English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

David Burton-Sampson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, because the Bill does nothing to empower local communities, but instead contains measures reducing the democratically elected representation of communities and enables the Government to impose local government restructuring on communities, irrespective of local opinion, disregarding local geography and identity; because bureaucratic restructuring of local government will cost money and reduce focus on housing delivery with no evidence that it will deliver better services; because the Bill will lead to greater costs for residents by creating new mayoral precepts, increasing borrowing powers, and raising parking charges on motorists, and adding more local bureaucrats as mayoral-appointed commissioners; and because the Bill will result in higher council tax bills for hardworking families, at a time when local government is facing increased costs pressures due to unfunded rises in employers’ National Insurance contributions.”

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill—it is a title straight out of the Ministry of Truth. The Bill is not about devolution; it is clearly a blatant power grab by the Deputy Prime Minister—a right hon. Lady for whom I have a huge amount of respect—and her Department. It is not about community empowerment at all; it is about stripping power from local authorities and concentrating it in Whitehall and the hands of the people in Whitehall.

Big Brother would be proud. Centralisation is devolution. Whitehall diktat is community empowerment. The fact that the Bill does the opposite of what it claims is, as we set out in our reasoned amendment, why we cannot give it a free pass. This Bill sidelines communities. This Bill forces restructuring without consent. This Bill wastes money while families are facing higher bills because of Labour’s mismanagement. This Bill disrupts and distracts councils from building the homes that local people need. Those are our objections. That is what we have set out in our reasoned amendment.

If the Government want to win the confidence of this House rather than just shoehorning their Back Benchers through the Division Lobby, they need to justify the demands embedded in the Bill. During the debate and when summing up, I sincerely hope that they answer our questions. Why centralise control? Why raise taxes? Why deny residents their voice? Those are the questions that those on the Treasury Bench need to answer before this Bill can make credible progress through the House.

The case has been set out, but before Members on the Labour Benches get too excited, let me put to bed a few spectres that have been raised. The Conservative party believes in devolution, not just in theory but in practice: we created many of the existing mayoral roles; we created police and crime commissioners; we empowered parish councils and neighbourhood planning; and we gave families the power to block excessive council tax rises. We devolved by consent—by agreement with local leaders—and not by Whitehall diktat.

The simple truth of the matter is that Labour does not and has never believed in devolution, and it does not deliver meaningful devolution. It is a centralising party and it centralises. This Government are abolishing councils without consent and forcing them to sign up to their model of restructuring. They forced the postponement of elections in nine county councils. That was unprecedented. Elections are the foundation of democracy, and denying them undermines public trust and confidence. In truth, denying residents their democratic voice was done for a very specific reason. It was done because Labour feared what people would say to it at the ballot box.

[David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman has just listed a load of things that the Tories did with devolution. He cannot deny that the reason we need devolution and local government reorganisation is because his Government significantly underfunded local government, which is now on its knees. We therefore have to take action to get local government back in a good place, and devolution and local government reform is one of those actions.

[Sir James Cleverly]

I think the hon. Member said the quiet bit out loud: this is about putting up taxes on local people. That is what this legislation is fundamentally about; we know that to be true. I promise the House that I did not tee up that intervention—it was the next bit in my speech. Labour, by imposing this restructuring from the centre, is leaving local people without a voice. This legislation is about creating what this Government want, which is a cohort of subservient Labour mayors.

Let us look at what Labour mayors actually deliver—as I say, this speech was written before the previous intervention. Labour mayors put up taxes. Labour mayors increase the tax burden on local people. The Liverpool city region—up by 26%; Greater Manchester—up by 8%; West Yorkshire—up by 6%; and London, since Sadiq Khan took office in 2016—up by over 70%. Labour Members are quiet now, aren’t they? The truth hurts.