English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes]

My right hon. Friend tempts me; I agree with her wholeheartedly. It is crazy that the Government are embarked on one of the largest sets of planning reforms in the country at this time. Fair funding formulas are being announced, and many planning reforms have been announced over the past few months, but the authorities concerned are being abolished and, essentially, reorganised. The way that the Government have approached their reforming agenda is topsy-turvy, and they need to go back to the drawing board.

Far from creating clarity, the Bill piles new combined authorities, new mayoralties and new boards on top of already overlapping local councils. The Government are introducing complexity at a moment when the public want simplicity—clear lines of responsibility, not an ever-changing maze of institutions—and they are doing all this while fundamentally changing planning laws. Residents should be able to know, without needing a flowchart, who is responsible for transport, planning, regeneration or housing, but the Bill fails that basic test of good governance. As I have said, there is a plethora of reforms at different stages and in different bits of legislation.

Many—I would argue—very good amendments and new clauses have been tabled by my right hon. and hon. Friends, including new clause 39, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), and new clause 48, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson), which I moved in Committee, and which would allow a mayor to benefit from the true devolution that the Government have spoken about by being allowed regulatory responsibility for ferries. Both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) have signed that new clause. I brought the matter up in Committee, and, to her credit, the Minister committed to ensuring that the Department for Transport would have another look at establishing the body that my hon. Friend was promised; that, I believe, has not happened yet. New clause 48 would allow mayors to ensure that they were acting, in respect of transport connectivity, on behalf of the people who elected them. I do not see why the Government are resisting the new clause, because they have allowed mayors regulatory responsibility for many areas across the United Kingdom, and not only geographically.

The Isle of Wight, which is just to the side of my Hamble Valley constituency, is a special case because of the desperate access needs of those living there. They have relied on a service that is basically being run into the ground. It charges extortionately high fares, it often has cancellations, its equipment has not been updated for a very long time, and the company has just been sold. I ask the Minister to look at giving true powers of devolution to mayors once again. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East will speak to his excellent new clause; I hope that the Minister will look at giving mayors true powers, on my hon. Friend’s behalf and on behalf of her hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West. I hope that the Minister will also consider new clause 39, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport, which would allow water taxi services to be regulated by a mayor.

The official Opposition tabled amendments 8, 16 and related amendments. They speak to a principle that should be absolutely fundamental to our system: changes to local governance should not be imposed from Whitehall without the consent of the councils and communities they affect. The amendments would remove the ability of the Secretary of State to create a combined authority or alter its composition without the agreement of the local authorities involved.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)]

Can the hon. Gentleman give an example of when a Conservative Government gave a veto to a local authority?

[Paul Holmes]

The last Conservative Government worked with local authorities to devolve responsibilities to them, but I can give the hon. Gentleman an example of when a Labour Government gave local people a veto on devolution: the former Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Prescott, asked people whether they wanted devolution. When they said no in the north of England, the Government dropped their plans. This Government are going forward with forcing devolution on local people, and are not even bothering to ask them. That is the difference between this Labour Government and the great Labour Governments of the past, which is why the hon. Gentleman should speak to his Minister. The last Labour Government was a very principled Government, led by principled politicians. Where are they? This Government certainly do not bother to ask local people about the devolution that they seek to impose on them.

Combined authorities are voluntary partnerships; they function effectively only when the constituent councils trust one another and have confidence in the structures in which they operate. If we grant the Secretary of State the unilateral power to reshape those structures, redraw governance arrangements or impose new members or functions without consent, we risk undermining that trust at its very foundation. Devolution cannot be delivered by coercion, and genuine partnership cannot be created by ministerial order.

It is worth remembering that combined authorities, unlike ordinary local authorities, do not arise organically; they exist because councils choose to work together, on terms they negotiate and agree among themselves. They are built on consent. If that consent is overridden or taken for granted, we risk destabilising the very institutions that we are trying to strengthen. That is not acceptable. This Bill, despite its lofty title, does remarkably little to empower the truly local level—the parishes, town councils, neighbourhood groups and civic institutions that understand their communities best. Instead, the Bill concentrates mayoral authority in the hands of regional leaders, who may be many miles away, both geographically and democratically, from the people affected by their decisions.