Local Government Reorganisation

David Simmonds Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister to make a statement on plans for local government reorganisation.

[The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution (Jim McMahon)]

The English devolution White Paper sets out how this Government plan to deliver on our manifesto pledge to transfer power out of Westminster through devolution and to fix the foundations of local government. This Government’s long-term vision is for simpler structures, making it clearer for residents who they should look to on local issues, with more strategic decisions to unlock growth and to deliver better services for local communities.

On 16 December 2024, I wrote to all councils in the remaining two-tier areas and neighbouring small unitaries to set out plans for a joint programme of devolution coupled with local government reorganisation. We acknowledge that for some areas the timing of elections affects their planning for devolution, particularly alongside reorganisation. To help to manage these demands, we will consider requests to postpone local elections, as has been the case in previous rounds. Where local elections are postponed, we will work with local areas to move elections to a new shadow unitary council as soon as possible. This is a very high bar, and rightly so.

The deadline for such requests was Friday 10 January. Today, my Department has published a list of all county and unitary councils who have made requests, including those who want to delay elections from 2025 to 2026. For the avoidance of doubt, this is the list of requests; it is not the final list that will be approved. We will consider these requests carefully and postpone elections only where there is a clear commitment to delivering both reorganisation and devolution to the ambitious timetable set out. While not all areas listed will go forward to be part of the devolution priority programme, we are grateful for the local leadership shown in submitting these requests, and a decision will be made in due course as soon as possible.

We welcome the large number of areas that have come forward seeking to join the devolution priority programme, reflecting our own ambition for greater coverage across England. This Labour Government were elected on a manifesto to push power out of Westminster and to relight the fires of our regions, and I am delighted that local leaders across England are sharing that ambition.

[David Simmonds]

Although it was not a manifesto commitment, the Government published their agenda for reorganising council structures in England before Christmas, and we support our local government colleagues who are clearly required to respond to that call from Government. With local elections scheduled to take place in May this year and councils already incurring significant costs arranging polling stations and electoral canvassing, and preparing to receive nominations and issue postal ballots, it is not surprising that many councils have acceded to the Government’s expectation of a delay in these polls. After all, why incur millions in costs to local council tax payers for electing people to councils that are to be abolished shortly afterwards?

However, there remains significant uncertainty about where and if those elections will be delayed. With deadlines looming for key points in the organisation of those elections, that uncertainty risks some wasted costs for council tax payers, so we on the Conservative Benches have a series of questions. We know that many of those councils are Conservative-run, and with Conservative councils charging on average £80 less per household than Labour ones and £21 less on average than Lib Dem ones, voters will want to understand the impact of the Government’s reorganisation on their council tax and on their back pocket.

May I ask the Minister, first, what assessment has he made of the Boundary Commission’s capacity to undertake the necessary reviews to ensure equal distribution of electors across the new local authorities? Can he give an indication to the House of when he will make decisions, so that local authorities will know whether they are preparing to organise elections and are willing to incur those costs or not? We know that a number of other announcements are in train, particularly the indication from the Deputy Prime Minister that areas currently setting a low level of council tax will be punished through revisions to the funding formula, so when can local authorities expect to know what impact such revisions to the funding formula will have? I look forward to informative answers from the Minister.

[Jim McMahon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those questions, and I am genuinely grateful for the spirit of consensus around the broader issue. I accept that there may be differences of opinion on pace, but we do not shy away from our ambition to see devolution experienced by the whole of England. I give a degree of credit to the previous Government for building out devolution in the north of England and the midlands, but surely we have to demonstrate that this project is not reserved for the north of England and the midlands. This is a project for the whole of England, and we are on with that.

Our determination to ensure that we deal with these structural changes early in the Parliament is clear, but that is shared by local government. It is important to say that although of course we will set the timetable and provide support on both the devolution priority programme and local reorganisation, it is for local areas to self-organise and to agree to be part of the programme. We are not mandating this; we are not forcing it. All the requests that we have had since Friday have been from areas who share our ambition.

The hon. Gentleman will know that it is sensible to take the approach that, if reorganisation is a genuine proposal—and the bar has to be high for that test—it is nonsense to have elections to bodies that simply will not exist. It is far better that we move at pace and create the new unitary councils and then hold elections at the earliest opportunity.

I am not going to get into the subject of council tax, partly because it is outside the scope of the hon. Gentleman’s urgent question. Also, he was slightly mischievous in the way that he framed his remarks. On the point about capacity, however, it might be helpful if I lay out what the process will be. Local areas will make the request. We will issue statutory invitations at the end of the month, and areas will need to self-organise. It is not for the Boundary Commission or the Government to lay down which plans come forward. It is for local areas to submit proposals to us, and at that point the Government will decide on the right proposals among what could be a number of options that come forward from local areas. Again, it will be for local areas to self-organise and make those proposals to us.