Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025

David Simmonds Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 General Committees

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

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025 (S.I. 2025, No.137).

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Hobhouse. The postponement or cancellation of local elections in pursuit of local government reorganisation is a subject that has been much debated on the Floor of the House, and indeed, is a debate that has played out in the media. The Opposition have some concerns about the decision being made, and I will briefly summarise the reasons for that.

As Ministers have said repeatedly, the practice has been to postpone and cancel local elections where doing so is necessary to facilitate the reorganisation of local government. The practice has applied since the Local Government Act 2000, and it has been followed by Governments of all parties. We have concerns, however, about the messages that have gone out suggesting that these elections are merely to be postponed, and indeed, that is the substance of the Government’s proposals.

We know that the intention, as has clearly been set out—this was certainly our intention in government when dealing with this matter—is not merely a postponement for a 12-month period but that these elections will be cancelled, so that new local authority structures can come into being. We would not elect a council that is about to be abolished in 12 months’ time, but we might hold elections for the new local authorities that would come into being, and the new elected mayors who would serve those local government areas.

Clearly, that process is one in which there needs to be a degree of input, perhaps from the boundary commissioners or the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, in order to ensure that effective democratic representation is in place before those elections occur. That practice was followed, for example, with the reorganisation of the Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire councils during the previous Parliament.

At present, there is a lack of a clear timetable for local authorities. Members of Parliament and local residents in those areas have expressed concern that, while they understand the rationale for reorganisation, they want to know confidently when they will have the opportunity to cast a ballot to shape the political direction of their new local government representation.

The Opposition have set out a degree of concern that, contrary to previous practice—where local authorities were invited, if they felt it appropriate, to bring forward proposals—in this case, the drive for the proposals comes from Whitehall and the Ministry, and it is to a template that has been set out by Government on the likely size and population of the local authorities.

We are concerned that there is not a clear plan for how the reorganisation of local government will interact with other legislation that either has been passed or is making its way through Parliament, including the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which began its passage last week, and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. All of that will have a significant impact on the organisational role of local authorities. Other legislation, particularly the envisaged wholesale reorganisation of planning in England, will also require significant input from local authorities if it is to work effectively. That lack of clarity is a significant concern to us.

Finally, I have two questions that I am sure the Minister will be able to answer, the first of which is about the treatment of vacancies that arise. The order sets out a process whereby elections that have already arisen, but which would have normally been postponed until the occurrence of the regular cycle of elections, will be required to be held between the order coming into force and a date in May. However, given that the postponement is part of an undoubtedly longer period, one issue that clearly arises is that it is likely to lead in due course to the cancellation of those elections, so how will vacancies be treated beyond that period? I am sure that the Minister has an answer, but it would be helpful to know what will happen if local authority by-elections cannot go ahead outside the period that is specified in the statutory instrument.

The second issue is the specific decision that the statutory instrument envisages for Thurrock, where elections are postponed until 2030. Clearly, that is a long time, and it would be helpful if the Minister set out the thinking behind that particular decision. What are the benefits to the residents of Thurrock of having those elections postponed until 2030?

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds]

I will not detain the Committee for long. There has been quite a rich debate—unusually so for a Delegated Legislation Committee—a lot of which has focused on some of the politics and the structures around local government reorganisation. I think the intervention from the right hon. Member for Oxford East was a good illustration of that. The proposed footprint for the new local authorities has been a key subject of debate, and we know that the Treasury clearly has one view about that, and I suspect that the Ministry has a slightly different one.

Certainly, historically, 300,000 was seen as about a reasonable minimum, broadly reflecting the size of London boroughs, for example, which are unitary authorities; but clearly a move to a larger footprint is an opportunity to spread the overheads over a greater population area. However, it remains a significant challenge for authorities that are coming forward, where they may be happy to consider a footprint of 300,000 but 500,000 does not work for them, and the Government and the Minister will have some significant challenges taking that forward, with his task of unitising local government in England by the end of the Parliament.

Turning to the specifics of the instrument before us and how we got here, again I have some sympathy with the Minister’s point that the invitation was sent out, and it was very clear from the outset that the first step was an invitation for those who were willing; but for those who were not initially willing there would be a statutory invitation—an invitation you can’t refuse—to come forward with proposals for local government. I think that justifies the concern expressed by a number of Members that there is a significant top-down element to this.

However, in order to deliver that process, the key thing that we are—and remain—concerned about is that, in this case, the Minister is a little bit boxed in by the legislation that says that this instrument will postpone these elections. He took us through a list of actions by previous Governments such circumstances, and described, in all of those examples, that those were about the cancellation of those elections—those elections would not take place any longer. This instrument merely postpones these elections. I think it is the clear understanding of all the local authorities on this list that they will not hold elections to their local authorities ever again because they are about to be abolished through the process of local government reorganisation. Exactly as the Minister has described, cancellation is about those elections never being held again because some new local government structure will come into being at some point.

However, the instrument says to all those local authorities that their local elections are expected to go ahead on the due date in 2026—that the election is merely postponed in Essex and the other local authorities listed. While I absolutely support colleagues in local government who have said, “We accept that this is going to be done to us whether we like it or not—we need to make the best of this opportunity,” and there is logic in coming forward in the first tranche, the legal implication of what we are being asked to decide is that those elections will take place, but at a point when the abolition of those local authorities is even closer than it is today. That does not seem to be a good choice for us to make.

There should be a clear and structured plan, so that residents understand not just that they are losing the right to vote that they had hoped to have in Essex, or wherever it may be, this year, but that elections will take place to those new structures; so that they can see that they will have the opportunity both to exercise the democratic right that they enjoy and to shape the new structures as they come into being. Those are the reasons that we find ourselves here today.

Question put.