Local Government Reorganisation: Cambridgeshire

Debate between Ben Obese-Jecty and Charlotte Cane

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I agree with the hon. Member. We urgently need clarity. On the statement that was made before recess, we saw a huge amount of discontent across both sides of the House with the decisions that had been taken previously, and it is essential that we get real clarity on exactly what the process is going to be. I appreciate that the Minister has come back into his role having had some time away and may be having to catch up, but I assure him that the strength of feeling is high.

[Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I will make a little progress.

Further to this, in his letter of 16 July, somewhat contradictorily, the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), stated:

“I have decided that more time is needed to consider which option, if any, to implement at this time in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.”

We now have a new—old—Secretary of State. Can the Minister clarify whether the Secretary of State also requires more time in order to make a decision? Whether she does or does not, can the Minister clarify when the Secretary of State plans to have made her decision by? Her Department has held no further discussions with Huntingdonshire district council, so what precisely is in need of further discussion that warrants a delay of two months? Can the Minister outline why there has been a delay? Can he also clarify when Labour MPs were informed of the delay to a decision in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in the first place?

I ask the Minister to clarify, on the record, whether his departmental colleague, Baroness Taylor, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, participated in a meeting with Labour MPs and councillors on Wednesday 15 July 2026, during which local government reorganisation in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough was discussed. I ask him to choose his “yes/no” answer to that question very carefully, lest he might later be accused of misleading the House.

My position remains extant: I back a Huntingdonshire unitary authority, which is known locally as option E. It is the option that was overwhelmingly backed by councillors from all parties across Huntingdonshire district council. Disappointingly, the only people not to have backed this option are Huntingdonshire’s two other Members of Parliament. I maintain that a united front in this respect would have sent a stronger message to the Government.

I have led two debates in Parliament about local government reorganisation, both of which highlighted the potential issues that arise from getting the decision wrong. The more recent of those debates was last November and during it I provided an in-depth assessment of why option D specifically was unworkable. It is almost as if I expected the Government to stitch up the decision. I will reiterate the points that I made then for the benefit of the Minister who is here today.

Option D rips Huntingdonshire in half, creating east and west Huntingdonshire. There is a significant risk in attempting to disaggregate Huntingdonshire district council. There is a lack of precedent and an absence of lessons being learned, not to mention the destruction of local identity in Huntingdonshire, which is already stronger than local identities elsewhere in Cambridgeshire, particularly in separating Huntingdon from Godmanchester and St Ives. Disaggregating Huntingdonshire district council would also come with greater transition costs and affect service delivery.

Peterborough is a basket case. It is estimated that 11% of Peterborough’s budget is needed simply to service its own debts, with 80% needed to fulfil its statutory adult and children’s social care obligations. How on earth does it plan to run all the other existing county and district functions on a 9% budget?

Peterborough council’s debt gearing is 91%, against a national benchmark of just 50%. Under the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy’s local authority financial resilience index analysis, Peterborough is rated as high-risk for its overall level of reserves, its unallocated reserves, its earmarked reserves, its interest payable or net revenue expenditure, its gross external debt, its fees and charges to service expenditure ratio, its council tax requirement or net revenue expenditure, and its growth above baseline. Huntingdonshire is not deemed to be high-risk in a single one of those categories.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

No, I am going to carry on.

The option D business case itself states:

“As Peterborough has historically required exceptional financial support and comes from the most financially challenged position, increasing the scale does not necessarily provide the desired resilience. Reserves still remain low. The cost of servicing debt continues to eat into a significant proportion of the net budget and the funding headroom is tight. This could be mitigated by resizing services in line with available funding.”

Option D provides a significantly lower level of reserves, leaving it more vulnerable to shocks. The reserves of Greater Peterborough are comfortably the lowest in Cambridgeshire at just 16%, which is again deemed high-risk. By comparison, Huntingdonshire would be 42%.

On employment, we need look no further than the percentage of universal credit claimants in the local authority; in Huntingdonshire, it is 2.8%, while in Peterborough it is 8%, which is far and away the highest rate locally; Peterborough has the highest unemployment rate in Cambridgeshire. Greater Peterborough is also projected to have the highest prevalence of education, health and care plans, and the greatest risk of special educational needs and disabilities escalation. At present, Huntingdonshire has the second lowest rate of EHCP prevalence in Cambridgeshire.

This analysis strongly suggests that the system would all but immediately collapse. Greater Peterborough will have the highest spend per resident for adult social care and for children’s social care, more than double that of the other two unitaries, as well as the highest SEND spend per resident and the highest percentage of homeless households, at nearly double that of Greater Cambridge.

It is akin to the Berlin Wall being put up overnight, condemning one half of Huntingdonshire to eking out an existence in the bleak Peterborough Democratic Republic while the eastern half enjoys the trappings of a slightly better existence in the Federal Republic of Mid Cambridgeshire. But will we? Is Mid Cambridgeshire any more viable than Greater Peterborough? No, it is not. A unitary authority for Mid Cambridgeshire would be centred upon St Neots as the biggest town, compared with Cambridge or Peterborough in the neighbouring unitaries.

The option D business case barely even attempts to sell the viability of Mid Cambridgeshire, stating:

“It encourages reflection on ensuring the resilience of all unitaries, especially Mid Cambridgeshire”.

It goes on to outline that

“targeted action can be taken to sustain its market, towns and rural communities”

and that this model safeguards the rapid growth trajectories of the two city regions. It makes no effort to address the challenges that this would leave Mid Cambridgeshire to face.

[Charlotte Cane]

I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a district councillor on East Cambridgeshire district council. One of the other big problems for this proposed Mid Cambridgeshire unitary is that it will have most of the soil-affected roads in Cambridgeshire, which are really expensive to maintain, and most of the internal drainage boards, which need significant funding to keep our market towns and villages dry so that people can live in them. It will be a very challenging unitary to run financially.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I agree. The numbers that I saw were terrifying. I think somewhere in the region of 80% to 90% of Cambridgeshire’s peat roads would be based in the Mid Cambridgeshire authority; the roads budget itself simply would not be able to cope with that. I did not know the point about the internal drainage board and the mid-level commissioners, but having seen some of that infrastructure I can well imagine that the bill for replacing that will be terrifying if it falls solely on Mid Cambridgeshire.

The business case also states that Mid Cambridgeshire’s

“proposed lower levels of funding may result in difficulty in being able to deliver services to residents within its budget envelope. A significant transformation programme will be required to ensure services are resized accordingly”.

We can read that to mean “reduced”. The business case later adds that

“Mid Cambridgeshire may face particular challenges in both capacity and funding for high-cost statutory services”,

and that Mid Cambridgeshire

“in particular, may require additional support to ensure it can participate fully and equitably in regional initiatives”.

That is very reflective of the sentiment expressed by the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire about the land grab for high-growth areas that Greater Peterborough is attempting. Mid Cambridgeshire will be set up to fail.

Police Funding: Cambridgeshire

Debate between Ben Obese-Jecty and Charlotte Cane

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning that, and he is right about the nature of the threat that is now faced. Aspects such as modern slavery go unseen in rural communities. I can think of countless examples in my own constituency, where individuals have been found in isolated warehouses and barns out in the countryside, usually at somewhere like a cannabis farm. I even attended a cannabis farm right in the middle of St Ives with members of Cambridgeshire constabulary. A number of individuals had been living and working there, presumably under duress. Such activity goes unseen, and increasing the police’s ability to reach unseen areas will be hugely important.

To that extent, I ask the Minister how the Government’s neighbourhood policing pledge will restore confidence in Cambridgeshire’s rural communities, who feel that their needs are not necessarily a priority. In April, the Prime Minister pledged that

“Britain’s rural communities will be protected with the first ever government-backed rural crime strategy.”

Will the Minister confirm when that rural crime strategy will be published and how it will benefit Cambridgeshire specifically, given that we have already established that there will be little in the way of additional resource for the county’s police force?

[Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

Rural crime is a major issue in Cambridgeshire and in my constituency. Yes, we can mark big farm machinery, but people are stealing parts from farm machinery, and those parts are much more difficult to track. Hare coursing is also a major problem. The hon. Member has mentioned the sheer size of the area of Cambridgeshire that the tiny number of police we have are expected to cover. Will he ask the Minister to ensure that when the Government are diverting police, as they are talking about doing, they do not divert them from the rural crime unit, and indeed look to bolster that unit?

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I thank the hon. Member for that contribution. I asked a local farmer a few weeks ago how he would tackle hare coursing on his land, and at what point he would feel emboldened enough to stand up to those individuals. He explained to me that that was simply too dangerous, even though they were farmers and big, burly blokes. He said a friend of his was doused in petrol and had a match held to him by those responsible for hare coursing. It is simply not worth people risking their life to take them on. In fact, hare coursing means a 999 call. If you see a vehicle that you suspect is involved in hare coursing—a 4x4 with no plates and a couple of lurchers in the back, for example—that is a 999 call, and you will get an adequate response.

That is a perfect segue to rural crime. Rural crime is a specialist area, and requires officers who understand how to tackle it. We see hare coursing and the theft of machinery, equipment, GPS, fuel and livestock, with the influence of organised crime. These crimes require a specialist team, and Cambridgeshire’s rural crime action team is one of the best. Having joined it recently on an operation, I saw at first hand how effective it is. It punches above its weight, despite being under-resourced. Just over a year ago, it was awarded the rural initiative of the year by the NFU for Operation Walrus, spearheading a national crackdown on GPS theft.

In April, the now Home Secretary pledged:

“Labour will crack down on these criminals, establishing a dedicated Rural Crime Strategy to restore order to our rural areas, backed up with tougher powers and increased rural police patrols.”

I ask the Policing Minister how this pledge will apply to Cambridgeshire. How will the Government’s pledged rural crime strategy restore order to a county that is 90% rural? How will the Home Secretary’s commitment to increase rural police patrols translate into increased support for an under-resourced specialist team such as the rural crime action team, as well as an increase in visible police presence?

In October last year, Cambridgeshire county council passed a motion that directly addressed the issue of fairer police funding. The motion was brought by Councillor Alex Bulat, the Labour candidate in Huntingdon during the last election, and my opponent. As I mentioned at the start of my speech, fighting for fairer police funding for Cambridgeshire was one of my election pledges to my now constituents. While Councillor Bulat never addressed the issue of police funding during the election campaign, I am hugely pleased to see her taking up that fight now, and raising the issue at county council level. The motion called for this Labour Government to ensure that Cambridgeshire has its fair share of the new neighbourhood police officers, and that they are fully funded by the central policing core grant. It asked Cambridgeshire MPs to lobby for a fairer funding deal for our county, through changes to the Government’s police grant allocation that better reflect population data and local factors. The Policing Minister knows well that I have been campaigning for fairer funding. This debate is not the first time I have addressed the issue with her—I have done so in person and via written questions—and I appreciate her tolerance. Can she respond directly to the requests in the motion from Cambridgeshire county council, and explain to the council why it has not yet received a fairer funding deal?

With that, I give the Policing Minister the opportunity to respond to these questions, but lastly, will she and the Home Secretary meet me, other Cambridgeshire MPs and our police and crime commissioner to discuss the steps required to update the police allocation formula, so that funding for 2025-26 is based on Cambridgeshire’s current and future population size, not on the population as it was nearly a decade and a half ago, and to discuss redressing the imbalance that sees Cambridgeshire residents contribute 10% more than average across England and Wales to make up the Government’s shortfall? Our constituents in Cambridgeshire deserve to feel safe. They deserve to receive the full protection that the Government can provide, and they deserve to not pay over the odds to receive that.