English Devolution and Local Government

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

First, the right hon. Gentleman cannot be old enough—surely not. I say to him gently that he also cannot have it both ways: he suggests that the reform is piecemeal, but his Front Benchers are suggesting that I am tearing down local democracy, which is just not true. Local areas are coming forward, and we are working with local councils and local areas. I have talked about the real-terms cash injection, which my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution will set out in detail later this afternoon, and about the collaborative way we want to work with local authorities. I do not see any lame duck local authorities out there; I see local authorities, of all political persuasions, delivering vital public services, that have felt absolutely pillared by the previous Government, and now we see a Government determined to change that.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State and her Ministers on the work they have done on this matter, and on the exhaustive consultations that have taken place between MPs, local councillors and stakeholders—no one is being forced on this journey. We in Norwich and Norfolk are happy to be on the express elevator to devolution. After 14 years of austerity and cuts to adult social care and children’s services under the last Government, will the Secretary of State promise us that she will encourage the new local authorities to engage in co-development and co-production of those services, and that they will be taken in-house, so that we can end the privatisation and outsourcing that has ruined those services for so many years?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for recognising the countless rounds of consultation by my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution. Dare I say it, his door is always open to all hon. Members to discuss devolution—I once called him “devo-man” at the Local Government Association conference, and I stand by that. There have been significant pressures on adult and children’s services in local government, as Members from across the House have recognised in questions to the Prime Minister and in other debates. I encourage local authorities and local services to see where they can co-design services and support people in their local areas. These measures are not about party politics or what happens here in Westminster, but about the delivery of the vital services that, critically, many people rely on day in, day out.