Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) for securing this important debate and congratulate him on the excellent points he made in his speech.

Local government holds a special place in our multilayered and multifaceted democracy. It is democratically accountable, inherently bottom-up and strongly community-minded. The average local authority delivers more than 800 different services, providing key day-to-day functions that represent, for most people, the most noticeable interactions with political choices and democratic management. Whether it is bins, potholes, recycling and waste, libraries, adult social care or SEND services, the most obvious impact of many people’s choices at the ballot box are those delivered at the local level in their parish, district or county council.

I am especially aware of that having served as a local councillor in the London borough of Bexley for 23 years and, on a regional level, as a London Assembly member for 13 years. It was a privilege to serve my constituents in those positions, just as it is as a Member of Parliament. That is why I know that local government deserves support and respect. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly clear that the Labour Government do not share that view.

Along with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), I noted that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) said that local government reorganisation is complex, consequential and long-lasting. He is completely correct on that. However, my right hon. Friend was also completely correct to say that there was nothing in the Labour party manifesto that suggested a top-down, nationwide structural reorganisation of all local councils. There was no mention of riding roughshod over the wishes of local people and local government, but that is exactly the course the Government are pursuing. We have heard today from right hon. and hon. Members how the Government’s plans, which stretch far beyond the platform that they stood for at the election, will impact their local area and constituents.

The Government’s programme of so-called devolution is already having sweeping impacts on councils and local people—not least, as we have seen for the second time in as many years, with the likelihood of the cancellation of local elections across vast swathes of the country. It is telling that of the 63 councils offered the chance to postpone elections by the Government, nearly three quarters of those doing so are Labour run or have a Labour majority. Following on from the Liberal Democrats spokesman, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), there are a further four local authorities where the Liberal Democrats have at least a share of power, and one where they are in outright control.

It is widely believed that Labour is denying democracy and running scared of voters by cancelling elections where it feels it will get a pasting. Independent voices—from academia to politics and the Electoral Commission—are urging that the elections should go ahead. Just recently, the Government told us they would. As the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, told the House on Monday:

“Just before Christmas, the Minister highlighted that councils were asked to delay elections, after the Secretary of State had repeatedly told our Committee that they would be going ahead…I am concerned that we are seeing a postponement yet again.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2026; Vol. 779, c. 58-59.]

Her argument was supported by the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer), who said:

“As a former leader of a major council and a Labour MP, I find this completely embarrassing. A Labour Government should not be taking the vote away from 3.7 million people. It is completely unprecedented for a Labour Government to do that. There is clearly a vested interest for some councillors who may feel, looking at the opinion polls, that they will lose their seat.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2026; Vol. 779, c. 60.]

He is surely correct in his assertion that this is what lies behind the Government’s actions. When 3.7 million people are being denied the right to vote and the Government’s excuse is their own radically top-down and botched reorganisation of local government, it is no wonder that local people feel so ignored and insulted, as hon. Members have made clear today.

Let me make it clear again: the Conservative party’s position is that the elections should go ahead. Our line has been completely clear and consistent. This mass suppression of democracy is, perhaps, the most egregious of the many negative outcomes of the Government’s bungled restructuring programme, although it is far from the only one.

The greatest scandal comes in the Government’s approach to local councils as they seek to carry out this unmandated position. It is vital that local councils—the elected representatives of local people—and the communities in which they live are heard throughout any process affecting the make-up, functions and form of their local democratic institutions. Instead, Labour’s approach has been to dictate from Whitehall, forcing councils to sign up to a prescribed model of restructuring, imposed from the centre and leaving local people without a voice. We believe that true devolution requires clarity, accountability and sustainability in funding, elections and structure, but the Government have offered none of those things.

While local referenda are expensive and non-binding, they provide another collective voice that could feed into the debate about how people want to be represented. The voices of local people should be front and centre of any restructuring process, but sadly, given their current approach, even if there were local referenda, it appears likely that this Government would simply ignore any view that did not correspond with their own.

[Jack Abbott]

I think there is a short-term memory issue here. The hon. Gentleman talks about referendums, but the Conservative Government held a whole heap on mayoralties in 2012 and then ignored all the outcomes. He says he values local government, which is incredibly welcome, but his party hollowed out local government funding, and we have seen the cost of that. When the Conservatives were in power, they suspended a number of elections to consider local government reorganisation, including those involving the Leader of the Opposition—why has there suddenly been this volte-face in the last few weeks?

[Gareth Bacon]

Three local elections were delayed by one year in 2021, all of which were the result of local government reorganisations; a consultation took place with the authorities affected in advance and their views were taken on board. That is in complete contrast with what the Labour Government are doing right now. They are riding roughshod over the views of local people and cancelling elections for the second year running.

It is vital that communities get the real empowerment they deserve, that taxpayers get the accountability they pay for and that new structures face proper scrutiny. That is why, on Report and Third Reading of the devolution Bill, the Opposition urged the Government to look again and accept amendments to ensure that the Bill provided those key tenets; true to form, the Government ignored those entreaties. The Opposition will continue to vote against the Government in Parliament on their botched handling of this issue.

If the Government do not listen to local people, through whatever democratic means, we face a future for local government in which power is stripped from genuinely local authorities and people—parishes, town councils, neighbourhood groups and civic institutions—and centralised within geographically and demographically distant authorities instead. While the Government’s track record speaks for itself with rushed, top-down reorganisations of local government and higher council tax burdens on residents, the Conservatives believe that communities deserve a voice—not another expensive restructure that sidelines local priorities, moves decision making further away from voters and inflates the cost for taxpayers.

While referenda, like elections, could be ignored by a Government who appear indifferent to the views of voters, the Opposition believe in local voices and will continue to stand up for our local democratic institutions. Our electoral process should not be abused or bent to the will of a particular party for its own partisan benefit. Ministers should treat voters with respect instead of disdain, stop undermining our democratic system and let the people of this country make their own decisions.