government will reconsider their approach.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 202, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, seeks to maintain the current requirement to publish governance changes—it is only governance changes—in local newspapers. I thank all noble Lords who spoke in this debate. There are clearly strongly held views around the Committee.
We have just had two powerful debates about empowering local councils and councillors. We seem to have changed our minds in this regard. The Bill does not prevent local authorities publishing a notice in a local newspaper, should they wish to. Instead, it empowers councils to decide the most appropriate and effective method of notifying their local communities of any changes to the governance model. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, that I appreciate all his points, but local government is not responsible for the problems of local newspapers; there are many issues affecting them. We all value them immensely, but it is not just local government that is causing those issues.
The Bill’s provision updates the current statutory requirement. It shifts the focus from—
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)
The noble Baroness maybe somewhat misunderstood what I said. I actually asked her—this is part of the provision in the Bill—what she thought the local authority would think appropriate for the way the information is published. That is a matter for the Government rather than for local newspapers.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
It is, and this part of the Bill suggests that it is for local government to decide the most effective way to communicate these governance changes to its residents.
The Bill gives councils the flexibility to publish notices of governance change in whatever manner they consider most appropriate for their local circumstances. That may still include local printed newspapers, where they continue to play an important role in our local communities, but it also enables councils to use other channels—such as digital and online newspapers, council websites, and any other local community platforms—to help set out the governance changes. Crucially, the provision does not prevent authorities continuing to use local newspapers if they consider that the best way to reach their residents; it simply allows them to exercise their judgment in choosing the most suitable communication method for their area.
The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, in moving the amendment, took me back to my very first Select Committee appearance as a local government leader, on exactly this issue. Substantial costs are incurred. I am talking not just about governance arrangements but for the breadth of local government statutory notices. It was around £28 million in the last year we have figures for, and some estimates suggest that it may be a great deal higher than that, so a lot of cost is involved.
In practice, this issue of governance arrangements will affect very few councils. More than 80% of councils already operate the leader-and-cabinet model of governance; the majority of the remaining councils will undergo reorganisation and the new councils will automatically adopt the leader-and-cabinet model. This is a proportionate and practical reform for the small number that may need to change their governance arrangements.
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.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Bassam, the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Lansley, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for their amendments on neighbourhood governance.
Before I speak to the amendments, let me say that I was very sorry to hear that the noble Earl has given notice of his intention to retire from the House at the end of March. I hope to have an opportunity to thank him more formally, but I thank him now for his huge contributions to all four of the Bills in which I have been closely involved in your Lordships’ House; he has made a significant contribution, and I just want to use this opportunity to say that.
Before I respond to the individual amendments, I reiterate that the Government strongly value the role of town and parish councils in driving forward the priorities of their communities and delivering effective local services. They are close to the communities they serve, know their communities’ needs, can champion the priorities of local people and can design the right services that work for their places. Interestingly, when we were discussing the SI on the new authorities in Cumbria and Cheshire yesterday, it was interesting to see that, in Cumbria—forgive me if I am quoting this figure wrong, as it is from memory—there are 296 parish councils. I know that it is quite a rural area, but I thought that a significant number; I believe that there were also more than 100 of them in Cheshire.
The Earl of Lytton (CB)
I thank the Minister for her kind remarks about me. It has been a pleasure to work with her and with predecessor Ministers from her department and their various Bill teams over a very large number of years. This is not the time for me to make a valedictory speech, or anything even approaching it, or for me otherwise to bore the Grand Committee. However, depending on the scheduling of the Bill’s next stages—and because I do not disappear until the end of March—there may be a bit of wiggle room for me to come back and have another go at some of these amendments.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am very pleased to hear that. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked me earlier whether the Bill will go to Report, and I confirm that is the case. I hope that the noble Earl will still be here to participate on Report, and we look forward to his contributions. He has a great deal of knowledge and experience of the property sector and many other areas related to all of the issues we have debated on this and other Bills. I particularly valued his expertise on property safety and his knowledge of construction when debated the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. I am very grateful to him.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I entirely agree with that. Do the Minister and the noble Earl realise that the last place in the UK named Lytton—spelled with a “y”—is in Stevenage?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
It is actually in Knebworth, north Hertfordshire, but I take the noble Lord’s point.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, my unease has not been lessened by the Minister’s answers, and I suspect that others will feel the same way.
The Minister says that they do not want to impose a single model. I thought that this Bill was about imposing a single model on the governance of England. It was certainly made clear by the Conservative Government —let us accept that this is a Conservative model that which the Labour Government are introducing—that, unless east Yorkshire and North Yorkshire accepted the mayoral model, they would not get the deal for which they were asking. There is a large question there.
When I heard the Minister say that the role that town and parish councils play in neighbourhood governance is recognised, I want to know who else is playing a role and how important the town and parish councils’ role might be. Will it be marginal or major? We do not know what the other bits of neighbourhood governance are intended to do. I am happy to hear that the Government want town and parish councils to continue to play an important and valuable role, but I think more of us want to ensure that they play a significant and leading role in local democracy. At the moment, Clause 60 does not provide us with that reassurance. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment, but this is something to which we will want to come back if and when we manage to reach Report.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
We need to recognise where we are. If we want mayors to have public acceptance and credibility, they had better not be elected on less than a quarter of the vote. If we have a five-party system, the opinion polls—my nerdy noble friend here does his best to educate me about public opinion polls and I therefore follow them in some detail—show that if you look at second preferences for Reform, Conservative or Liberal Democrat voters, they are very diverse, and one cannot guarantee that votes will easily transfer from one party to another definite party. Jack Straw was prepared to accept the supplementary vote in the belief that, in London elections, the Liberal Democrats were more likely on the whole to vote Labour as their second preference than the Conservatives, and therefore it was acceptable. The supplementary vote is half way to where we need to go but it is neither one nor the other.
I simply say to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that the old argument that the English people would not understand something more complicated than first past the post is for the past. The Irish understand a more complicated voting system very well, as do the Scots. The idea that the English education system is so poor that our voters will not understand simply does not begin to stand up.
If mayors are going to be key elements in devolution, we need to face up to a system that will provide us with the assurance that mayors will be elected in such a way as to gain the acceptance and credibility they need to have their posts. The current first past the post system does not guarantee that nor does the supplementary vote system. The Government need to recognise that that is where we are.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I will begin by addressing the amendments in this group concerning voting systems.
The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, opposes Clause 61 and Schedule 28 standing part of the Bill. These provisions will reinstate the supplementary vote system for the elections of mayors and police and crime commissioners. This was the voting system in place when these roles were first introduced. The Government recognise that the voting system used to elect our representatives sits at the heart of our democracy and is of fundamental importance, which has been reflected in today’s debates.
Given the large population that each regional mayor represents—far exceeding that of Members of Parliament —and that they act individually rather than collectively as part of a council or parliament, the Government believe that mayors should have a broad base of support among their electors. We believe that the supplementary vote system, which is a preferential voting system, will achieve this and is appropriate for electing candidates to single-person executive positions, such as mayors. The supplementary vote helps to increase the local electorate’s voice, as voters may choose a first and second choice candidate. It requires the winning candidate to receive the majority of votes counted, which ensures a broader mandate from the people they are representing.
Currently, mayors are elected using the first past the post system. We recognise that that system, while not perfect, has its merits: it is a well-understood system that provides a direct relationship between a Member of Parliament or a councillor and the local constituency or ward. Therefore, we believe that first past the post is appropriate for elections where there are a number of seats to be filled, such as in councils and parliaments, as the likelihood is that candidates representing a range of views and parties will be elected. However, this clearly does not apply when electing someone to a single-person executive position, as is the case for mayors and police and crime commissioners. Therefore, we believe that the supplementary vote is the right system for electing mayors, which is why the Bill reverts the voting system back to the supplementary vote.
Amendment 213, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Pack, seeks to introduce the alternative vote system for the election of mayors. While I agree that mayors should be elected using a preferential voting system, the Government believe that the supplementary vote system is the right preferential voting system for electing mayors. The supplementary vote was the voting system implemented on the introduction of mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections, which was in place until 2022, when the voting system changed to first past the post. We are reinstating the voting system that was originally used for these elections, which will be familiar to many voters. I note that, when the public were asked for their view on the alternative vote system, albeit in relation to UK parliamentary elections, they did not support the move to the alternative vote system. In the referendum held in 2011, 67.9% of voters rejected this proposal. The alternative vote system is not in use in any polls in the UK.
Amendments 214 and 215, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Bennett, would allow for the introduction of a proportional representation voting system for local authority elections. The Government have no plans to change the electoral system for local council elections in England. As I have already laid out, the first past the post system is a clear way of electing representatives to a council and provides for a direct relationship between a councillor and their ward. Therefore, for local council elections, the Government believe that first past the post remains the most appropriate system.
I turn now to the amendments that concern the timings of elections. We will of course have a debate on this on 23 February, the first day back after the Recess—I hope we all come back refreshed. Before I speak to the specific amendments, I remind your Lordships that the Government have embarked on the most significant programme of council reorganisation in England in 50 years. We are determined to streamline local government for the remaining one-third of people who still live under the two-tier system. It is in this unprecedented context that the decisions to postpone certain council elections for one year have been taken.
Our view is that it is time for bold action on both local government reorganisation and devolution, but we recognise that reorganisation is resource intensive at all levels, political and administrative, within a council. We have listened to those councils that have told us that postponing their elections this May will release vital capacity to deliver reorganisation effectively. It will also avoid the cost and distraction of elections to councils which are likely to be abolished shortly.
I reiterate that the Government’s position is that elections should go ahead unless there is strong justification otherwise. To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, that is the sentence I have always used when I have talked about elections. The Secretary of State recently announced that the high bar we set for taking a decision to postpone has been reached in a number of councils. The legislation to implement these decisions was laid in Parliament on 5 February.
Lord Hayward (Con)
Between 8 and 18 December, was there no consideration whatever of the possibility of delaying the elections? If that is the case, what changed between 8 and 18 December that resulted in the letters going to the 63 councils?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I have already outlined to the noble Lord that the sentence I used, whenever we discussed this and whenever I was asked, was that elections would not be cancelled unless there were substantial reasons for doing so. Local authorities made those representations, which is why the decision was taken.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, when we ask these questions, the Minister always talks about the complexity of these changes, but what I do not quite understand is that, in 2009, the then Labour Government changed nine groups of authorities to unitaries without any of this sudden change to local elections. Only six are affected now, and the last lot will be 14, so I do not know why this reorganisation is causing complexity that others, done by a Labour Government, did not in the past.
I will address the contributions on my Amendment 216 and the related Amendments 211 and 212 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pack. I thank noble Lords for their contributions, particularly my noble friend Lord Hayward, who gave a strong explanation of why some amendments to the rules affecting local elections are so urgently required. There is clearly deep unease across the House—not just in this Committee—about the length and frequency of election delays arising from the Government’s local authority restructuring. The Government have set out their reasons for resisting this amendment, but my underlying concerns remain. Prolonged postponement of local elections, for any reason short of genuine emergency, risks weakening democracy and the bond between our local councillors and the communities they serve.
My amendment does not seek to obstruct reorganisation or to prevent the short practical delays that can sometimes be necessary; it proposes only a clear and reasonable boundary. Democratic mandates should not be extended for more than one year as a consequence of changes under this Bill. That reflects long-standing practice, the guidance of the Electoral Commission and the public’s expectation that those in elected office are answerable to the electorate at regular intervals.
As I have said, I have some concerns about the drafting of the related Amendments 211 and 212 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pack, not least because they cover only the 2000 Act, not the 2007 Act. However, I hope we might be able to get together and work constructively on this shared interest before Report. Whatever view one takes on the amendments themselves, I hope the Government will reflect seriously and carefully on the strength of feeling expressed today. We should protect the integrity and predictability of our local democratic processes with great care.
On a similar note, I listened with interest to the suggestions made by my noble friend Lord Fuller on his Amendments 216A, 216B and 216C, which seek to deliver full parliamentary scrutiny of proposals to cancel local, mayoral, and police and crime commissioner elections. Any electoral change has significant practical consequences for voters, candidates, authorities and political parties. Although my amendment would go further, it makes sense that any change still occurring should be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny. Proper consideration should provide transparency, accountability and a clear timetable, allowing everyone involved in the electoral process to plan with certainty. That would certainly be better than the mess we face now.
I now turn to the amendments addressing changes to our voting systems. I thank noble Lords who spoke in support of Clause 61 and Schedule 28 not standing part of the Bill. I have nothing to add to my opening remarks, which covered the reasons that I disagree with Amendments 213 and 214, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and Amendment 215, which propose the introduction of AV or PR voting systems. I will not repeat those arguments.
Last but not least, I will speak to Amendment 216D in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. Making sure that our local elections and their candidates more transparent and accessible to voters—by ensuring that every candidate provides a clear, convenient and free way for electors to contact them—can only be a good thing for democracy. As things currently work, it can often be quite difficult for residents to ask their local candidates questions or seek clarification on their views before casting their votes. By requiring returning officers to publish contact details, and by ensuring that candidates are given a designated address for correspondence, communications between candidates and the communities they hope to represent could be strengthened and facilitated. At the same time, candidates can be protected from some of the terrible things that we heard about from my noble friend Lady O’Neill. I am sure that we will return to this on Report.
Cumbria Combined Authority Order 2026
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts(4 days, 23 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That the Grand Committee do consider the Cumbria Combined Authority Order 2026.
Relevant document: 47th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Cheshire and Warrington Combined Authority Order 2026
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts(4 days, 23 hours ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That the Grand Committee do consider the Cheshire and Warrington Combined Authority Order 2026.
Relevant document: 47th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to both this draft order and the draft Cumbria Combined Authority Order 2026, which were laid on 18 December 2025. For both the Cheshire and Warrington combined authority and the Cumbria combined authority, I will use the term “strategic authorities” hereafter, unless there is a reason to be specific in the debate.
These orders provide for the establishment of two new strategic authorities and provide for their mayoral elections, as part of the Government’s commitment to widen and deepen devolution across England. This commitment is being delivered, in part, through the devolution priority programme, which provides a fast track to establish a new wave of mayoral strategic authorities. Cumbria and Cheshire and Warrington are two of the areas on the devolution priority programme, and taking forward these statutory instruments represents substantial progress towards fulfilling our commitment to move power out of Whitehall and back to those who know their areas best. The Government have worked closely with the constituent councils within Cheshire and Warrington and Cumbria on these instruments. All the respective constituent councils have consented to the making of their instrument, and I thank the local leaders and their councils for their support.
The instruments will be made, if Parliament approves, under the enabling provisions in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. Both strategic authorities will be established the day after the day on which the instruments are made. The inaugural mayoral elections are due to take place for both on 6 May 2027, and their elected mayors will take office on 10 May 2027 on a four-year term.
The instruments make provision for the governance arrangements of the strategic authorities. In each case, each constituent council appoints two of its elected members to be a member of the strategic authority, with the mayor also a member once in office. The strategic authority can also appoint non-constituent and associate members to support its work. Each voting member is to have one vote, and the vast majority of decisions are to be determined by a simple majority of the members present and voting. Once the mayor takes office, that majority must include the mayor, or the deputy mayor acting in place of the mayor.
The instruments provide some functions in relation to transport and economic development, but there is a strong interrelation here with the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. Subject to Royal Assent to that Bill, these strategic authorities will be classed as mayoral strategic authorities, and the functions reserved for that tier will automatically be conferred to the strategic authorities. Even before the mayor is in office, these strategic authorities will be able to exercise mayoral strategic authority functions, with the exception of those that are specifically reserved for the mayor.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I first declare my interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire. I am grateful to the Minister for introducing these orders, which establish mayoral combined authorities for Cheshire and Warrington and for Cumbria.
As we have made clear in the discussions on the devolution Bill, we support the principle of English devolution and promoted this while we were in government. We support the creation of combined authorities where they have genuine local support, are properly funded and are designed to reflect the identities and needs of their areas. However, that support for devolution in principle does not absolve the Government of their responsibility to demonstrate that these proposals meet the statutory tests as set out in the 2009 Act, nor does it remove the need for proper scrutiny.
The question of funding remains unresolved and frankly a little bit troubling. The Government have indicated that these new authorities will receive additional funding over a 30-year period. How such long-term funding commitments will be guaranteed in practice is not clear. Can the Minister explain how the Government intend to provide genuine certainty to these combined authorities? They will need that if they are going to invest in long-term infrastructure projects, skills and transport planning. That requires predictable funding going forward. Also, as an aside, will mayors in future combined authorities receive similar levels of funding?
Linked to this is the mayoral precept. These orders enable the new mayors to levy an additional charge on council tax to fund these functions. While that power may be appropriate in some circumstances, it raises legitimate concerns about local accountability and affordability. We would welcome clarification from the Minister on the detail of central government funding expected to support local devolved functions and on to what extent the Government anticipate or indeed rely upon the use of the mayoral precept to bridge any funding gap. That also raises the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was moving towards of how we ensure scrutiny and holding the mayor to account.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, also raised the issue of size. Given the powers that the Secretary of State will have in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill to push through potential mergers, what is the Government’s intention here?
Finally, I raise a specific concern about Cheshire and Warrington, which is the financial position of Warrington Borough Council. The estimated £1.8 billion of debt carried by the council is concerning, and it is not at all clear how the creation of a mayoral combined authority interacts with that reality. We ask for further detail: what special measures will be put in place to ensure that the debt does not undermine the financial stability of the new authority as a whole? Can the Minister assure the Committee that the creation of a combined authority will not directly or indirectly place additional burdens on neighbouring councils or local taxpayers?
Devolution done well can be transformative, but devolution done poorly risks creating new layers of governance without the trust, clarity or resources required to make them effective. We urge the Government to consider seriously the concerns raised by local communities, the scrutiny committee and this House. We will continue to support devolution that is consensual, properly funded and genuinely local, and we will continue to challenge proposals that fall short of these principles.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for their comments on this statutory instrument. I will try to answer all their questions, but, as usual, I will check Hansard and make sure I have replied to the issues that they have raised.
The noble Baroness raised the issue around the differing sizes of the authorities. I appreciate the points she makes on that. Of course, she will know—as I do, since I worked extensively with my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill—that Cumbria is a very sparse rural area. When the Government look at the sizes for these local authorities, we need to agree sensible devolution geographies. The Government consider the scale, the economy, the contiguity, making sure we have no devolution islands, how we are going to deal with delivery, the alignment and the identity. It is not possible to meet all the principles. We prefer these combined authorities to have a population of around 1.2 million to 1.5 million, but that is not possible in all areas. We recognise that with Cumbria. It is important that we take account of local circumstances, so we work with the authorities to make sure we find optimal solutions to their issues.
On the constituent members, they are agreed with the constituent authorities concerned. They will vary because the areas vary, but it is important that constituent members play an important role in those local authorities. We set them up as bespoke arrangements depending on local circumstances.
On the noble Baroness’s question about commissioners, we will have a system where all mayoral combined authorities can appoint up to seven commissioners. Some may choose not to do that if it is not appropriate for their area, but we want the flexibility for those who wish to do it.
The noble Baroness asked about the assessment of effectiveness. There is an ongoing evaluation programme for the devolution programme. It is important that we do that. We have a number of authorities at different levels of devolution, including some established mayoral combined authorities. We continue to look at the programme, but the evaluation so far has told us that it is genuinely delivering for the communities involved. I am sorry if the noble Baroness does not feel that that is the case in her area; there may be people who have a different view on that locally.
The noble Baroness also asked me about the public responses to the consultation process. I take her point, but the purpose of the consultations is to gather evidence and information on the effect of establishing a mayoral combined authority over the proposed geography. A range of views was provided by respondents, including evidence setting out the potential benefits, as well as some of the concerns raised, and the Government carefully considered the responses received. The results of the consultation very much formed part of the assessment made by the Secretary of State—it needed to do so because it must meet the relevant statutory tests set out in Section 110 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act. For both Cheshire and Warrington and Cumbria, the tests were met.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
Before the Minister finishes, will she answer my question about the position of the deputy mayor?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My apologies; I did not write that down because we were called out of the Room. A deputy mayor is there to do exactly what it says on the tin: deputising for the mayor. The deputy mayor can deputise for the mayor. It is not an elected position, and I understand the noble Baroness’s concerns about that, but all those mayors will need a deputy, so the deputy mayor can stand in for the mayor at meetings and cast the mayor’s vote. That is the situation.
In conclusion, these instruments deliver the commitment made—
Lord Jamieson (Con)
The Minister kindly answered my question on the investment fund. The two issues I had with it included that it is 30-year funding. If you are going to come up with a programme of infrastructure funding over 10 or 15 years, you need certainty that you will get that £27 million or that £11 million every year. I know it is a difficult question to answer, but what assurance or certainty will the new mayor have that that funding will be available for those 30 years? I appreciate the intention, but is there certainty? The second part of that question was: will a similar level of funding be available for all the other combined mayoral authorities as they go forward, accepting the point that the Minister made about population?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The purpose of devolution is, of course, to get the powers and funding out to local areas to do the investment they need. I am not going to guarantee exact amounts for funding settlements that we have yet not agreed with local areas, I am sure the noble Lord will understand that, but it is the Government’s intention that all the new areas will have investment funds, and of course they also have powers to borrow. Provided they meet the prudential requirements that all local government borrowing has to meet, they will have those powers as well.
In conclusion, these instruments deliver the commitment made to Cheshire and Warrington and Cumbria to establish combined authorities in their areas, and I hope that the Committee will welcome these orders.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage ExcerptsMonday 9th February 2026
(5 days, 23 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 View all English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 150-VI(b) Amendments for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Sixth Marshalled List) - (9 Feb 2026)
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I will speak on a number of amendments in this group that relate to health. They illustrate just how far this Bill stretches and the breadth of its potential impact on matters of public interest. Health is now firmly brought to the fore. Clause 44 inserts new provisions into existing legislation to place a duty on all combined authorities and combined county authorities to have regard to the need to improve the health of the people in their areas and to reduce health inequalities when they exercise their functions. The same duty is applied to mayors of mayoral combined authorities and mayoral combined county authorities.
This represents a welcome shift. It means that health and health inequalities are no longer seen as an issue solely for the NHS or public health bodies, but I hope that the Department of Health and Social Care is aware of these proposals. If it is not and is not fully engaged, we will not get too far. Instead they must be taken into account across the full range of decisions made by combined authorities, whether they relate to transport, housing, planning, skills or economic development. That is an important change, because many of the factors that shape health outcomes sit well beyond the health system itself.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for her Amendment 159, which seeks to broaden the list of health determinants and health outcomes to be considered as part of this new duty. The concerns that she raises are understandable and I am sympathetic to the desire to reflect the full complexity of what really drives health inequality. However, I ask the Minister whether she believes that combined authorities will have both the capacity and the practical power and resources to deliver against such an expanded list. In the Government’s view, is this expansion feasible? While ambition is welcome, we must ensure that any duty placed on local institutions is deliverable and affordable, rather than well intentioned and unrealistic.
In opening this group, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, spoke about public access to fitness, sport and recreational facilities. These issues are clearly important and, as always, he made a compelling case for the role that access to physical activity plays in improving health outcomes. Many noble Lords will agree with the principles that he set out. It will be interesting to hear from the Minister whether she believes that placing such matters in the Bill is either necessary or proportionate.
The amendments to Clause 44 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman of Steventon, seek to align the list of health determinants more closely with academic research. The points that she raises are thoughtful and well made. I would be grateful if the Government could explain how the existing list of health determinants was arrived at. Who decided what should be included and by what process? Was there any consultation and were academic experts involved? Understanding how this list was developed is important so that we have confidence that it is robust and evidence based. In particular, I found the reference to “educational opportunities and attainment” in Amendment 161A especially interesting. Education is widely recognised as a key driver of long-term health outcomes and I will listen carefully to what the noble Baroness has to say on this matter.
I also note the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, particularly those that relate to climate and pollution. These amendments raise issues that are often cited as having implications for public health. However, they also serve to underline a broader issue that runs through this group. The difficulty is not simply whether individual factors can be linked to health outcomes but how far such a list should extend. If climate-related risks and pollution are included, should the same apply to noise pollution, as raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman? What about resilience to heat waves, which was also raised in this group? Each of these can be argued to have relevance but, taken together, they illustrate the challenge of scope. At some point a judgment must be made on where the boundary of general health determinants is drawn. That judgment is important for maintaining clarity and focus within the Bill and ensuring that the resulting duties are workable.
This returns me to the underlying question raised by the group. Who determined which health determinants should be included and on what criteria? What evidence or metrics were used to reach these conclusions? Without greater clarity on this point, it is difficult to assess whether the approach taken is sufficiently defined and proportionate. In that context, will the Government commit today to publishing an explanation as to how these decisions were reached? In particular, will the Minister set out who was consulted in the development of this list, what evidence was relied on and what criteria were used to determine inclusion or exclusion? Providing that clarity would assist the Committee in understanding the rationale behind the approach taken and assessing whether the duty, as framed, is appropriately defined and justified.
Before I sit down, I go back to my plea in the last group. As I have said before, if any of this is going to work, the Department of Health and Social Care will have to be involved. It will also have to work with local government and, by working with it, be willing to devolve power and moneys locally. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have submitted amendments on health improvement, which is an important topic. I am pleased that we will have this duty on local authorities at mayoral combined authority and combined county authority level. As other noble Lords have said, it is an important step forward.
The Government are committed to building a fairer Britain. To do that, we must ensure that people can live well for longer and spend less time in ill health. Our response, our reimagined NHS, will be designed to tackle inequalities in both access and outcomes, as well as to give everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, the means to engage with the NHS on their terms.
With our colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care, we remain committed to reducing the gap between the richest and poorest in healthy life expectancy—an ambitious commitment that shows that the Government are serious about tackling health inequalities and addressing the social determinants of health. We support NHS England’s Core20PLUS5 approach, which targets action to reduce health inequalities in the most deprived 20% of the population and improve outcomes for the groups that experience the worst access, experience and outcomes in the NHS. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said, tackling health inequalities requires a whole-government effort, as does making sure that the best facilities are available across the country. That is why we are working across departments, from housing and education to employment and welfare, to make sure that health is built into all policies and runs as a golden thread through everything taking place.
I now come to the specific amendments, a number of which would make additions to the list of general health determinants. Before I turn to the individual amendments, I note that the scope and definition of “general health determinants” in the Bill has been intentionally and carefully crafted to be broad and flexible. I will write to noble Lords in answer to the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about how those determinants have been drawn up and what consultations have been done on them.
The Bill lists some of the broad and interconnected factors that shape health, life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. Combined authorities, combined county authorities and mayors can directly impact these factors, such as standards of housing, employment prospects and environmental factors, through the delivery of their wider functions. Given the importance of these factors as inarguable determinants of health, the Bill strengthens the duty and adds clarity by listing them explicitly. Although some examples are provided, it is not our intention to set out a definitive list—we feel that that would be constraining. We recognise that combined authorities and combined county authorities are experts in their local areas and are therefore best placed to decide how to determine and act on the factors most relevant to improving health and reducing health inequalities in their own areas.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for tabling Amendment 158 and, as ever, for championing the importance of public access to fitness, sport and recreational facilities. This amendment would require combined authorities to consider the level of public access to fitness, sport and recreational facilities when exercising their functions. The general health determinants already include matters affecting lifestyle, access to services and environmental factors, and explicitly allow for consideration of any other matters that affect life expectancy or the general state of health. I am not being pedantic—nobody loves a clever clogs—but, to be specific and clear, I note that the amendment would apply only to combined authorities and not to combined county authorities, thereby creating inconsistency in how the duty operates. I apologise that I shall have to point that out with a number of these amendments, but it is important to clarify that.
I now turn to Amendments 159 and 167 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I appreciate that her intention is that the health improvement and health inequalities duty, and the definition of general health determinants within the duty, are broad and impactful. A driving purpose behind the health improvement and health inequalities duty is to support combined authorities and combined county authorities in reducing health inequalities and adopting a “health in all policies” approach. The effect the amendments would have is unclear because of the potential interactions with both “health inequalities” and “general health determinants” in Clause 44.
As I mentioned, the Bill has been drafted to provide a broad and flexible definition of “health inequalities” to ensure that differences in aspects such as life expectancy, general health, mental health and disabilities can all be captured in its scope. This allows combined authorities, combined county authorities and mayors to focus on the broad underlying causes of health inequalities and to tailor their responses to key local issues. Similarly, the framing of “life expectancy” or “general state of health” is intentionally broad and does not exclude mental health, disability or healthy life expectancy, all of which are legitimate dimensions of what one might regard as health and are reflected in mainstream methods for describing health states or health impacts.
I turn now to the large group of amendments: Amendments 159B, 160A, 161A, 163A, 163B, 165ZA, 165B, 167A, 167B, 167C, 167D, 167E, 167F and 167G. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman of Steventon, for her diligence in tabling them and recognise her assured intention to ensure that the definition of general health determinants reflects academic research and is impactful.
As drafted, the list of general health determinants already requires combined authorities and combined county authorities to have regard to environmental factors, employment prospects, earning capacity and access to public services, and explicitly allows for consideration of any other matters that affect life expectancy or the general state of health. Health inequalities are already defined within the duty as inequalities between people of different descriptions living in an area, and it is therefore not necessary to restate this within the general health determinants.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
I thank the Minister, but half of the amendment is not about allotments. Having run this scheme in London, I know that allotments are almost impossible to get. It is also about the right to grow on meanwhile lease bases within communities and councils. Meanwhile leases are available online. It is extremely easy: it just needs the local authority to agree that wasted spaces can be used for growing and then taken away if a builder, developer or council wants them back.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I do not disagree with the noble Baroness. I am saying that this is a local authority duty, and it does not need to go up to the strategic level of a mayoral combined authority. That is why we do not need the amendment for combined authorities, but I accept her point about local authorities. A statutory duty is probably not applicable anyway, but I will give that some further thought, if she is happy for me to do so.
We recognise all the benefits of allotments and community gardening, but we do not want to duplicate existing legal responsibilities or place burdens at the wrong tier of government, which would run counter to the Government’s approach to devolution. I am sorry for going on for so long, but there were a lot of amendments in this group. As I have explained the Government’s rationale for resisting these amendments in detail, I request that they are not pressed.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
This is an important group of amendments, particularly if health does decide to devolve down either power or money in the future. But if local areas have specific health needs that the Government identify, and if they are not seen by the Government as dealing with them, do the Government intend to take a power to intervene?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am not sure about powers of intervention. We have a very specific competence that points our combined authorities towards health issues. The Government have made it very clear that we want to see mayors, in particular, sitting on ICBs; I hope that this will start to address some of the issues raised by noble Lords about not having a voice around the table with health colleagues. I know that Manchester has new powers relating to health issues. We will want to monitor those, have a look at them and watch what is working. We will then decide whether we need to take any further action.
Baroness Freeman of Steventon (CB)
At the end of the clause, in the list of health determinants, there is a particular exclusion for genetically inherited characteristics. Is that supposed to exclude people suffering differences in health due to the colour of their skin?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am sure that that is not what is intended, but I will revert to the noble Baroness with a written reply.
“Matters outside the scope of Inspections
4A In section 28 (inspectors), after subsection (A8) insert—“(A8A) When carrying out an inspection under subsection (A3) of a mayoral combined authority, or mayoral CCA, in its capacity as a fire and rescue authority by virtue of section 1(2)(f) or (g), an English inspector must not review or scrutinise decisions made, or other action taken, in connection with the discharge of an excluded mayoral FRA function.(A8B) For the purposes of subsection (A8A), the following are excluded mayoral FRA functions in relation to a mayoral combined authority, or mayoral CCA, in its capacity as a fire and rescue authority—(a) the issuing of a community risk management plan;(b) the variation of priorities and objectives set out in a community risk management plan;(c) the allocation of the draft or actual budget for fire and rescue functions in relation to any financial year;(d) the function of appointing, suspending or dismissing the chief fire officer;(e) the function of holding the chief fire officer to account for the exercise of—(i) the functions which are delegated to the chief fire officer; and(ii) the functions of persons under the direction and control of the chief fire officer;(f) the function of approving a pay policy statement prepared for the purposes of section 38 of the Localism Act 2011;(g) the function of approving arrangements to enter into a reinforcement scheme under section 13;(h) the function of approving arrangements with other employers of firefighters under section 15;(i) the function of approving arrangements under section 16;(j) the function of approving plans, modifications to plans and additions to plans for the purpose of ensuring that—(i) so far as is reasonably practicable, the mayoral combined authority, or mayoral CCA, is able to continue to perform its fire and rescue functions if an emergency occurs; and(ii) the mayoral combined authority, or mayoral CCA, is able to perform its functions so far as necessary or desirable for the purpose of preventing an emergency, or reducing, controlling or mitigating the effects of an emergency, or taking other action in connection with it;(k) the function of approving any arrangements for the co-operation of the mayoral combined authority, or mayoral CCA in relation to its fire and rescue functions with other general Category 1 responders and general Category 2 responders in respect of—(i) the performance of the mayoral combined authority’s, or mayoral CCA’s, duty as a fire and rescue authority under section 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004; and(ii) any duties under subordinate legislation made in exercise of powers under that Act. (A8C) In subsection (A8B)—“community risk management plan” has the same meaning as in Schedule ZA1;“emergency” has the meaning given in section 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 for Part 1 of that Act;“general Category 1 responder” means a person who falls within Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004;“general Category 2 responder” means a person who falls within Part 3 of Schedule 1 to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004;“priorities and objectives” has the same meaning as in Schedule ZA1.””Member’s explanatory statement
This would provide for matters which inspectors of fire and rescue authorities may not review or scrutinise when inspecting mayoral combined authorities or CCAs which are fire and rescue authorities.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, government Amendments 172 and 173 make essential amendments to Schedule 23, ensuring that the law operates as intended with evolving governance arrangements. Amendment 172 aligns the inspection framework for mayoral combined authorities and mayoral county combined authorities with existing exclusions for other fire and rescue authority governance models, ensuring fairness and consistency across England.
Amendment 173 makes technical alignments with existing legislation. It ensures that, where a mayoral combined authority or a mayoral combined county authority takes on fire and rescue functions, it is treated in the same way as existing fire and rescue authorities. The amendment will also bring mayoral fire and rescue authorities within Part V of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, covering companies in which local authorities have interests. It will also bring it within Section 155 of the same Act for the purpose of emergency financial assistance.
It also clarifies the handling of Section 114 reports in the case of mayoral fire and rescue authorities, and the fire and rescue authority’s response under Section 115 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988. When a chief finance officer issues a report, the report must be sent to the relevant scrutiny committee, and the authority’s response must be sent to the chief finance officer, the external auditor and the relevant scrutiny committee. I commend these government amendments to the Committee.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, these two amendments are enabling amendments in response to the previous issue that was raised with Amendment 170 about absorbing fire and rescue services into a mayoral authority.
It has long been the objective of previous Governments to combine police services and fire and rescue services into one model by arguing that they were both emergency services and, therefore, would be better combined. That has always been resisted, with support from these Benches, because police and fire and rescue services have very different objectives. This Bill is seeking to absorb policing and fire and rescue into the ambit of the directly elected mayor, without having this discussion about whether it is appropriate.
I accept that four mayoral authorities have already combined policing and fire and rescue. Whether or not that has been a success is yet to be tested. The argument against these two amendments—I will reprise a bit of what I said on Amendment 170—is that it is an erosion of transparency and public accountability for what is, after all, a critical emergency service.
It is always interesting to me when we have government amendments—it points to pressure somewhere that new powers are needed to make this work. Amendment 172 removes the inspection of the fire service from the inspection regime and puts it into a mayoral regime. This means that, for instance—these are within the amendment—an inspector cannot challenge the budget of fire and rescue, challenge the appointment or dismissal of the chief fire officer, hold the chief fire officer to account or approve an emergency performance and reinforcement scheme.
All those are critical to ensure public accountability of the fire and rescue service, but suddenly they will not be available for its inspection regime. That will not do. The fire and rescue service plays a vital role as first responders to serious road traffic accidents. They are always the first there, not the police, and they are often at terrorist incidents. We need to have accountability for the public and the existing inspection regime, to ensure that it works well.
My argument with this amendment, as with Amendment 170, is that this is happening by stealth, by absorbing fire and rescue into the police service. Combining them ensures that the mayor has responsibility for those functions. The inspection regime does not apply to the mayor, therefore public accountability for the fire and rescue service lies in holding the mayor to account. As I have said, the mayor is now the sole Lord High Everything of a huge number of strategic functions, so holding them to account on any one of them will be a challenge. I hope that the Minister will think again on this proposal to change the way that fire and rescue services are democratically accountable and inspected, because I fear that failing to do so could have serious consequences.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Scott, for their comments. We have seen a lot of changes in governance in both policing and the fire service. I worked in policing for a long time and during my time policing went from police committees, which were local authority committees, to police authorities, which were more widely representative of communities, and then to police commissioners. Fire and rescue services have been with local authorities; in some areas they moved to police commissioners and responsibility for fire sat with police commissioners. But the mayor will be the only person elected by the whole of that combined authority area, so there is a democratic mandate there.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendment in my name inserting new provisions into the Licensing Act 2003 to confer powers on the GLA and the Mayor of London.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, the Government are committed to supporting the high street economy, a key part of which is the hospitality sector and the night-time economy. Amendments introduced on Report in the other place established a new strategic licensing role for the Mayor of London. This included a duty on the mayor to publish and set out his licensing priorities in a new London-wide statement of licensing policies.
There was also an amendment that served as a placeholder for a new call-in power, which provided the Secretary of State with the power to make regulations to confer on the Mayor of London the function of determining relevant licence applications in certain circumstances. Government Amendments 174 to 181 replace this placeholder and provide more detail around the types of circumstances in which the mayor may call in or determine relevant licence applications.
The amendments also add the Greater London Authority as a responsible authority in certain circumstances under Part 3 of the Licensing Act 2003. They place a requirement on the GLA to notify interested parties, including the applicant and the relevant licensing authority, of applications that the GLA considers to meet the definition of potential strategic importance to Greater London. This will be set out in regulations by the Secretary of State. If a London licensing authority decides not to grant an application of potential strategic importance as applied for, including, for example, by rejecting the application or applying additional conditions to it, the mayor is required to decide whether or not to call in the decision.
If a decision is called in, the mayor must issue a direction to the relevant licensing authority, having given regard to his licensing policy and the importance of promoting the licensing objectives. New rights of appeal in relation to directions issued by the mayor will also be introduced to help ensure the call-in power is used judiciously. The new call-in power will initially be given effect in London to help unleash the full potential of our capital’s world-renowned cultural venues but could be deployed in mayoralties across the country in the future to help prevent decisions from being blocked by unnecessary red tape or short-term thinking.
Separately, at a national level, the Government launched a joint government and industry licensing taskforce last year and are considering more than 2,000 responses to a call for evidence that sought the public’s views on its proposals. We expect to consider those views before making any future reforms to the national licensing regime, including on aspects such as pavement licensing. For the avoidance of doubt, the amendments being discussed today concern the licensing regime in Greater London, not national licensing reforms. I beg to move.
Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)
My Lords, I have a real concern about this group of amendments, which appears to look to tinker around the edges to bring the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority into line with other strategic authorities. We already established in an earlier session that governance in London was the first established; it has never been repeated and, indeed, this Bill does not seek to repeat it either. Surely the sensible route is the one that we suggested in Amendment 75: to have a full review, consider the future governance of London and deal with issues such as this at that time.
I do not want to revisit the earlier argument, but I remind noble Lords that in London there is not the same relationship between the mayor and the boroughs as is suggested there might be in the new governance relationships, or indeed that exists elsewhere. In practice, that means that the mayor might not appreciate local circumstances—as I have said before, not all of London is the same. The mayor might not appreciate the local policing capacity, or lack of it, and the implications of that on licensing decisions. He might not understand the local economy and what licensing could mean for that. He might not appreciate the impact of the local demographics when decisions are being made to overturn local licensing decisions.
What is more, as we have heard before, the current scrutiny of the mayor is not considered to be effective. Devolution should mean respect for decision-making at its lowest common denominator—in this case, the borough level. If a more strategic decision is needed for a wider area, the decision should include the local decision-making processes or partners. For those reasons, I urge the Minister to consider the proposals put forward previously for a thorough review, at which time the implications of these amendments could be considered.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, this group of amendments in the Minister’s name would insert a new provision into the Licensing Act 2003 for additional powers for the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London. We are not opposed to a greater strategic role for the GLA and the mayor, particularly where that role helps to identify key applications and promote consistency across London.
However, we harbour significant concerns about Amendment 179A, which would establish a London-wide strategic licensing oversight system. We are not persuaded that the mayor should be granted such extensive powers to intervene in and potentially overrule decisions taken by local licensing authorities. Although applicants will have the right of appeal, these provisions introduce a new layer of bureaucracy and uncertainty into what is already a complex licensing regime. We struggle to see why the mayor should be given such a decisive and potentially determinative role in local licensing decisions, particularly where those decisions are currently taken by local authorities with detailed knowledge of their communities, as my noble friend Lady O’Neill made clear. The mayor will not have that, and we are overriding local accountability. I am concerned by the provision that allows certain applications to be deemed “of potential strategic importance” when the definition of that term is to be set out not by the GLA or the mayor but through regulations by the Secretary of State.
I have similar scepticism to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about whether this actually is a devolution Bill. It is supposed to be about local democracy and trusting local people to make the right decisions for their local area. It should not be about transferring powers upward to mayors and Whitehall. Why is London again being put on a pedestal and treated differently to the rest of the UK? I appreciate that the Minister said that this could be extended to the rest of the UK. Again, I very much defer to what my noble friend Lady O’Neill said: it would make a lot of sense for this to be part of a broader review of the governance of London.
Moreover, it is not clear why the Government have chosen to introduce these provisions at such a late stage, or how they interact with existing licensing frameworks. At the very least, the Committee needs more time to consider the implications of these amendments, alongside fuller guidance from the Minister about how these powers would operate in practice.
At present, I do not believe that the justification for these amendments has been made, so I look forward to the Minister’s response and to further explanation of the rationale behind the operation of these amendments. However, we cannot support any of these amendments being made at this stage.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their comments on these amendments. I will be very happy to meet noble Lords to discuss the proposals further and in more detail. I will give a little more information now and, I hope, answer some of the questions that noble Lords have asked.
On why we feel that the new call-in power is needed, there is evidence of unmet potential for London’s night-time economy. A YouGov survey found that 45% of Londoners stated that they had ended a night out before midnight in 2023-24, despite wanting to stay out later—I never do but, obviously, there are people who do. Night-time spending in the capital fell by 3% from 2022-25. London also has a lower premises licence approval rate than the rest of England and Wales. Of course, the reasons for that are multifaceted but, through the establishment of a new mayoral call-in power, intended to be used only in specific circumstances, as a measure of last resort, we would hope to encourage a more enabling and joined-up approach to premises licensing that unleashes the full potential of London’s cultural hospitality and night-time economy sectors. I know we have talked many times in your Lordships’ House about the restaurant and pubs business, and so on. We particularly want to encourage that sector in London—and everywhere else, but it is important to do that for the capital’s tourism and other trades.
In answer to the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, the Government support the principle of localism in licensing decisions, but we are committed to putting the right powers at the right levels to drive economic growth that we want to see. Local licensing authorities are often, or in fact nearly always, best placed to make licensing decisions based on their local knowledge and in consultation with other responsible authorities, including the police and enforcement authorities. But where the licensing system affects sectors with a strategic economic role—the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, mentioned that aspect—it is important that city-wide considerations can be taken into account. The new strategic licensing role of the Mayor of London would enable this and provide an opportunity to adopt a similar approach to those that have worked effectively in New York, Amsterdam and Sydney.
To pick up on some specific points about how this is going to work—the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked a couple of questions about this—the mayor will draw his strategic licensing policy by consultation on it before it is published. The mayor will be required to consult each London licensing authority, which will be able to make representations about its local circumstances. The Government intend to consider this and may seek to engage with key licensing stakeholders before setting out thresholds of what that
“potential strategic importance to Greater London”
actually means in regulations. That will provide further detail on the types of licence applications that will potentially fall within the scope of the mayor’s call-in power.
In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, about why this issue has not come forward before, that is a fair point. Further time is required to develop the new mayoral call-in process, including how it would interact with existing licensing legislation. In thinking about bringing this forward, the Government have considered that sometimes the best way in which to deliver devolution across the country is to test out new powers or approaches in one or two places first. As a globally renowned centre for culture and nightlife, London represents an ideal location to test new strategic licensing powers and duties. Nevertheless, it is very much our intention to ensure that it will be possible to roll these out to other mayors across the country, subject to the provision of appropriate evidence via provisions in the Bill. Piloting things is a very good way in which to see how effective they are, and whether they get the balance right between the local decision-making to which the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, referred and what we might think of as a strategic call-in power—so it is very important to do that.
I thank my noble friend Lady Dacres for her comments about licensing. She and I had an informal meeting with some London leaders on Saturday. They were not all London leaders, so I will not use that as evidence because that would not be fair, but, broadly, their view was similar to that of my noble friend Lady Dacres: although you would not want this to be used all the time, it is an important power to have in a key city such as London. However, a call for evidence is out and is currently being reviewed.
Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)
Were all those whom the Minister consulted inner London authorities, or did they include outer London boroughs as well? My frustration is with the fact that everyone assumes that London is all the same, yet Westminster is certainly not like Bexley; and Lewisham, where the noble Baroness, Lady Dacres, comes from, is not like Bexley. Bexley has a night-time economy, yet the Mayor of London is considering closing our police front counter but will not close Lewisham’s because it is that much closer. The police in Bexley are closing down and not working past 10 pm, yet obviously the nightclubs are open till 2 am. Those sorts of things have to be considered for the benefit of all local people, but the mayor will not be aware of them. I apologise, but I felt I needed to say that.
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
Just to correct some of what the noble Baroness alluded to, I see Lewisham as a mix of inner and outer London because we have the south circular and diverse aspects to our borough. She mentioned the police station. All our police station fronts, bar one, have been closed. Lewisham has the largest police station in London—in fact, in Europe—and I am sure that is the sole reason why it has not been closed. It includes horses, as well as other back-office support for the police. I wanted to correct that for the record, because the noble Baroness made it seem as though we are open because of our distance from central London, and that is not the case.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness and my noble friend for those helpful comments. I want to be absolutely clear that it was not a formal consultation I had on Saturday; it was an informal meeting, but a number of London leaders were there. It was not representative, so I will not pretend it was, but it is clear to me that there is more work to do before moving forward with this. Between now and Report I am happy to meet all those who have spoken in this debate but, for now, I will withdraw Amendment 174.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
It is perfectly reasonable that the Minister has suggested that there should be a more joined-up set of regulations, but I tabled an amendment that would have achieved this through the agent of change. Will she reconsider her views on how we can balance the late-opening nightclubs with the new residences next door to them?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
We have had extensive discussions of the agent of change; it is a slightly different proposal. I know it could potentially be linked to this, so if the noble Baroness wants to get involved in the discussions on this, I am happy to include her.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
I appreciate the Minister’s very positive response to our comments. She said that this is a pilot. You would normally have a review at the end of a pilot to work out whether it has worked and the consequences thereof. I appreciate that she intends to withdraw her amendment, but it would be helpful, if these amendments were to come back on Report, to be clear about what the pilot means and what the review process is.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
That is a very fair point. I was indicating that we will have some further discussions about it. If I bring further amendments back on Report, we will need to be clear about putting some flexible powers into the Bill so that we can extend it if we need to. If we look at the London project and it has not worked, clearly that does not mean that it will be extended. But we need the powers because, as all noble Lords will be aware, getting primary legislation on to the statute book is quite a process. We would rather have a permissive power that enables it, if it is needed, and then we are able to do that if necessary.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I will not seek to repeat what has been said so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Lansley and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville.
The issue is quite simple. This is supposed to be a devolution Bill about local empowerment; it is not supposed to be about giving the Secretary of State huge powers, in particular to amend things that have not even been thought of yet. On restricting things in the way that has been suggested, there are some flexibilities in this Bill, historical Bills and Bills for the current Session, but having the power to amend something that is not even a twinkle in the eye of a new Minister— whoever they may be—is just going too far. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has also said this.
This matter needs very deep thought on the part of the Government. We will come back to it if the Government do not seek to address this issue of a Secretary of State having the ability to amend something that has not been thought of yet. Frankly, I find it difficult to understand why you would want to amend a law you have not written yet, because you could always bring in powers that are relevant to that law as part of any legislation you then bring forward.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for their proposed amendments to the delegated powers in the Bill. I also thank the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its report and its recommendations regarding the delegated powers in the Bill, to which these amendments relate. I will consider its report ahead of Report and will make sure that all noble Lords who have joined this debate on delegated powers have sight of that response.
I turn to Amendment 180A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, which seeks to limit the ability to make consequential, supplementary or incidental provisions that would follow a decision to repeal the strategic licensing regime. This amendment would prevent such provisions being made to future legislation. Our intention behind introducing the new strategic licensing pilot in London is clear: to trial a more strategic approach to licensing in London.
However, we recognise that any significant change to long-established arrangements may, in practice, give rise to operational or policy difficulties that could not have been fully foreseen at the point of legislating—I referred to that on an earlier group. It is for that reason that we have provided a power for the Secretary of State to amend the new strategic licensing measures within the first five years of them coming into effect. This will ensure that the Government can act swiftly and proportionately to protect the effectiveness of the wider licensing framework if necessary. The Secretary of State must be able to make consequential, supplementary or incidental provision that repeals or revokes legislation made at a later date, if necessary, in the event that the strategic licensing measures are repealed.
Lord Lansley (Con)
I, too, support what my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook was saying. I recall that she was responsible for Sections 18, 19 and 20 of LURA, on the conferral of functions on county combined authorities—as they were at that time—so she has been down this track.
I have three quick points. First, and I think my noble friend touched on this, the existing legislation, by which the Secretary of State can confer functions on combined authorities or combined county authorities, operates on the basis of a proposal from those authorities to the Secretary of State for the functions to be conferred. After consultation, the Secretary of State requires the consent of those authorities for the functions to be conferred. I cannot find that in Schedule 25, so the conclusion that one reaches is that, in this devolution Bill, the authorities do not even have the power to decide whether the functions are theirs or not. They will just be given to them or modified without anything beyond consultation; it does not require a proposal or consent. That is a very odd way of proceeding.
Secondly, we had a discussion in an earlier group about the structure of the voting arrangements in Clause 6, but we suddenly find in Schedule 25 that the Government want a power to change them on potentially quite important issues. I cannot for the life of me understand why that is necessary here, because the individual strategic authorities can change their constitutional arrangements anyway, if they really wanted to. I think that we established that in the earlier group. So why do the Government want to be able to change the voting arrangements?
Thirdly, on the pilots, there is a requirement in paragraph 21 for the pilot schemes to produce an impact report but, as far as I can see, it has to be given to the Secretary of State. It does not appear to have to be given to anybody else and it certainly does not have to be published. The Government should come back and make it clear that, when produced and given to the Secretary of State, the impact report should then be published.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for probing whether Schedule 25 should stand part of the Bill. Schedule 25 is central to the objectives of the Bill and the Government’s ambitions for devolution in England. We have been clear that the devolution framework delivered by this Bill is the floor not the ceiling of our ambitions for devolving powers to our communities. Schedule 25 provides the Secretary of State with the power to confer new functions on strategic authorities and to modify these functions. This will ensure that strategic authorities and mayors have the powers that they need to deliver for local people.
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, wanted to question which functions could be conferred using these powers. As outlined in paragraph 4 of Schedule 25, a function can be conferred if it
“is a function of a public authority, and … relates to any aspect of any area of competence”.
It might help if I go into a little more detail on that. The current list reflects the areas under which the Government believe strategic authorities should hold powers and functions. Functions and powers held under these areas will best empower mayors to act strategically, to drive growth and to help shape public services for their local communities. The current list of thematic policy areas is deliberately broad and allows for a wide range of activities to fall within the areas of competence. The Government remain open to considering whether the list could be expanded in future.
Questions were asked about the conferring of functions on to a strategic authority and how that will work.
Lord Lansley (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt but I have a question. When the Minister talks about extending the list in future, is that the list of functions within areas of competence, or is she talking about the ability to extend the list of areas of competence?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am talking about the functions within the competence.
The Secretary of State will be required to consult relevant parties, including the strategic authority, the constituent councils and any body that currently holds the function. The Secretary of State will then need to determine whether to confer the function, paying regard to the need for the effective exercise of the function concerned. Regulations made under Schedule 25 will be subject to the affirmative procedure, ensuring that appropriate parliamentary scrutiny takes place.
In some instances, it will make sense to pilot functions with a smaller number of strategic authorities for a time-limited period. I will try to answer the questions about piloting, but I will look at Hansard later and come back in writing if I have not answered them all. Where we are piloting, strategic authorities will be required to provide an impact report on the pilot, which the Secretary of State will take into consideration before deciding whether to confer the functions permanently; I will consider whether those reports should be public.
As an example—the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked for an example of this—development corporation functions are held by mayors. If we wanted to move those functions to foundation authorities, for example, we could use these powers. What will happen with a pilot is that an area will make a request for a function. Pilots will need to be consented to by both the Secretary of State and the relevant local authorities. When a pilot has been completed, there will be an impact assessment of that pilot.
I will come back to the noble Baroness in writing on her questions about default voting arrangements, balance of power and the safeguards.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked about a grid setting out the different powers between different layers of local authorities. We have already produced one; it is on GOV.UK. Perhaps the noble Lord might like to have a look at it and, if he has any further questions, to come back to me.
Lord Shipley (LD)
In view of the points made in the debate on this group of amendments, is it going to change?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The competencies are there, so the powers will stay the same as in the grid that we have set out. I ask the noble Lord to have a look at it and, by all means, to come back to me if he has any questions on it.
The Government will be able to confer functions across all areas on which we expect strategic authorities to act. Also, if the Government wish to create a completely new function and confer it on a strategic authority, primary legislation would be required. This strikes the balance between delivering further devolution and ensuring that appropriate parliamentary scrutiny of more novel measures takes place.
I hope this answer is helpful to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and ask her not to oppose the schedule.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I thank the Minister for her response; however, I think we will need to go back to Hansard. My example, for instance, was not on the pilots. It was an example on the changes that have been made in this Bill to, in particular, the levelling-up Act. I will of course go through Hansard carefully and, if necessary, we will return to these matters.
The issue of oversight goes to the heart of how this House discharges its responsibilities, particularly in view of reorganisation and changes to how we are all governed. Processes in this place matter and, when we confer powers, particularly those that will shape local systems and local decision-making, we must do so with proper regard to localism and accountability, not just what the Secretary of State at the time would like.
Much of our consideration of this Bill has necessarily focused on the schedules. Schedules are rarely debated line by line in the same way as clauses. When powers are dispersed across multiple schedules, as they are in this Bill, it becomes more difficult for your Lordships to track precisely what authority is being granted, to whom and subject to what limits. That is not a criticism of this House, nor of the Government, but it does mean that we must consciously take the time to examine these provisions with care. Schedules also frequently rely on delegated powers, allowing Ministers to add, remove or modify functions through regulations with limited parliamentary oversight. Over time, this risks creating a ratchet effect, whereby more and more policy is shaped by executive action rather than by primary legislation. That is precisely why the questions raised in this debate deserve clear and substantive answers. When the Minister reads Hansard, maybe a letter would be sensible.
For those reasons, while I am grateful for the short debate that we have had today, I remain concerned that important issues of scrutiny and accountability have yet to be fully addressed. I hope the Government will reflect on these points as the Bill progresses. At this point, I will not press my opposition to the schedule standing part.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, turning first to Clause 53, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for his probing stand part notice. As we have said more than once, the devolution of health is a complex matter that raises many important questions—particularly, as we have heard, around the relationship between local authorities and the NHS. I listened to the passion of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, on this issue. I assure him that I felt as passionate as him 15 years ago; I hope that, at the end of all this, he is not as disappointed as I was.
When I was going through this in Wiltshire, the interesting thing was that the staff on the front line—those in the NHS and in local authorities—really understood this issue. They understood the importance of devolution and how they could deliver much more efficient, better services for the people whom they wanted to serve. That pushed me to do this more and more. However, as I have noted previously, many of the determinants of public health sit outside the health system. We must be clear on who is responsible for what. As we have said many times, where additional duties and responsibilities are placed on local authorities, they must be matched with sufficient resources to deliver them properly. In addition, the Government’s approach must be evidence-based and must demonstrate value for money for taxpayers.
On previous groups, the Minister mentioned the mayor’s involvement in integrated care boards, and we all welcome that. But it has to go further than that. In my opinion, being a member of an integrated care board will not deliver what we need to be delivered on the ground with health and local authorities.
This brings me to Amendment 185 in the name of my noble friend Lord Gascoigne. I thank him for making the case so compellingly. This amendment would prevent the duplication of powers between local authorities and central government. In the realm of health, for instance, we cannot risk the lines of accountability being blurred, whereby functions and responsibilities are devolved down to local authorities, yet Whitehall does not equip them to deliver effectively or continues to do the same jobs itself, leading to duplication.
This is precisely the difference between the Government’s current approach to devolution and what genuine community empowerment ought to look like. This amendment aims to correct that by ensuring that, when a function is devolved, it is also relinquished by central government, while still permitting the appropriate oversight where needed.
If the Government truly believe in local community empowerment, there can be no greater vote of confidence than supporting the principles set out here, trusting local authorities to do the jobs devolved to them fully, and giving local people clear, transparent lines of accountability. This is a matter not of meaningful devolution but of efficiencies and effective government. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on both these important amendments.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, for their amendments. I turn first to my noble friend Lord Hunt probing whether Clause 53 should stand part of the Bill.
Clause 53 places limits on the devolution of health functions to strategic authorities to ensure that the health service remains truly national. I know the noble Lord understands that. For instance, it prevents the transfer of the Secretary of State for Health’s core functions in relation to health. Where health functions are devolved to a strategic authority, it requires that provision is made to ensure that they adhere to national service standards.
Protections against devolving these functions are not new; as the noble Lord indicated, they have probably been going since the health service was first set up. They have certainly been in place since central government first began the process of devolving functions to combined authorities. The Bill merely retains those protections. I know my noble friend wishes to probe the Government’s intentions on devolving health functions in the future, and he is right to do so.
Health, well-being and public service reform is an area of competence for strategic authorities, as set out in Clause 2. The Bill also confers a new health improvement and inequalities duty on combined authorities and combined county authorities. As health is covered within the areas of competence, the Government could use the powers in this Bill to devolve health functions to strategic authorities in the future, if they believed it appropriate to do so. Mayors of established mayoral strategic authorities would also be able to request the devolution of health functions and get a response from government.
This demonstrates that the Government see a clear role for strategic authorities and mayors in health, both now and going forward. The example of Manchester is a very good one, and we will continue to look at what is happening there to make sure that lessons can be learned and that, if we get requests from other mayors to devolve health functions to them, we pick up on any lessons from Manchester. At the moment, the process is looking positive. But it will always be right, I fear, that limitations remain to make sure that the health service remains truly national. Whether that is in targeting or some of the processes, we will see.
I turn to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, which seeks to prevent the doubling up of powers and responsibilities in strategic authorities and Whitehall. I heard the Secretary of State speak over the weekend and his view is definitely that devolution by default is the way he wants to move this forward. He was very clear on that, and on the advocation of subsidiarity that sees powers and funding always held at the most appropriate level for delivering any service. The funding settlement will be announced this week; it may be out today. It is out—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. I had not kept up on that, although I have talked of nothing else all weekend.
Through the integrated settlement, we have instituted the principle that, where central government funding falls within the scope of an established mayoral strategic authorities’ functional responsibilities, that funding will be devolved. The Government are also committed to providing new strategic authorities with capacity funding to kick-start their organisations, so all areas on the devolution priority programme will receive mayoral capacity funding to help establish their new institutions once the legislation has been laid before Parliament. They will receive capacity funding in future years as well, so they are ready and prepared to deliver the benefits of devolution.
I agree with the noble Lord that, unless you have the funding to deliver these new functions, there is not much point in devolving them. We very much agree with the spirit of the noble Lord’s amendment. When responsibilities are devolved, they have to be devolved as thoroughly as possible to enable the true innovation and place-based approaches that we all want to see and that are the whole purpose of devolution in the first place. That is the position the Government have taken in the devolution framework in this Bill. The majority of powers will be exercised solely by the strategic authority or concurrently with the constituent authorities.
However, there are rare circumstances where the relevant Secretary of State and the strategic authority need to share powers. To give an example, the Secretary of State will retain the ability to provide funding in relation to adult education in addition to funding provided by the strategic authority. This will ensure that those areas in strategic authorities do not miss out on nationwide schemes. For example, I think there have been some announced today.
The amendment in itself is too restrictive and would prevent instances where it makes sense for powers to be held concurrently with government. I understand the noble Lord’s concern that, while functions may be devolved, funding may remain in Whitehall. However, the Government are committed to providing strategic authorities with the funding to deliver their functions.
We have committed to providing new strategic authorities with capacity funding, as I have said, and the integrated settlement institutes the principle that government funding will be devolved where the responsibilities fall within established mayoral authorities’ functional responsibilities. I hope that, with those explanations, noble Lords are able to support the clause standing part of the Bill.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend. It has been a really interesting and encouraging debate. I share the view, concern and thrust of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, and I thought my noble friend was pretty positive in response.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, made a very pertinent point about the difference between delegation and devolvement. As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, pointed out, although we talk about devo Manchester in relation to health, it was actually delegation, with the Secretary of State retaining responsibility.
I do not think that in the short term we will be able to move off the Secretary of State’s responsibility. That goes back to 1948. However, I think a lot more could be delegated, and there are issues where we could start to look at real devolvement. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, reminded me that we have the joys of another NHS reform Bill coming to us in the next few months, and we will have an opportunity to discuss and debate this further. I will be looking particularly to see whether the Bill tries to nibble away at what is already contained in Clause 53.
One has to say that, at the time of the agreement over Greater Manchester, it is well known that NHS England was not in the loop in the original decision-making. I am afraid that, because of that, it has not been keen to see progress such as has occurred in Manchester. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said that Manchester was essentially a pilot and we should have a proper assessment; I agree with that.
My noble friend was very encouraging. I understand this whole question about the Secretary of State’s accountability to Parliament for the running of the National Health Service and how that squares with giving more authority to local authorities to have a role in it. We can find a way through. For instance, this always struck me: if we are going to have pilots, why on earth can we not have one mayoral authority taking on responsibility for an ICB—not having one place on it but actually doing it? Albeit it might be under delegated powers from the Secretary of State, at least let us dip in the water of freeing up the system. Looking at how the NHS is run at the moment, how many restructurings do we need to show that central command control simply does not work? Having said that, I withdraw my opposition to Clause 53.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken on this group of amendments. We keep coming back to the same sorts of issues as in the previous group. We were talking about devolution in relation to health, and fiscal devolution and trying to extract money out of the NHS.
Now we come to a different level of fiscal devolution, and my noble friend Lord Gascoigne raised the point that a lot of people outside the London bubble are frustrated. I emphasise that it is not just in the north; I was on the south coast in Southampton this weekend, where there are lots of frustrated people. I can assure you that if you drove along the pothole-encrusted roads of Bedfordshire, there are lots of frustrated people there as well.
This is important because people care about their communities and they want their communities to be better. They care about place, and you cannot create great places by diktat from Whitehall. I recall saying that two or three times earlier in this Committee. That means you need real devolution and real powers. It also means real fiscal devolution; we have a number of suggestions on fiscal devolution here.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and my noble friend Lady Scott made the point that parish councils, particularly small parish councils, are very close to their communities. People can easily see what that extra £10 or £20 or £50 is being spent on—such as extra grass cutting or improvements to the village hall—and they are quite amenable to it. As you start moving away from that and you start breaking that relationship, it becomes much more difficult.
One of the great dangers with fiscal devolution, much as I believe in it, is that central government—I am not making a political point here, but I am blaming Whitehall and the Treasury—see that as an opportunity to raise tax by the back door. We have seen government regularly passing additional responsibilities to local government with a short-term grant and then expecting the council tax payer to fund that burden.
One of the big issues that we have in local government at the moment is that a lot of responsibilities have been passed down; responsibilities are then growing quicker than the tax base, which means many of these issues of place are facing a fiscal squeeze. We have this dichotomy or dilemma: we may want fiscal devolution, but how do we avoid central government cost shunting?
My noble friend Lord Fuller was implying the same thing. It is great to have fiscal freedoms for parish and town councils, but we do not want cost shunting from overpressed district, unitary and county authorities. How do we protect against that cost shunting, where people see higher tax bills but no benefits? Place is important. I am desperately keen for genuine fiscal devolution, but how do we protect our residents from, in effect, cost shunting from Whitehall down the line?
I will talk briefly about some of these amendments. My noble friend Lord Gascoigne’s amendment is really important, because it is not just about the Secretary of State making a judgment—that is what the Secretary of State would do anyway, if he were to devolve powers—but placing a burden on him to say that he genuinely believes that a council has the financial resources, financial capacity and management resources to do what is being entrusted upon it. It is not just a case of going, “Get on with it. Bye. It is not my fault; it is your fault”, then, a year later, not giving it the money that it needs to deliver those things.
Forgive me, because I cannot remember whether it was from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, or the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, but I accept his point. However, the contra argument is that it places a burden on the Secretary of State to make sure that it is feasible. We need to think about that very important distinction.
The other point to make is that we are going through reorganisation here and we need to ensure that this is not shuffling the deckchairs on the “Titanic”. It has to be about meaningfully improving services for our residents and about better value for money. We should not have reorganisation for reorganisation’s sake, which is why I think this amendment is the right approach.
We have had a number of amendments on fiscal devolution, but I will not go through them all. I have a concern about cost shunting and we have to protect against that. We need to give people real fiscal powers in order to deliver better services for their residents. What we do not need—some of the announcements that have been made today are like this and our Government were the same—is to have to appeal to the Government to get funding to do something. That means the Secretary of State is still in charge and that you are not determining your local priorities but, by the way, all the councils will do it because they want as much money as they can for their residents to deliver as best they can.
This must be underpinned by a real understanding that there are both costs and benefits from devolution, and that the funding arrangements are fair and transparent to local government. One of the biggest fears I have in local government is that the resident and local taxpayer does not see what their funding goes on, because far too much of it is dictated by the Government. These are responsibilities and duties with no funding and no powers, which is something that I might come back to on the next group of amendments. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Gascoigne, Lord Wallace and Lord Bassam, and the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, for their amendments in this group.
I will comment briefly on the general points that the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, made. It does not happen as rarely as one might expect, but I do agree with some of what he said. Nobody much cares about the architecture of local government; when I knock on people’s doors, they do not say, “Can you change the structure of local government, Sharon?” That does not happen. They do care, however, about their public services being delivered effectively. They want to see new homes built, their streets cleaned, their potholes fixed—as the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, pointed out—fly-tipping sorted and work being done to tackle the decline of our high streets. The current system was just not sustainable. It was not working in terms of either finance or efficiency, so we have to make some changes to tackle that issue. Both making the structures work better and devolving power to local authorities are needed to make sure that they can tackle the things that are important at the local level.
Amendment 186, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, seeks to place barriers on conferring new functions on strategic authorities. As per paragraph 1(4) of Schedule 25, the Secretary of State cannot confer a new function on a strategic authority unless they are
“satisfied that it is appropriate to do so having regard to the need to secure the effective exercise of the function concerned”.
That provides an adequate test to ensure that, when functions are conferred, it is with the effective delivery of that function in mind. It also enables the Government to pilot new functions with strategic authorities. We talked about some of that earlier. In these instances, strategic authorities will be required to provide an impact report on the pilot, which the Secretary of State will use to help decide whether to confer the function on a permanent basis.
The pilot process provides an adequate opportunity to test devolution before rolling it out more widely. We believe that requiring each strategic authority to have a specific plan for each function effectively signed off by the Secretary of State runs counter to the principles of devolution that underpin the Bill. It risks micromanagement of strategic authorities from Whitehall and slowing down the progress of devolution. I do not say “micromanagement” with any political side because, the last time that my party was in power, we ended up with about 160 performance indicators for local authorities. I am not in favour of that either.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
As the noble Baroness rightly says, they are legally binding targets that people need to take into account. We do not necessarily need to do it again. But I come back to my central point: do not place a duty on somebody if you do not provide the capacity for them to deliver it.
My second point is on devolution. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, made some interesting points about local wealth building and it probably is a very good model, but it may not be the only model. There may be other models and there may be other models that work locally, so why are we doing a one size fits all? We should trust people to deliver for their residents; that is why they get elected and re-elected. Sometimes we will make mistakes, and we do it differently the next time because we made a mistake the first time.
Those are my two key concerns that we need to focus on. First, if you provide a duty to somebody, you need to provide the means and capacity to do it. Secondly, on the issue of democracy, if we are genuine about devolution, we should be very careful about providing a centralised diktat about what we should do. That has nothing to do with the proposed areas of concern, which I have a huge amount of sympathy with.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Willis, for Amendments 192, 193, 194 and 241B. I will respond to Amendments 192 and 241B together, as their aims are somewhat shared.
During the Bill’s passage, the Government have consistently made the point that many local authorities have a high level of ambition to tackle climate change, restore nature and address wider environmental issues, including air quality. It is not clear what additional benefits, if any, a new statutory duty would bring.
The Government offer net-zero support for local government. That includes through Great British Energy, which will work with local government to help to increase the rollout of renewable energy projects. Furthermore, the Government will also partner with strategic authorities and local authorities to roll out the ambitious warm homes plan, which will upgrade 5 million homes over this Parliament to help them to save money on their bills and benefit from cleaner, cheaper heating. To strengthen our engagement with local government on net-zero strategy, policy and delivery, and to support local government to drive forward net-zero action at the local level, the Government also run the Local Net Zero Delivery Group, which last met on 9 December last year.
Local authorities already have statutory duties to improve air quality in their areas. Thanks to the combined efforts of local and central government, air quality in the UK has improved. The Government will continue to work with local authorities to reduce air pollution and its harmful effects. It is worth noting that in London, as the noble Baroness will know, the air quality target, which it was estimated would take 193 years to achieve, was accomplished in nine years. Concerted effort and clear decision-making can make a real difference.
Existing tools and duties also support efforts to contribute to targets for nature, such as local nature recovery strategies and the biodiversity duty under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, strengthened under the Environment Act 2021. The latter requires all public authorities to consider and take action to conserve and enhance biodiversity, which must have regard to any relevant local nature recovery strategy and to any relevant species conservation strategy or protected site strategy prepared by Natural England.
On climate adaptation, the Government already work closely with local authorities, strategic authorities and mayors, a number of whom are developing dedicated climate risk assessments. In October last year, the Government launched a local authority climate service, which provides tailored data on climate change impacts. The Government also ran the first adaptation reporting power trial for local authorities last year, providing guidance and support on how to assess climate risks to their functions and services.
I will respond to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, about the mayor not abiding the climate change duty. There is a specific competency on environmental climate change in the Bill. A mayor of a strategic authority, as well as having the overview and scrutiny powers that the body has, could be subject to a challenge by way of a judicial review for failure to meet an existing duty. There is significant power there already. The issues around local democracy and the prioritisation given to an issue is and must be subject to democratic accountability. It is difficult; we have to get that balance right. But as there is an existing legal duty, there is enough power for local citizens to be able to push their locally elected representatives. Given such existing support, and the fact that many local authorities are already taking great strides in tackling environmental decline and climate change, we do not think that this particular duty is needed.
Amendment 193 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, seeks to require strategic authorities to collect and publish annual poverty data for their authority. We recognise that the policies and interventions that strategic authorities deliver have an impact on reducing poverty and alleviating its impacts. As set out in the Government’s strategy, Our Children, Our Future: Tackling Child Poverty, a broad and dedicated range of partners play a role in reducing poverty, and we will continue to do this work in partnership with local, regional, national, private and third sector partners.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for his amendment. I was initially a little confused, having read the amendment and then listened to his speech, but after his final comment I understand that this is a probing amendment to get the Minister and the Government to be clear about how they see the structure of the Mayoral Council, the regional devolved Governments and, potentially, councils. It is about how to create some kind of structure or how it will be structured. In that sense, I am a lot clearer and happier.
I had more concerns about an English local government council, because that would be largely duplicating the role of the LGA. As an ex-chairman of the LGA, I would be deeply unhappy and my colleague the noble Baroness would also be deeply unhappy as a fellow ex-chair. We would both agree that enhancing the LGA would be a good idea, but I am not sure that we would want an English local government council. As a probing amendment, I understand the purpose of it. The noble Lord raises some valid points about what the role of the Mayoral Council is, how it will all fit in and where the pieces of the jigsaw are. That is a good question, and I look forward to the Minister’s answer.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for Amendment 195, and hope that he will take my regards back to John Denham, for whom I have the greatest respect. I have often worked with John on English devolution, so I respect what he says.
This amendment seeks to create an obligation to establish a national body called the English local government council. Membership of the council would comprise a person appointed by constituent members of each strategic authority and the Mayor of London. Members of the council would also be required to pay a membership fee, placing a new financial burden on authorities. Functions of the council would include working with the Government to agree a framework for the further devolution of powers; to agree funding for local and strategic authorities; and to identify a representative to participate in the Council of the Nations and Regions.
I appreciate the spirit of the amendment, as I believe that proper representation of local government into central government is incredibly important. We have worked very hard on that as a Government since we came into power in July 2024. When local leaders work together with the Government, it benefits our whole country. That is why the English devolution White Paper sets out three forums for engagement: the Council of the Nations and Regions, the Mayoral Council and the Leaders Council. Across these councils, all levels of devolved government are represented, from First Ministers to mayors to the leaders of local authorities. These forums have all met a number of times—I have been to the Leaders Council three times, I think. I can assure noble Lords that funding and furthering devolution is rarely not on the agenda for discussion, but they also discuss thematic issues as well.
It is therefore not necessary for a new council to create a framework for further devolution. The Bill is already establishing a process to extend devolution in a more streamlined way and to deepen devolution through the mayoral right to request process. While funding is discussed at all these councils, it is right and proper that local government funding is provided through the finance settlement process, which carefully allocates needs-based funding across the country. The current council structures we have in place are working well, and the flexibility afforded to them as non-statutory bodies allows us to work with the sector to adapt the forums as the needs of local leaders change. The current structures place no new burdens on authorities, with no membership fees required, as this amendment would create. For these reasons, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
I am of course entirely willing to withdraw my amendment, but I wish to stress that this is a very important point. We are about to enter another difficult period in which we have no idea how this year’s elections will come out and which parties will be in control in different parts of the United Kingdom, and in which the relationship between the devolved authorities and what is intended to be the stronger combined authorities within England will come under some strain.
What happened between 2015 and 2024 is that these things did not work well and, in many cases, they ceased to meet. We do not want that to happen again. If this proposal for stronger mayoral authorities is to work, we need to make sure that it fits into the governance of the United Kingdom. If it is to work, the institutions, not just the Council of the Nations and Regions but also the Mayoral Council for England, need to have a good deal more power than the LGA has in standing up to central government—and, as in most other democracies, they need to have some sense of how one bargains over fiscal redistribution. One of the central aspects of the German federal system is the bargaining over how money is distributed between the centre and the richer and poorer regions. That is something that we need to do in England as well—it is done a certain amount between the devolved authorities and the United Kingdom. I speak as someone from northern England, and we are always deeply conscious of the fact that we do not manage to bargain with central government about that.
I would be very grateful if the Minister would have further conversations off the floor before Report, because otherwise we will want to push the issue that the Mayoral Council in some shape or other must be given statutory authority. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage ExcerptsWednesday 4th February 2026
(1 week, 3 days ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 View all English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 150-V(b) Amendment for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Fifth Marshalled List) - (4 Feb 2026)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I also welcome back the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. It is very nice to see her back in her place, and I hope her leg is recovering speedily.
I thank noble Lords for these amendments relating to planning and housing. I understand the spirit of Amendment 126, which seeks to restrict the use of strategic planning powers. It is important that the right checks and balances are in place in the governance of strategic authorities. However, we believe that the Bill already puts the right procedures in place. Combined authorities and combined county authorities already have to make decisions collectively. Constituent councils each have at least one voting member and, thanks to Clause 6, decisions will require a majority to be taken forward.
Even then, there are some circumstances where we go further. For example, mayors and their authorities must consult the relevant constituent councils and local planning authorities before using compulsory purchase powers in their area. Non-mayoral strategic authorities cannot acquire land in this way without consent. I can assure the noble Baroness that when a mayor exercises their powers on mayoral development orders, there will be consultation with local communities and local planning authorities. That will be set out in secondary legislation.
Where the mayor exercises strategic planning functions directly, there are appropriate checks and balances. For example, the mayor’s spatial development strategy cannot be adopted until the combined authority or combined county authority has passed a motion to do so. I thank my noble friend Lady Shah for sharing her experience of the planning process. Introducing a requirement that every use of a strategic planning power requires the consent of every constituent council would be excessive and fetter the ability of strategic authorities and their mayors to make strategic decisions for the benefit of their whole area.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for Amendment 127. We have often had discussions about parish and town councils, and I know how strongly she feels about them. Schedules 16 and 17 already place requirements on strategic authorities to work with their constituent councils and local planning authorities, such as national park authorities, before seeking to use compulsory purchase powers on land in their area. The types of organisations they must consult or get the consent of are the same as those from which existing strategic authorities already must seek consent. Extending these requirements to parish councils would, I believe, take this too far. There are over 10,000 parish councils in England.
This amendment as written would give parish councils the ability to veto compulsory acquisitions of land. It cannot be right for a parish council to unilaterally block a strategic purchase by a strategic authority—on which all the constituent councils have agreed—that may have benefits beyond that parish. While it is of course right that strategic authorities consider the views of local communities, including parish councils, in their decisions, individual parish councils should not be able to block those decisions.
I turn to Amendment 130 from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, which seeks to require mayors, combined authorities and combined county authorities to prioritise brownfield over greenfield land when they designate land for development. Once the relevant provisions of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 are commenced, combined authorities and combined county authorities, including those with mayors, will have a duty to produce a spatial development strategy. Spatial development strategies will guide local plans in their area; identify broad locations for development and key infrastructure requirements; and set housing targets for local authorities. They will not themselves allocate specific parcels of land for development. When preparing a spatial development strategy, authorities will be required to have regard to the need to ensure that their strategy is consistent with national policy.
The promotion and reuse of brownfield land is a central part of the current National Planning Policy Framework. Authorities are expected to give substantial weight to the benefits of using suitable brownfield land within existing settlements to maximise density. The framework particularly emphasises the importance of appropriate uses in town centres, although, of course, it will not be appropriate in all cases for development to be situated on previously developed land and town centres.
We aim to go even further to cement this approach in the proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, on which we are currently consulting. New policies on development inside and outside of development boundaries promote a sustainable pattern of development by steering proposals to appropriate locations, maximising the use of suitable land in urban areas and taking a more selective approach to the types and locations of development outside settlements. Mayors will also be able to grant upfront planning permission for specific types of development on specific sites through mayoral development orders. We want to ensure that the legislation is flexible enough to allow mayors to use these orders for a range of different uses across different types of land, reflecting the mayor’s plans to support the growth of their area.
Paragraph 125 of the current National Planning Policy Framework states:
“Planning policies and decisions should … give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land within settlements for homes and other identified needs”.
Following the revision in December 2024, this paragraph has been strengthened further. It now states that proposals for such brownfield sites
“should be approved unless substantial harm would be caused”.
It is of course right that we promote the effective use of previously developed land, but we should avoid creating overly inflexible legal requirements that may not work in every situation and would serve only to inhibit the growth that this country needs; my noble friend Lady Dacres referred to these issues. Although I appreciate the intent behind this amendment, I do not think that it is necessary or proportionate.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
I thank the Minister for her response. The key issue here is the one to which I referred. We have had guidance for many years. I appreciate that there is potentially to be some mild strengthening of that guidance but the fact is that it is not working, as I illustrated with the very low number of houses that are being built in the large urban area of London. We therefore need to step up. This is not about preventing development elsewhere or slowing development down. This is a strategic plan. It is about facilitating development and putting a greater onus on mayors to find brownfield land because we know that, as we have illustrated, it is more difficult to develop on brownfield land, whether or not it is contaminated. This is not a slowing mechanism but a mechanism that will create more sites and get more development done—and with more of it being in urban and brownfield areas, protecting some of our greenfield land. It is not about slowing; it is actually about the reverse.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I understand what the noble Lord says. I do not have the statistics in front of me but I have visited a number of very good brownfield sites in London. The issue of building on brownfield is not the only issue preventing building in London; there are viability issues that are quite unrelated to that. I accept that viability can be an issue on brownfield land. Indeed, we are very much taking into account some of the issues around viability in the new packages that we are developing with London in order to encourage London boroughs and the Mayor of London to think about how we can work further to deliver against the housing demand in London.
This is a key issue, but it is not as simple as a lack of use of brownfield sites. Nearly all the housing sites that I have visited right across the country have been, to one extent or another, developments on brownfield sites. That is the right way to go. We will of course continue to monitor this, but I do not want to create an inflexible requirement that will mean that people who are in a situation where they cannot use brownfield sites cannot develop anything. We must be very careful about this, but I understand the points being made.
I turn to Amendment 131. I am glad to see that the House of Lords is taking our environmental responsibilities very seriously, because we have a number of amendments to this Bill that have been recycled from the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, of which Amendment 131 is an early contender. However, I appreciate that this amendment is slightly different in that it relates specifically to strategic development strategies. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. His amendment seeks to make it a statutory requirement for local planning authorities, either separately or jointly, to appoint a suitably qualified chief planning officer. I absolutely understand the intention behind the amendment. As we discussed during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act, I share the view that it is very important for planners to have a presence within the leadership structures of local authorities. As I have said previously, it is our mission to try and make sure that we highlight the role and importance of planning for all local authorities, whichever level of planning they are operating at.
However, I do not believe that this is an issue that should be addressed through legislation at this stage. The Government consider it essential that each authority should retain the flexibility to determine the most effective way to organise its own planning functions, particularly because, in England, they vary widely in scale and nature. In practice, many already operate with a chief planner, as I think the noble Lord said, or the equivalent senior role, although what that role entails varies widely between, for example, a county authority focused mainly on minerals and waste, a small district council and a large London borough.
As I promised to do during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, I will continue to keep this matter under review as we take forward further reforms to the planning system. This is something that I am happy to explore further with local authorities and the sector as part of that work. I will aim to expedite that work, but it would not be appropriate to introduce this into legislation without doing that first. I therefore want to do a bit more work on this before we take any decisions on it.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for Amendment 132, which would require strategic authorities to prepare sustainable drainage assessments. I admire her persistence on the issue of sustainable drainage systems; she has a great deal of knowledge on this that I greatly appreciate her bringing to planning matters. I reassure her that the Government are committed to taking a systemic approach to tackling drainage issues and , in particular, improving the implementation of sustainable drainage systems. Through this Bill, we are giving mayors of strategic authorities outside London the ability to call in planning applications of potential strategic importance. Where a planning application is called in, the mayor must consider the application in accordance with the development plan for the area and national planning policy.
In December 2024, we revised the National Planning Policy Framework to require all developments that may have drainage impacts to incorporate sustainable drainage systems. We are proposing to go further through the current consultation on the new framework, which proposes that all sustainable drainage systems should be designed in accordance with new national standards introduced by the Government last year. The consultation also includes proposals for clearer engagement between plan-making authorities and wastewater companies when plans are being made, taking into account the impacts of planned growth. This is to provide a clearer understanding of capacity and any additional infrastructure needs.
Against this background, I am concerned that the noble Baroness’s amendment would impose a burden on strategic authorities without being effective. Mayors of strategic authorities will deal with only a small number of planning applications themselves, so it would be disproportionate to expect them to produce a statutory drainage assessment, which would likely be very partial, as they would not be able to look holistically at all potential development coming forward in their area. Nor should this amendment be necessary, given the steps that we are taking to improve the assessment of drainage needs and the delivery of sustainable drainage systems and the clear requirement for drainage matters to be addressed when individual development proposals are being considered.
I will take back the issue that the noble Baroness raised on the specific legal case. That is as a relatively new court decision, so I am sure that the MHCLG team are reviewing any impact on the Bill. I will respond in writing to her and other Members of the Committee on that.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
The Minister said that the judgment was on 15 January. If she and her department consider that their policy is being set aside by very clever planning barristers, would she perhaps bring forward an amendment from the department that would be much better worded than my humble effort in this regard? It is completely inappropriate for the sequential test to be set aside in the way that it has been, and it is contrary to what she is trying to do in her department.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I think it would be best if we look at the legal judgment and come back to the noble Baroness on that issue. I undertake to do that.
Amendment 196E was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, who is in the Chamber. It relates to the definition of planning data as set out in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. I recognise the intention to expand the data standards provision to ensure that it covers other types of plans produced by strategic authorities, such as local growth plans and local transport plans. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 grants the Secretary of State the power to specify in regulations which planning information must meet set data standards. Given that data standards can evolve, the Secretary of State has the power to define those standards. The types of plans referred to in this amendment are intended to be considered as part of plan-making and in determining planning applications, both of which are relevant planning functions under the existing planning data provisions. Further, the Secretary of State has the power to specify the organisations and planning legislation that the data standards provisions apply to, providing flexibility to data provision powers as needed. We are confident that the current provisions are sufficiently broad and flexible to cover the plans specified in this amendment, but I welcome further details on the amendment’s intentions and objectives.
Amendment 222B tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, seeks to add fire and rescue authorities as statutory consultees for planning applications involving energy projects, such as battery energy storage systems. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I refer to them as BESS in future—I have a granddaughter called Bess, so that feels a bit weird to me, but never mind about it. Let me emphasise that the Government take fire and safety extremely seriously, but we do not consider this amendment to be necessary or proportionate, and we are concerned that it may create unintended consequences. On 26 January last year, the Chancellor announced a moratorium on the creation of any new statutory consultees within the planning process together with a wider review of the statutory consultee framework to ensure that it supports the Government’s ambitions for growth. A Written Ministerial Statement issued on 10 March 2025 set out a package of measures to reform statutory consultees, ensuring that they provide high-quality expert advice swiftly to support well-designed development and timely decision-making. The Government have now consulted on statutory consultee reform, and we are currently analysing the responses. No decisions will be taken until that analysis is complete. Adding fire and rescue services to the list of statutory consultees would pre-empt that review and place additional burdens on them.
I know that battery energy storage system sites are of particular interest. These sites are already regulated by the Health and Safety Executive under a robust framework that requires designers, installers and operators to maintain high safety standards. Planning practice guidance also encourages developers promoting these developments on a larger scale to engage with local fire and rescue services, and local planning authorities are encouraged to consider guidance issued by the National Fire Chiefs Council. I repeat what I said in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill discussions: because someone is not a statutory consultee does not mean that they cannot contribute to a planning application discussion if they feel they need to. The Government are also considering further measures to strengthen oversight of environmental and safety risks associated with BESS. Proposals were recently included in Defra’s consultation on modernising environmental permitting for industry which proposed adding BESS sites to the environmental permitting regulations. Defra is currently considering the responses to that consultation and will publish its response in due course.
I turn to Amendment 241E in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman of Steventon, which seeks to change the role of national park authorities in the preparation of a spatial development strategy where it covers a national park or is likely to have a significant effect on the purposes of a national park. Although I agree absolutely with the need to ensure that national parks remain protected—we had much discussion on that during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill—the existing arrangements already provide national park authorities with opportunities to have input into the preparation of a spatial development strategy and, more generally, to shape development.
Under Section 12H of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, as amended by the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, strategic planning authorities must consult
“any local planning authority for an area that is wholly or partly within, or adjoins, the strategy area and is affected by the strategy”.
This includes national park authorities. More generally, we will expect strategic planning authorities to engage closely with national park authorities where relevant, and we intend to provide guidance to support early and effective engagement. Finally, as local planning authorities, national park authorities will continue to prepare local plans for their areas, which will set out more detailed policies on the use and development of land in the national park.
With the assurances that I have given this afternoon, I hope that the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Bennett, Lady McIntosh and Lady Freeman, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley—
Lord Lansley (Con)
Forgive me, but I wish to speak before the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, responds to the debate. Her Amendment 127 raises an interesting question on Schedule 16. When mayoral combined authorities and combined county authorities are compulsorily acquiring land, they do not require the consent of constituent councils at all, whereas non-mayoral combined authorities and single foundation strategic authorities do require the consent of constituent councils. Can the Minister explain why one route requires consent and the other does not?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
As I am out of time, may I respond to the noble Lord in writing? I am happy to do that.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, this has been quite a long debate on a number of issues regarding strategic planning and its consequences.
Amendment 126 in particular referred to the new strategic powers that mayors—not just combined county authority mayors but existing metro mayors—will acquire and how those will knit with local plans. Perhaps I should have said at the beginning that I am a councillor currently serving on a large met authority in Yorkshire. It is clear to me that greater thought must be given to how strategic plans by the mayor and local plans by the local authority will work together and not come into conflict. Those who come from the London experience do not understand, perhaps, that the new mayoral authorities will not have the equivalent of a London Assembly where these things can be debated. They will consist of the leaders of the constituent authorities in West Yorkshire, which is five people. If that is deemed sufficient, it is not devolution.
I thank the Minister for her reply, which, as always, went into substantial detail on the probing questions that were asked; I am sure that some of them will be asked again when we get to Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I thank the two noble Lords for their interventions. I will just say that I do not believe it is about anything but power and money coming down—that was my experience. I tried to go to the full endgame; I tried to join the local director of children’s and adult care services with the local director of the NHS. I tried, but it did not work because health would not give up its power and its money.
Amendment 141B would add environmental responsibilities and opportunities to the local growth plan guidance published by the Secretary of State. While this is a well-intentioned amendment to help ensure that local growth plans balance environmental and economic considerations, which all local authorities have to do, we recognise that councils have to take into account a range of factors when drafting their local growth plans.
Indeed, councillors will be aware of their local area’s precious habitats and the places where nature is valued most. In my opinion, local communities are best placed to evaluate trade-offs between those environmental opportunities and economic growth, so we believe that this should be left to local councillors rather than for the Secretary of State to set out a potentially one-size-fits-all approach to this.
I am grateful for the contributions to this thoughtful and interesting debate and I am really looking forward to the response from the Minister.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that this has been a very thoughtful and interesting debate. I am grateful to all contributors and for the amendments to Schedule 20 on local growth plans.
I will start with the amendment in the name of my noble friend Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, which draws our attention to the important role of mayors in addressing health inequalities in their areas. Through Clause 44, we are introducing a new legal requirement for combined and combined county authorities to have regard to the need to improve the health of people in their areas, and to reduce health inequalities between people living in their areas. This will reinforce our ambition to ensure that health is considered in all policies and will support our health mission in England.
I add that the mayoral competencies set out in the Bill specifically include health, well-being and public service reform, so that means that that should be taken into consideration in all the work that the mayor and the strategic authority do. It is the Government’s intention that mayors should sit on ICBs, which I hope will start to address some of the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and my noble friend Lady Royall about how we get that linkage between what is going on in the national health and what is going on at local level.
There are some great examples across the country of what is happening—obviously, Manchester is the best known because it has specific powers to tackle health, and I really welcome that, but in a district council like my own, we took great interest in tackling some of the key health challenges in our area to help the economy, such as tackling obesity, smoking and some of the big, long-standing mental health challenges that we faced, and we worked closely with partners in doing that. Of course, there is no better example of the contribution that local authorities can make to public health than the response of local authorities to the Covid pandemic, in those very unique circumstances, so we know it can be done.
Although I recognise that it is not explicitly stated in relation to local growth plans, I can reassure the Committee that this new duty will apply to all functions, including developing a local growth plan. Indeed, as I said, many places are already demonstrating this awareness.
I know that many of my noble friends will be very sympathetic to the benefits of co-operative and mutual models in addressing these challenges—I know they are aware of my history in the co-operative movement. I hope they will also recognise that a key principle behind local growth plans is that they must be locally owned, in line with the fundamental principles of devolution.
I recognise the community wealth-building principles so clearly articulated by my noble friend Lady Royall, and the example that she gave of Preston, which has been a leading proponent of using the power of public procurement and provision of infrastructure and services to tackle inequalities in its local area. That has been very important, and Matthew Brown and his colleagues have done a very significant piece of work on that. However, while we may commend those local examples, we must afford local growth plans the flexibility for local challenges to be addressed in response to the local context.
I hope my noble friend feels reassured that mayoral combined authorities and combined county authorities are already considering health as part of their plans, and that the new health improvement and health inequalities duty will achieve the desired effect. On that basis, I hope my noble friend feels able to withdraw her amendment.
Amendment 141B is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman of Steventon, and I thank her for all the discussions we have had around her environmental issues, during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act and recently. The amendment would provide the Secretary of State with the opportunity to set out in guidance how mayoral combined authorities should align growth measures in their local growth plan with considerations of nature, wildlife and the environment.
I want to reassure the Committee on two points. First, this is already possible. We have set out that the guidance on local growth plans can cover a range of matters. That includes the information to be included in a plan—that is to say, its content—and the ways in which the authority may have regard to the plan when exercising other functions. But the guidance is not limited to just these matters; it can cover additional matters not explicitly set out in the primary legislation. I reassure the Committee that this enables us to set out the matters included in this amendment, should that be needed.
Secondly, mayoral combined authorities and mayoral combined county authorities are already subject to several requirements linked to this amendment. This includes the recently strengthened biodiversity duty, which supports the delivery of legally binding biodiversity targets, as well as statutory duties related to air quality. Local growth plans will provide an important framework for economic growth, but they will sit alongside a range of other statutory plans, strategies and duties. Decisions that impact protected species, nature recovery and the environment will still need to consider relevant policy frameworks—for example, local nature recovery strategies, about which we had much discussion during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act.
I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Hunt for setting out so clearly how important it is to ensure that in our planning process, whether it is local growth plans or spatial planning, we aim to create that win- win for development and the environment. We made some significant steps with that in the Planning and Infrastructure Act, and I hope that local growth plans will contribute to that as well.
That said, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, will feel reassured that the matters in her amendment must already be considered by mayoral combined authorities and mayoral combined county authorities. I hope she will feel reassured that, should further guidance be necessary, it remains possible to set this out in the guidance on local growth plans. I therefore ask that her amendment be withdrawn.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her response, because she clearly understands the issues. I am super-grateful for all the contributions from noble Lords around the Room.
We are all absolutely in agreement that good health is a prerequisite for economic growth in our country. I realise that the Bill takes more account than ever before of the need for these new strategic authorities to act in relation to health and health inequalities. I hear all the frustrations around the Room about the fact that it has not really worked before. Manchester is working really well, and that is brilliant, but as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, pointed out, the dots simply are not joined, either in funding or in services terms. I know that a lot of that is because of the siloed way in which each of our public services receives its money. For it to work really well, we need to have properly funded local authorities and a well-funded health service.
This is a great opportunity, and I am sure that the Bill as it stands will take us a long way. Still, if we could have a statutory health duty in the Bill, it might be a catalyst for further action; it might be a real catalyst for discussion between the Treasury, the NHS and the MHCLG. I would really like to discuss this further with my noble friend before Report. I do not know how far we will get, but this is a great opportunity to make the system work better. I do not want to give up just yet, but I do not want to make her life a complete pain. I would like to come back to this matter before Report and have a discussion with my noble friend the Minister and her team but, with that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to these amendments that relate to culture. I again welcome the good work of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, on culture, and we welcome the spirit of Amendment 147, which seeks to have a cultural ecosystem plan and to protect cultural assets.
Culture is not always easily defined, and decisions about the forms or expression of culture that should be prioritised can be the subject of significant debate. Nevertheless, we often recognise culture when we encounter it. It is the old adage, “Try describing an elephant, but you sure as hell know what it is when you see it”. Much of it is often taken for granted, whether that is historic buildings, works of art, cultural events or long-standing traditions, such as choral music in our churches. Mayoral combined authorities and local councils should recognise the cultural assets that exist in their communities and do what they can to support them. That said, I have some reservations about this amendment as currently drafted; it needs careful thought on that drafting just to ensure that it does not end up encouraging either vanity projects or leading to a more rigid and formalised definition of a cultural asset. That potentially risks some limiting. It is drafting that we feel we need to think through. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for his commitment and for this amendment.
Amendments 141 and 146 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering seek to ensure that local growth plans make provision for cultural venues. My noble friend raises several important points, and I hope the Minister will address them directly.
Finally, Amendment 222 would place a duty on local authorities to have regard to the agent of change principle, and I will not recycle all the arguments we went through in the last session of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. While the drafting may need a little refining, I hope that this amendment serves as a useful nudge to the Government to reflect further on how best to protect cultural venues from unintended consequences of development.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering —who never tests my patience, she has so much knowledge and experience—and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for their amendments on the role of culture in local growth plans and on the agent of change principle.
On Amendments 141, 146 and 147, the Government are committed to ensuring that arts and culture thrive in every part of the country. In January, the Government announced an investment package of £1.5 billion, of which £1.2 billion is new, to support arts, culture, museums, libraries and heritage. Noble Lords have made a very powerful case for the inclusion of culture, heritage and arts to be included in mayoral competences, which is still under active consideration. We have committed to working with mayoral strategic authorities, including through a devolved fund, to drive growth in this important sector.
We know that mayoral combined authorities and mayoral combined county authorities recognise the role of culture and the creative sector in supporting thriving communities. I also mention the cohesion role that they play, which was mentioned so powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, in an earlier debate on this subject. Indeed, many of them are raising culture in their local growth plans. Many places are taking this further, such as Greater Manchester with its dedicated culture strategy and the West Midlands—for the noble Baroness, Lady Griffin—establishing a partnership programme with the industry. Indeed, the noble Baroness gave other powerful examples. I take this opportunity to congratulate those two absolutely brilliant young women from the BRIT School who won Grammy awards. They absolutely stormed it at the Grammy awards the other day—so congratulations to them.
Introducing an additional duty would be burdensome and, as demonstrated, is not necessary to achieve the desired effect. In December, the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge, published her independent review of Arts Council England. Following that, the Government are considering how to ensure that culture is supported by strategic authorities. As part of this, we are considering how it relates to all strategic authorities, not just the mayoral combined authorities and mayoral combined county authorities that are developing local growth plans.
Specifically on the amendments from noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, which relate to the pipeline of investment projects that must be set out as part of local growth plans, I point out that our guidance sets an expectation that this pipeline should be a shortlist of projects that are critical for unlocking growth, with the potential to crowd in private investment, and capable of unlocking significant returns. It is our view that, ultimately, it must be up to local areas to determine which projects fit that bill. These amendments would run counter to that principle and would require a one-size-fits-all approach that I know many Members are wary of. Rather than being mutually reinforcing for local growth, and the arts and culture, these amendments could cause confusion over the types of projects to include as part of that investment pipeline.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for her Amendment 222, and share her desire to ensure that new housing does not constrain the operation of existing facilities in the surrounding area. I think that the music trust makes a very powerful case in this regard. However, new legislation would be duplicative of existing policy and is also less flexible, as it gives authorities less ability to weigh important considerations when making planning decisions. The agent of change principle is firmly established in the planning system as a relevant policy consideration. The current National Planning Policy Framework is clear that businesses should not have unreasonable restrictions placed on them as a result of development permitted after they were established.
Local planning authorities can request noise impact assessments when they consider it necessary; when making decisions, they have the ability to consider factors such as the type of development and how close it is to major sources of noise. The planning process can help to reduce adverse impacts by using measures such as careful layout and good design to limit noise transmission. The licensing regime also already enables local authorities to consider the agent of change principle when making decisions. The legislation is designed to recognise that different communities face different challenges, and local licensing authorities are able to incorporate the principle into their statements of licensing policy if they consider it necessary or useful to do so.
Furthermore, local authorities can consider a range of factors when deciding whether a complaint amounts to a statutory nuisance. They have a legal duty to investigate each case individually, taking into account relevant circumstances and their knowledge of the local area. I recognise the importance of safeguarding key cultural establishments from new residential development, and we are already taking a number of steps to improve the implementation of the agent of change principle. I hope that answers the points from the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, about this being in place. We want to toughen it up, and I will talk now about some of those steps.
In planning, we are consulting on a new National Planning Policy Framework, which includes the option of strengthening the agent of change policy and clearly setting out that applicants must consider both the current and permitted levels of activity for nearby existing uses, such as licensed music and cultural venues. As I pointed out before, although the National Planning Policy Framework is not a statutory document in itself—it cannot be because it needs to be flexible as circumstances change—it sits in the statutory planning process and carries substantial weight because of that.
In licensing, we recently conducted a call for evidence as part of the licensing reforms programme, which included a question on the application of the agent of change principle within the licensing regime. Detailed analysis covering responses to this will be published in due course.
For all these reasons, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, will feel able not to press their amendments.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all who have spoken; it goes to show the breadth of knowledge we have, both in the Committee and in the House, among those involved. I was particularly taken by the reference that the noble Baroness, Lady Griffin, made to the BRIT School. It is outstanding that we had two clear winners at that time.
On the venues, I think it is important that we continue to stress these, but on the principle of agent of change, I am afraid I have to say that I am not content with the Minister’s response. I should have known, being a non-practising Scottish advocate, that we have a statutory basis for this in Scots law. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, has proven very eloquently how we are operating under an inferior system here. Certainly, it is the wish of all those who gave evidence to the inquiry on the reform of the Licensing Act 2003, albeit in 2016-17, that it could operate better. We are still in a position where we do not have statutory guidelines.
I simply do not accept, for the same reasons I gave in the earlier debate on SUDS, that planning guidance is planning guidance. You can have a legal basis in an Act such as the Licensing Act, which we recommended be reformed, or this would be the ideal Bill in which to put it. If that is what licensing and planning practitioners are asking us to do, I feel honour-bound that we should do this. I wish to bring this back on Report and would welcome a meeting with the Minister and others who are concerned by this before that time. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“(ab) being a shareholder in another company which is the only shareholder of the company, or”Member's explanatory statement
This reflects changes to the definition of an asset pool company in the Pension Schemes Bill.
“(ab) being a shareholder in another company which is the only shareholder of the company, or”Member's explanatory statement
This reflects changes to the definition of an asset pool company in the Pension Schemes Bill.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage ExcerptsThursday 29th January 2026
(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 View all English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 150-III(b) Amendments for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Third Marshalled List) - (29 Jan 2026)
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak initially to my Amendments 70 and 71 in this group. It is a pleasure being here with noble Lords; it feels like a reunion of assembly or London Councils meetings. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, who I know is not able to be here today, for adding his name to Amendment 70, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for adding his name to Amendment 71. Both noble Lords have direct experience of the GLA and London government as a whole. Like other noble Lords, in drafting these amendments I bring 26 years’ experience as an assembly member and a London borough councillor.
Amendment 70 is about the power of summons. The law as it stands means that the assembly has relatively limited powers of summons over individuals and documents. It can summon the Mayor of London only in his or her role as chair of one of the functional bodies. For example, you could summon the mayor to a meeting as chair of Transport for London, but you could not summon them to come to a meeting if there was a huge failure or difficulties in their housing or solar programme and you wanted a detailed discussion. That makes no sense.
Furthermore, the assembly is prevented from summoning those delivering services in London. Noble Lords might well think that that does not matter because people will go and give evidence, so we do not need this power, but I will give the Committee a concrete example. Many years ago, I led an investigation into High Speed 2—then an initial programme that was going to have a huge impact in west London. High Speed 2, admittedly at that time under different management, refused to come before the assembly to give evidence to our inquiry. Despite huge amounts of correspondence, including the Department for Transport trying to put direct pressure on this body that was accountable to it, High Speed 2 refused to give any evidence at all. Yet it was delivering a project affecting London with huge amounts of public money.
Similar bodies, including the Environment Agency, the Port of London Authority and even London Councils, may attend if requested, but they, too, have at times decided not to. That cannot be right when we are trying to look at services delivering for London. This power would strengthen the assembly, allowing it to fully carry out its scrutiny role. It sits well with Amendment 72, which proposes a London local authorities joint committee, because there would need to be scrutiny of that body and this new power would allow the assembly to carry that out.
As I said, the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, is unable to be here today, but in correspondence last night he said that he was happy for me to explain his support for this. He comes at it from a different point of view. He used to work for the former Mayor of London and he said that, although we come at this from different angles—he would brief the mayor ahead of scrutiny and I would be there as a scrutineer—he feels that these scrutiny sessions are serious, healthy, important and substantive and he does not see any potential for these powers to be abused because you would use them only in exceptional circumstances. He feels that, ultimately, if the mayor turns up, they may not answer the questions put to them, but at least you would have that opportunity—so he was keen to support this amendment. This issue has had cross-party support on the assembly for years, so I hope that the Minister will seriously consider this amendment.
Of course, if more powers are given to the mayor, as was discussed at the start of this group, the assembly should be strengthened alongside this. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, mentioned London being up on a pedestal but, actually, Manchester has more power than London in certain areas, such as health, and it feels as though London potentially needs to catch up.
Amendment 71 would remove the anomaly that, to amend the Mayor of London’s budget, a two-thirds majority is needed at the final stage. For many years, this has meant us, as assembly members, sitting there and rejecting the mayor’s budget and then it still going through at the final meeting because the threshold has not been reached. Such a threshold does not exist in any other part of local government, and I do not understand why it is needed here for London. I ask the Government to remove this requirement so that any mayor has to work with the assembly to ensure that a budget has majority support.
The other amendments in this group cover the establishment of a London local authorities joint committee and the power to pay grants to it. This would, as we have heard, put in place formally what is already taking place through other means. I am happy with these amendments. They have cross-party support and support from the London Assembly. As I said, they complement my amendment on the power of summons for the London Assembly, because I think that this joint committee should be subject to scrutiny as well.
Amendment 75, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, makes a reasonable point—the noble Baroness and I exchanged some correspondence at the weekend about it. As many of us have said, reviewing how the London system works and what lessons there are for other areas does not necessarily need to be in the Bill. I come at this from a different point of view. I am really keen to increase the powers of the London Assembly and to look at stronger scrutiny arrangements across the country with the rollout of mayoral and combined authorities. For me, that is the gap in the model that is being rolled out.
At the moment, there is little to no real scrutiny of billions of pounds-worth of expenditure across the country. This is a huge deficit in these new mayoral models. This scrutiny must be carried out by members who are not conflicted through other roles, such as being leaders of authorities. This is probably where I differ from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord John, because I think that council leaders can be conflicted. They want to secure funding for their borough, and that can cause tension—they may not want to get into the bad books of a mayor. That is where the benefits of the GLA model, with scrutineers who are directly elected, comes in. They can look at things more independently, ask the tough questions and, sometimes, produce very tough reports.
I disagree with the suggestions we have heard in the debate on the amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Fuller and Lord Harris, about reducing the number of London boroughs. I do not think that that would be right. The amount of work, including casework, that borough councillors have to do in London is unbelievable compared to their colleagues elsewhere. That would not be a realistic option.
I look forward to the Minister’s response with interest. I hope we can start to see some movement to strengthen the powers of the assembly and to support London Councils on this matter.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey and the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott of Bybrook, Lady Pidgeon and Lady O’Neill of Bexley, for their amendments relating to London devolution. As a mere veteran of what the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, described as provincial local government, I feel a little hesitant about sticking my head into the lion’s den of London local government—but it is my job, so I will do it anyway.
I start with the stand part notice in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, which would remove Clause 15 from the Bill. It is vital that the devolution framework works for the unique circumstances of London’s governance. Clause 15 must stand part of the Bill in order to signpost to Schedule 25 to the Bill and the GLA Act 1999. This enables the Government, among other things, to confer functions on the Mayor of London, the Greater London Authority and its functional bodies. Contrary to the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about putting London on a pedestal, the provision enables us to confer powers on the mayor and the GLA. If the GLA was excluded from Schedule 25, it would then be the only strategic authority that would require primary legislation for the conferral of functions, and there is no rationale for creating a divergent approach just for London. Schedule 25 will ensure that the Greater London Authority benefits from the devolution framework and can deepen its powers over time.
The noble Baroness asked a question about consultation. Ahead of the Bill being introduced, the Government engaged the mayor, the GLA and London Councils on proposals in the devolution White Paper.
I thank my noble friend Lord Harris for bringing his wealth of experience and knowledge of London to our debates on this Bill. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Neill, Lady Pidgeon and Lady Hayter, and the noble Lords, Lord Tope, Lord Moylan and Lord John. I have not yet been able to add up their joint years of London experience, but it is of significant breadth and depth, and it is welcome to have that informing our discussions on the Bill. For the record, my local council was formed in 1971 and has been a Labour council to this day. It does not quite meet the 60 years mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, but we are not far away, and we are a new town.
We are currently engaging positively with London Councils and the Greater London Authority on this matter. In the context of that ongoing work and the need to continue to work jointly towards a constructive resolution, I do not feel that it would be appropriate to rush in a legislative change for the unique arrangements for London governance through this amendment. I am very happy to meet my noble friend Lord Harris and other London partners, if he feels that that would be helpful before Report, because I understand the points he has made.
On Amendment 70, in the English devolution White Paper the Government committed to strengthening scrutiny in strategic authorities. As the noble Baroness knows, London is unique among strategic authorities, in that the mayor’s work is scrutinised by the directly elected London Assembly. It is my understanding that the mayor is committed to appear before 10 sessions each year for scrutiny. If he does not do so, or misses more than a number of those sessions, he can be sanctioned by the GLA.
As the Government consider the best way to strengthen scrutiny in strategic authorities, it is right that we tailor our approach to the arrangements in London. We will engage the GLA and the London Assembly on any potential changes. I have much sympathy with the frustration about key partners and providers that spend public money and then refuse to come before scrutiny bodies. I will not go into my particular pain over bus companies, but I understand the point that the noble Baroness was making there. This amendment would significantly alter the powers of the London Assembly and preclude the Government’s ongoing work on this issue, which is being taken forward in close discussion with combined authorities and the GLA.
Similarly, on Amendment 75, London’s model is unique among strategic authorities and has successfully served the people of London for the last 25 years—I think the noble Lord, Lord John, referred to the successful part of London governance. The Government are regularly in contact with the GLA to understand how its governance, scrutiny arrangements and partnership working arrangements are delivering for Londoners. As London’s devolution settlement evolves, the Government want to continue to see positive working between the GLA and its partners, including London borough councils, to deliver on shared priorities. We hope to build on these where possible. Therefore, we do not believe that a formal review is necessary.
I listened to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, about issues around boroughs neighbouring London, Lee Valley park, the London grants scheme and so on. I will reflect on those. A meeting might be helpful, because I did not quite understand the balance between “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix” and there being things that need to be fixed that we should have a look at to see what changes would be necessary. It would absolutely not be right to interject a legislative knee-jerk into this space without the work that is needed between all parties to determine a way forward. I hope that we can move that forward before Report.
Amendment 71 seeks to introduce simple majority voting for the London Assembly to amend the Mayor of London’s final draft budget. This Bill includes measures to unblock mayoral decision-making. Primarily, this is by stipulating that most decisions in combined authorities and combined county authorities require a simple majority including the mayor, but also by making some functions, such as those concerning police and fire, exercisable by the mayor only.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
We talked about a review of the scrutiny arrangements of other metro mayors, if you like—mayoral and strategic authorities. Is the Minister able to give us a timescale for that? We also talked about discussions with the GLA; the GLA is made up of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. Is the department talking to officers and members of the London Assembly, because the Civil Service often uses the term “GLA” when it means just the mayor’s office.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My understanding is that discussions are with the GLA, but I will double-check on that and respond to the noble Baroness in writing.
We are putting in place a robust system of overview and scrutiny for the combined authorities. We are also considering, as we discussed with the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, the other day, whether a system of local public accounts committees might also be relevant.
Lord Moylan (Con)
There is a certain sleight of hand going on. The noble Baroness referred to scrutiny arrangements and, of course, the London Assembly is largely a scrutiny body; that is what it spends most of its time doing. But when it comes to budget setting, it is a co-decision-maker. That is a crucial difference. Setting and amending the budget is not a scrutiny activity by the London Assembly; it is a co-decision-making function with the mayor, which strengthens democratic oversight of the mayor’s expenditure of what are now very large amounts of money—£20 billion-plus—on the people of London.
The question is what an appropriate position and appropriate balance of power for the assembly is in that co-decision-making role—not its scrutiny role, but its co-decision-making role. We are now into 26 years of existence of the London Assembly. The fact that that threshold has never once been met illustrates that it is not allowing the assembly to function as intended, as a co-decision-making body. It needs to be adjusted. One might say that the mayor’s executive functions would be hampered if democracy were improved, but of course the mayor’s executive functions would be further unhampered if there were no democracy at all. The London Assembly is meant to be a democratic body. Why is it not allowed to function as a normal democratic body in this one area where it has a co-decision-making power?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I was referring to the difference between the combined authorities and the combined county authorities, which are made up of the constituent members from the local area. The GLA does not work like that, as we all know. It is not a body that represents the London boroughs; it is a different, directly elected body and it has a different scrutiny function. I was not trying to engage in sleight of hand; I was just pointing out the difference between the two bodies.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I have listened carefully to noble Lords’ contributions, for which I am very grateful. It is so refreshing to hear about London local authorities. I have talked for a number of years in both Chambers about local government, but we very rarely have a proper debate on London governance. It is very refreshing and I thank noble Lords who have, it seems to me, hundreds of years of experience in the great city’s governance. It is seriously refreshing.
To the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I say that of course I understand the role of our great capital city and its importance in the economy of our country, but I do not think that that means that we cannot at times challenge it and scrutinise it from here, and I think that that is what we are doing. It is our genuine desire to ensure that community empowerment, efficiency and localism should apply to London as well when we are looking at the rest of the country.
Clause 15 remains wholly unclear, both in its purpose and its intention. Empowering one individual further without compelling justification or evidence is not the right direction of travel in our opinion. It may be that we need to review London before we give these further powers, as we are doing for the rest of the country. Are we giving these powers to an authority that is as efficient as it can be in governance, just as the rest of the country is being challenged to be before it gets those powers?
If there is a case for expanding the powers in London, I suggest that the Government look at that governance before they make that decision, which is why the amendment was tabled. If such a case exists, I believe that it should be laid before Parliament transparently rather than delivered through secondary legislation at a later stage in a way that limits our scrutiny and public understanding, which is important.
Equally, amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, have highlighted a real concern about the existing governance arrangements and structures, although I remain unconvinced that more layers of committees are the answer. None the less, not only are the Government taking, in our opinion, the wrong direction of travel, but they are also missing a great opportunity in this primary legislation. The proposal to reduce the two-thirds majority to a simple majority, as we have heard, for changes to the GLA council tax requirement would empower councillors, as we are trying to do in this Bill. My understanding is that, when the budget is debated, many of the issues in the budget are voted down by the GLA but, when it gets to the budget decision, that decision is lost. That does not seem right and the Government need to seriously look at this again.
The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley—I thank her for all her work in the London boroughs—would give us exactly the opportunity that we want in order to assess what currently works, what does not work and where genuine reform, rooted in efficiency, transparency and local empowerment, might be needed.
I suggest that the Government are not listening to what we are saying. It seemed to me that, at different levels, there was pretty much cross-party agreement. I believe that they must explain with much more clarity why Clause 15 is necessary without some sort of review of London, who it benefits and what problems it seeks to solve. We all want a London that works for Londoners, for the people who come here to enjoy our wonderful capital city and for the economy that it feeds in this country.
I also believe that the Government’s arrangements for our city should be proportionate to those for the rest of the country. Further empowering an already powerful mayor without a real, robust rationale does not achieve that. I urge the Minister to reflect carefully between now and Report. In the meantime, I will withdraw my stand part notice but will be considering what we bring forward on Report.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, we have had an interesting debate. In essence, we are debating a philosophical issue here. I firmly believe in democracy. Elections take place; your Lordships would be surprised to know that I do not always like some of the decisions that the electorate make, but I will defend every time the public having the opportunity to elect whom they want to represent them. That is a priority.
Just because I do not like it or just because they have a second job that I may not think appropriate, they should have that opportunity. We need some protections in place for fraud and other things, but I believe in democracy and, in essence, that is what the comments of my noble friends Lord Fuller and Lady O’Neill are about, and I associate myself with them. We should not prevent people standing for election; we should allow the electorate to make their choice. That is what democracy is. We may all have our views about whether a job is too big and therefore we cannot have somebody doing two of them but, if you believe in democracy, you believe that the electorate should have the facts presented in front of them and they should be given that choice. That is my strong philosophical view. We should not be telling the electorate, “No, you cannot have this person because they are already too busy”. Therefore, I genuinely believe my noble friend’s comments and that it is right that we should trust the electorate.
I appreciate that that may not align with certain party rules on different things, but there is no reason that the law has to mirror a certain party’s rules. I have no problem with whatever party having particular rules for the candidates they choose. That is the right thing to do. I know, from my own experience as chairman of the LGA, that the Conservative group had some very different rules from the Labour, Liberal and independent groups for how long people could stand and who was eligible. That is fine; I would not criticise the rules that Labour or the Liberals had, and I hope they did not criticise our rules. That was a choice; we were not imposing them by statute.
I very much support both the amendments of my noble friend Lord Gascoigne and the proposal that this clause not stand part of the Bill from my noble friend Lord Fuller. If Clause 16 stands part, the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Gascoigne would introduce a certain amount of flexibility. Given the amendments that the Government are proposing, what would happen if an election were to take place, let us say, 10 days before the end of a parliamentary term? Would the Government really want to impose a mayoral election? I am not quite sure that 10 days works, but I am sure your Lordships get my gist. If Clause 16 were to stand, a certain amount of flexibility would be beneficial, notwithstanding my previous comments.
I also agree with the Government’s amendments, assuming that eight days is the correct period and would give time for an MP to stand down and so forth, but I have a particular question on this. It may be very unlikely, but what happens if an election for a mayor happens when Parliament is not sitting? My understanding is that an MP cannot resign when Parliament is not sitting. Could the Minister at least consider that? I am not necessarily expecting an answer here, but a written answer would be helpful for everyone.
The fundamental point is why this Government believe that the electorate are not the right group of people to decide who represents them, even if they decide that it is Andy Burnham.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Gascoigne and Lord Fuller, for their amendments, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for moving the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, on members of legislatures disqualified for being a mayor of a strategic authority, and for probing whether Clause 16 is needed.
It is not the job of this Committee to debate the Labour Party rulebook or decisions of its national executive committee. Your Lordships must trust me that they do not want that job. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for their interventions on that issue.
Clause 16 will prevent individuals being a Member of Parliament, or of the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and a mayor at the same time. This is an important clause for two reasons. First and most critically, the post of mayor is a vital role at the forefront of delivering change—whether that is economic growth, public services, planning for the strategic area, transport or many other issues—and its responsibilities will only increase with this Bill. The role must demand a person’s full attention as a full-time post, rather than being a part-time position done alongside another vital public service role.
Secondly, elected members and mayors have a duty to represent the constituents who elected them. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, raised the potential issue of having different constituencies. Fulfilling two different roles on behalf of different geographical areas could lead to conflicts of interest or undesirable trade-offs. This is absolutely not party political; it is common sense. Indeed, it is now the case that those mayors who are also police and crime commissioners—Andy Burnham and Tracy Brabin—cannot be Members of a UK legislature at the same time.
I know that this House operates on a slightly different basis, but when I joined it, I was still leader of my council. As a Minister you cannot do both jobs at the same time, but even before I was a Minister, I would not have dreamed of trying to do so. They are different jobs; both carry a heavy level of responsibility, and it was important to me to focus on one.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Can the Minister clarify that what she just said about PCCs and Members of the legislature concerns the elected Members? We have to be very careful here; we are part of the legislature.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I apologise; I could have been clearer on that. The noble Baroness is quite right: it is the elected legislature. In view of my comments, I ask that noble Lords do not press their amendments.
Government Amendments 77, 80, 82, 85 and 90 will modify Clause 16 to introduce a grace period in which a mayor can hold office and simultaneously be a Member of a UK elected legislature without being disqualified. The period will be eight days. To answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, the eight days enables the Chiltern Hundreds process to happen—that is the period required for going from being an MP to being a mayor. To go from being a mayor to being an MP, it enables the mayor to put their affairs in order before they take up their post as an MP. In the event that a mayor is running to be a Member of a UK legislature, it will be eight days beginning on the day when they are elected to that legislature.
I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, as I do not know the answer to his question. It is important that Members are given reasonable time to get their affairs in order and to ensure their resignation from the respective legislature. These amendments address concerns raised in the other place about ensuring that an orderly transition can occur in the event that an MP is appointed as a mayor. Similarly, mayors running to be a Member of a UK legislature would otherwise be disqualified immediately on election. Introducing the grace period provides a period of transition for the outgoing mayor to get their affairs in order. I commend these government amendments to the Committee.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
I raised another point in relation to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Gascoigne. With a very strict timetable of eight days, one could envisage situations where any sensible person would stand back and ask, “Do we really want to have a mayoral election for the sake of two, three or four weeks?” Will the Government consider a bit more flexibility?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I apologise; I meant to say to the noble Lord that I will write to him about the situation in which Parliament may not be sitting when that election takes place.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
I appreciate that the Minister will do that, but I was also making the point that the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, would at least provide some flexibility. The common-sense approach would be to ask, “Why would I have a mayoral election this month when there’s one happening next month anyway?” Can there be a bit more flexibility? As the Labour Party has rightly said, it costs a lot of money to run an election in Manchester.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I will reflect on that question and come back to the noble Lord.
“(1A) If a person—(a) is elected as the mayor for the area of a combined authority, and(b) is, on the first day of the mayoral term, an elected member of a legislature in the United Kingdom,the person is not disqualified under this paragraph for holding office as the mayor at any time in the period of eight days beginning with the first day of the mayoral term.(1B) If a person—(a) becomes an elected member of a legislature in the United Kingdom, and(b) is, when the person becomes the elected member, the mayor for the area of a combined authority,the person is not disqualified under this paragraph for holding office as the mayor at any time in the period of eight days beginning with the day on which the person becomes the elected member of the legislature.”Member’s explanatory statement
This would stop the new disqualification from applying during an 8 day “grace period” beginning with the day when it would otherwise apply (in the absence of this amendment). This would give time for an orderly resignation as legislator (where the person becomes mayor) or as mayor (where the person becomes a legislator).
““first day of the mayoral term” , in relation to a person who is elected as the mayor for the area of a combined authority, means the day that would be the first day of the person’s term as the mayor if it is assumed that the person is not disqualified under this paragraph.””Member’s explanatory statement
This makes clear that the effect of the new disqualification provision must be ignored when working out what is the first day of the mayoral term.
“(1A) If a person—(a) is elected as the mayor for the area of a CCA, and(b) is, on the first day of the mayoral term, an elected member of a legislature in the United Kingdom,the person is not disqualified under this paragraph for holding office as the mayor at any time in the period of eight days beginning with the first day of the mayoral term.(1B) If a person—(a) becomes an elected member of a legislature in the United Kingdom, and(b) is, when the person becomes the elected member, the mayor for the area of a CCA,the person is not disqualified under this paragraph for holding office as the mayor at any time in the period of eight days beginning with the day on which the person becomes the elected member of the legislature.”Member’s explanatory statement
This would stop the new disqualification from applying during an 8 day “grace period” beginning with the day when it would otherwise apply (in the absence of this amendment). This would give time for an orderly resignation as legislator (where the person becomes mayor) or as mayor (where the person becomes a legislator).
““first day of the mayoral term” , in relation to a person who is elected as the mayor for the area of a CCA, means the day that would be the first day of the person’s term as the mayor if it is assumed that the person is not disqualified under this paragraph.”Member’s explanatory statement
This makes clear that the effect of the new disqualification provision must be ignored when working out what is the first day of the mayoral term.
“(1A) If a person—(a) is elected as the Mayor, and(b) is, on the first day of the Mayoral term, an elected member of a legislature in the United Kingdom,the person is not disqualified under this section from being the Mayor at any time in the period of eight days beginning with the first day of the Mayoral term.(1B) If a person—(a) becomes an elected member of a legislature in the United Kingdom, and(b) is, when the person becomes the elected member, the Mayor,the person is not disqualified under this section from being the Mayor at any time in the period of eight days beginning with the day on which the person becomes the elected member of the legislature.”Member’s explanatory statement
This would stop the new disqualification from applying during an 8 day “grace period” beginning with the day when it would otherwise apply (in the absence of this amendment). This would give time for an orderly resignation as legislator (where the person becomes Mayor) or as Mayor (where the person becomes a legislator).
““first day of the Mayoral term” , in relation to a person who is elected as the Mayor, means the day that would be the first day of the person’s term as the Mayor if it is assumed that the person is not disqualified under this section.”Member’s explanatory statement
This makes clear that the effect of the new disqualification provision must be ignored when working out what is the first day of the Mayoral term.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak briefly to these amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who asked a number of important and timely questions.
Let me use her first amendment in this group as an example. It would require the Secretary of State, when making regulations, to consider and
“minimise any conflict, overlap, or duplication between the functions of the Mayor and the functions of other authorities or public bodies”.
This is absolutely sensible and common-sense, and it should happen. However, I suggest that, for clarity, this should extend also to Whitehall, from where powers are devolved; then, with the exception of oversight, those powers and the bureaucracy involved should no longer exist within Whitehall.
The Bill amends the 2023 Act through numerous schedules and amendments. It is right, therefore, that we ensure this clarity and avoid unnecessary overlap. I am sure that many Members in this Grand Committee will remember the passage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill through the House. It was a long and complex piece of legislation—I pay tribute to the excellent work done by my noble friend Lady Scott—and the changes in this policy and space must be approached with care. I am keen, therefore, to hear from the Minister about the Government’s overall approach to avoiding unnecessary and costly duplication and legal uncertainty, in relation not just to this amendment but across the Bill as a whole.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, for her amendments on the role of mayors. Before I respond to these amendments, I want to clarify the rationale for Clause 18. The clause will extend an existing power of the Secretary of State to provide that certain general functions may be exercised solely by a mayor. The power currently exists in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 and, as the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, said, in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. This clause will ensure that it can also apply to general functions conferred under any other regulation or Act of Parliament. The extension of this existing power reflects the broader range of routes through which functions may be conferred on strategic authorities and their mayors, once the current Bill becomes law.
Amendments 91 and 92 seek to amend this clause and prevent the potential for conflict, overlap or duplication between a mayor’s functions and those of other authorities or public bodies. As your Lordships will know, mayors of combined authorities or combined county authorities are not corporate entities in themselves. For that reason, all functions must be conferred on the underlying authority rather than directly on to the mayor. However, some functions may be designated as mayoral functions, as they are to be exercised only by the mayor. Where functions have been made mayoral, they typically relate to the management of day-to-day activities.
Key strategic decisions still require approval by the strategic authority constituent members. To give an example, all members will vote on which roads form part of a key route network, after which the mayor will be responsible for managing it. This will allow for swifter decision-making and more effective governance on day-to-day matters.
It will be important that all tiers of local government work together to benefit their communities. This is why principal local authorities will be embedded within the decision-making structures of strategic authorities as full constituent members. This will ensure that they play a central role in drawing up specific strategies and plans, such as local growth plans. Furthermore, before any new function is conferred on a strategic authority by regulations, the Secretary of State will be required to consult the constituent councils of any affected strategic authorities and any other person who exercises the function concerned. This will ensure that the views of those affected are properly considered.
I hope that, with these explanations, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
I absolutely accept that the new structures are complex and complicated. It is very easy to be seduced by the noble Baroness’s fluent explanation. My amendment was coming more from the perspective of practicalities, which was also borne out by the comments earlier that, in reality, there is overlap, with weakened scrutiny, unclear accountability and eroded public trust. I would like to feel that a lot of work was being done into what those are. We know it is probably happening, but it is all going to come later through SIs and secondary legislation. I wanted to make it absolutely clear, up front, that those overlaps and duplications will be considered, because they will be a source of conflict and friction going forward. It was interesting that the leaders of boroughs are saying that that is happening even 20 or however many years later. But, for the moment, I will withdraw my amendment.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, the issues raised in this group are fundamental, and I support everything that has been said so far, broadly speaking. Our efforts to identify how the new structure will relate to all the other organisations delivering public services, and how they will all work together, demonstrates the importance of Committee. I hope that when the Minister replies there will be some positive movement on that.
I hope the Minister will not think me flippant when I have said what I am about to say. Amendments 98 and 99 are important in probing the necessity of forcing local partners to respond to meeting requests. Many of the Bill’s pages—pages 23 to 34—are about mayoral powers to require local partners to attend meetings and other mayors to collaborate, and so on. I have a simple question for the Minister about local partners; as I say, I hope she will not think I am being flippant. The Bill says:
“The mayor for the area … may convene meetings with local partners to consider relevant local matters”.
I understand that, but can local partners convene a meeting with the mayor to consider relevant local matters?
I ask that question because, on previous days in Committee, the answers that we have had about devolution away from mayors to, say, constituent councils, have been that there is to be no power of scrutiny for a constituent council within a strategic authority. That is a very serious matter—I do not think it will work. My question is simple: can local partners convene a meeting with the mayor, or is this a one-way power whereby only the mayor can convene meetings with local partners? If it is, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, will be willing to pursue the matter when we get to Report.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott and Lady Royall, and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, for their amendments on local partners’ co-operation with mayors. This is an important group of amendments. Without this type of local co-operation, devolution will not work, so I take it very seriously.
Amendment 98 would provide for the Mayor of London, instead of the Secretary of State, to define “local partners” for the purposes of Clause 21. Elsewhere in England, it would remain for the Secretary of State to define the meaning of “local partners” in regulations. Were this amendment to be made, it would create an immediate inconsistency between the powers of the Mayor of London and the approach taken elsewhere in England. Allowing the Mayor of London to specify local partners where other mayors could not would lead to a piecemeal and unclear definition of local partners, risking confusion at all levels. Defining “local partners” in regulations will allow for appropriate parliamentary scrutiny—I think that is important—will provide a single, coherent definition across England and will ensure that mayors’ power to convene can be clearly understood by both mayors and local partners.
Examples of the types of organisations the regulations may include are those that deliver public services on behalf of, or receive funding from, a mayoral strategic authority; are identifiable as key enablers in statutory strategies; or play a material role in helping a mayoral strategic authority perform its functions within its local area. We are not seeking to define “local partners” in isolation. We are interested in understanding from strategic authorities and their mayors the type of organisations and institutions that should fall under a definition of a “local partner”. We are doing some more work on that with our strategic authorities.
I turn to Amendment 99, which seeks to understand the requirement for local partners to respond to a notification from a mayor of a strategic authority to convene a meeting. Clause 21 provides mayors with a new power to notify local partners of their intention to convene a meeting on a local matter that relates to their areas of competence. It also places a corresponding requirement on any local partner to respond to such a notification. This power is designed to enable mayors to bring the right people around the table, so that partners can work together to tackle shared challenges, seize opportunities for their communities and deliver the best outcomes for local people. The point from the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, about data sharing was very relevant to this. It is often the lack of ability to share data across organisations that slows down these kinds of collaborative projects.
The requirement on local partners is proportionate and not unduly burdensome. It does not oblige partners to engage beyond acknowledging the notification, nor does it prescribe what steps a local partner must take following any meeting or how they must act. Rather, the requirement is simply to respond to a mayor’s notification. The intention is to promote constructive dialogue even where there may be a difference of view on the relevant local matter. Taken together with the other mayoral powers of competence in this Bill, Clause 21 will strengthen the role of strategic authority mayors, giving them the means to drive growth, foster collaboration and deliver improvements for their communities.
On the point that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, made about whether public bodies can require the mayor to attend, the mayor’s role in convening will probably answer that point, but I will reflect on it. If the mayor had a duty to convene people to collaborate on issues, and another body requested a meeting to discuss something like that, it would not seem in the spirit of what is in this Bill for the mayor to decline that invitation. I will take that back and think about it a little more.
Finally, I turn to Amendments 196 and 237 from my noble friend Lady Royall and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard. I assure noble Lords that the Government —and I—strongly support the spirit of the amendments: local public service partners and strategic authorities should collaborate to ensure quality, joined-up services for local people. Placing a new, wide-ranging statutory duty on local public service partners to attend meetings; provide information and assistance; and engage with strategic and local authorities in their local area may place an additional and unwarranted burden on these bodies. I, too, remember the Total Place initiative. One thing that got in the way of that was the dialogue between bodies, when they said, “We just do not have the capacity to provide that at the moment”. It caused some friction between some bodies.
As set out in the English devolution White Paper, it is the intention that mayors act as conveners on public service reform. The Bill provides them with the power to do this by granting them a power to convene local partners on their areas of competence, which include health, well-being and public service reform. The Bill places a corresponding duty on local partners to respond to a request by a mayor to meet. It is important to note that this does not place a duty on local partners to agree to particular policies of the mayor or to meet if they do not think that it is appropriate. We believe that this strikes the right balance between giving mayors the tools to drive collaboration, protecting the independence of local partners to act as they think fit and avoiding burdensome duties to which they must adhere.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
I will take back what the noble Baroness says. In this case, my point is that a random unelected body is not the same as an elected body. I genuinely think that democracy is important. If you wish to engage, you probably need to be a bit more nuanced in whom you engage with, because it should not be random; it should be those people who can really give you the feedback and information you need, depending on the subject and the place. Take central Bedfordshire, for example: a random 100 people from across central Bedfordshire will not be particularly helpful when we are discussing what is happening in my own little village of Maulden; I would rather discuss it with the residents of Maulden.
With that, I shall move on. This debate has made it clear that collaboration is important—in many cases, essential. I hope that it will be taken seriously by the Minister and that she will come back with some flexibility later on in the Bill’s passage.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry that we have been pressing on time; the Hansard team and other officers were here until very late last night and we do not want to put them under any further pressure.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, the noble Lords, Lord Ravensdale and Lord Wallace, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Janke, for their amendments on the duty to collaborate. I shall start with Amendment 100, for which I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. I completely understand the intention behind this amendment—we have now had many discussions on this issue—but we ultimately think that it is unnecessary, as cultural well-being is captured in the current wording of Clause 22.
Culture underpins our creative and visitor economies; in this way, cultural activity is inherently captured in the meaning of
“economic, social or environmental well-being”.
The formulation is intentionally wide so that mayors can request collaboration on a broad range of matters; it is also intended to avoid an exhaustive or prospective list. Adding “cultural” risks undermining that approach and creating pressure to enumerate further dimensions of well-being without delivering any substantive new effect. Indeed, explicitly singling culture out could invite arguments that other aspects of well-being that are not listed are of lesser importance, or that cultural interests should be interpreted narrowly or separately from economic, social or environmental considerations.
Mayors of strategic authorities can, and already do, collaborate on cultural matters. The Mayors of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, York and North Yorkshire have come together to sign the White Rose Agreement, committing to work together on high-profile culture and sporting events and to celebrate Yorkshire’s heritage. I hope that the noble Earl and the other noble Lords who raised the issue of culture have been reassured by my agreement to reflect on how culture is treated in the competency framework.
I turn to Amendment 101, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, which seeks to promote greater regional collaboration between mayors and other public and private partners. The Government agree with the value and benefits of regional collaboration. However, while the amendment is well intentioned, we do not think it is necessary. Strategic authorities and their mayors already have a wide range of mechanisms to collaborate across administrative boundaries, and several mayors are already doing so successfully. We heard some examples from the noble Lord.
The powers in Clause 22 are not intended to replace the wide range of positive and informal collaboration that already takes place. They are intended to supplement these existing mechanisms and strengthen mayoral leadership by providing a more formal route for cross-boundary pan-regional collaboration where this can improve outcomes for communities. However, it should be for mayors to decide for themselves how to use these powers rather than for the Government to prescribe or constrain the purposes and form that mayoral collaboration must take. More broadly, under existing legislation, combined authorities and combined county authorities can already enter into joint committees, allowing them to discharge certain powers together and jointly produce legislative documents such as spatial development strategies.
I turn to Amendment 102 from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace; this is not from Sir Humphrey, but from me—I am passionate about devolution and am not letting anyone get in the way of that; it is good programme, though, and I like it. This amendment would require strategic authorities to prepare joint strategic development plans, covering two or more strategic authority areas in certain circumstances. I appreciate the intent behind the amendment to join up strategic authorities, but I do not agree that the amendment is necessary. We already have broadly equivalent powers as a result of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. New Section 12B of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, as inserted by the 2025 Act, enables the Secretary of State to require authorities to work together on spatial development strategies through the establishment of a strategic planning board. The Government intend to use these powers, in particular in areas without a combined authority or a combined county authority. The same Act gives the Secretary of State a wide range of intervention powers in relation to the preparation and adoption of spatial development strategies.
It is worth highlighting that, where strategic planning authorities are working on separate spatial development strategies, they are required by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, as amended by the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, to have regard to the need to be consistent with current national policies. The National Planning Policy Framework sets out strong expectations on authorities to work effectively across local government boundaries.
I turn to Amendment 103. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for raising the importance of citizen engagement in local decision-making. The Government fully agree that residents should have meaningful opportunities to shape the decisions that affect their areas. However, as the locally elected leaders in their regions, mayors should have the ability to decide on how best to engage with their local communities. Mayors can convene citizens’ assemblies if they wish to, and, in places such as South Yorkshire, mayors have decided to use these powers. Once the Bill becomes law, all mayors will have general powers of competence conferred automatically on them, which will enable them to convene citizens assemblies should they wish to do so.
Finally, the Bill already includes a provision in this area. Clause 60 introduces a neighbourhood governance duty, requiring all local authorities to put in place arrangements to secure effective neighbourhood governance. That will ensure that communities have meaningful opportunities to inform and influence local decisions.
I turn to Amendment 104, from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and Amendment 196, from the noble Baroness, Lady Janke. Both seek to ensure that mayors and strategic authorities work closely with their local authorities, public service providers and bodies representing local communities in town and parish councils. I recognise the spirit in which these amendments have been made. It is important for all mayors to engage with the wider public sector and the local authority family in delivering their own functions. However, strategic authorities are already expected, through existing legislation and provisions in this Bill, to work collaboratively with local partners and communities when exercising their functions.
Amendment 104 in particular would impose a disproportionate administrative burden on mayors of strategic authorities by placing a new duty requiring them to meet local authorities, public service providers and town and parish councils. As an illustration, North Yorkshire alone compromises 729 individual parishes, organised into 412 town and parish councils. Expecting a mayor to discharge this proposed duty in respect of each body would be impractical and may crowd out some of the time needed for the officer’s other strategic responsibilities. Parish and town councils continue to be supported in their work, and local authorities are strongly encouraged to work with them to understand the contribution they are able to make to the delivery of local services and the management of local assets.