Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums

Debate between Jack Abbott and Tom Gordon

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jack Abbott]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that correction from a sedentary position. The right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), while Secretary of State for Local Government, when talking about postponements in places such as Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Somerset, said that elections in certain circumstances

“risk confusing voters and would be hard to justify where members could be elected to serve shortened terms.”—[Official Report, 22 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 24WS.]

It is an interesting volte-face for both Reform and the Conservative party. That is the previous Conservative leader, the current Conservative leader, and the right hon. Member for Newark, who, up until last week, was agitating to be the next one, so I will take with a pinch of salt the Conservatives’ new-found desire for referendums or postponements—not least because one particular referendum was arguably the start of a psychodrama that continues to envelop them nearly a decade later.

We did have a referendum in 2024: we had a general election. Local government reorganisation was a clear and explicit part of our Government’s manifesto. I know that, under the Conservative party, delivering on manifesto commitments fell out of fashion—they were little more than vibes, at best, by the end. But we were elected on a mandate of change, and that included rebuilding and reforming local government as the foundation for meaningful devolution. The British people endorsed that programme at the ballot box, and it is our responsibility to deliver it.

[Tom Gordon]

The hon. Gentleman says that the electorate endorsed that at the ballot box. I wonder if he might show a little contrition in acknowledging that Labour got less than 50% of the vote, so trying to make out that that general election was a glowing endorsement of this Government and this manifesto commitment is perhaps putting a bit of a shine on it.

[Jack Abbott]

We are sitting here with a parliamentary party of more than 400 MPs. That is an overwhelming mandate under the electoral system that we have been operating under for centuries. The Conservative party can probably reflect on that, if we are talking about numbers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Abbott]

As I have already laid out, and as the hon. Gentleman will know from when he was a member of the Conservative party, postponing elections where a local government was undergoing reorganisation happened a number of times. I was not here, so I cannot remember whether he spoke out against his Government at the time for doing so. A number of local government Ministers decided to postpone those elections, and I presume that he fully endorsed those postponements at the time—although I am happy for him to correct the record on that point.

The Government were elected on a mandate of change, and that included rebuilding and reforming local government as the foundation for meaningful devolution. The British people endorsed that programme at the ballot box, and it is our responsibility to deliver it. Our Government are embarking on the biggest transformation of local government in a generation. This is not change for change’s sake, but because the status quo has been failing far too many communities for far too long.

[Tom Gordon]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman giving way and being so generous with his time. He talks about change, but we are seeing the continuation of the same local government reorganisation that we saw under the previous Government, with the rolling out of the same mayoralties as well. This is not change so much as a continuity of plans that were already in place—unless he wants to give us anything new that I am not already aware of.

[Jack Abbott]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is slightly mistaken. In my own patch in Suffolk, for instance, the devolution proposed under the previous Government meant handing out a few more powers for a tiny bit of extra money. We are proposing unitarisation of places such as Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, plus a mayoral candidate for the elections in 2028. What we are seeing is far more radical and significant; in fact, for my part of the world, it is the most significant change in local government for more than 50 years, so it is a big step change from what the previous Conservative Government proposed.

For decades, power has been hoarded in Westminster and Whitehall while local councils were stripped of capacity, fragmented in structure and left struggling to meet rising demands after having their funding hollowed out. Nowhere is that failure clearer than in my home county of Suffolk. In a past life I was a county councillor, and I do not believe that the current status quo is working—I do not think many people living locally do, either. Although I accept that that is due to severe hollowing-out of funding over 15 years, a do-nothing approach is clearly not an option for us either.

Those sorts of issues—pot holes left unrepaired, special educational needs provision in crisis, children and families passed from pillar to post and adult social care under unbearable strain—are not abstract problems. They affect people’s daily lives, their dignity and their trust in local democracy. The truth is that the current system is not working, and we needed to do something radical. As I said, a do-nothing approach is not a neutral option, but a decision not to change how local government is structured and empowered. It would simply condemn communities such as mine to more of the same.

That is why the Government are choosing to devolve and not dictate through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. We are rebuilding local government so that it has the strength, scale and capability to deliver—[Interruption.] We hear chortling on the Conservative Benches, but the Conservative Suffolk county council requested this process and has also consulted with the public. People were able to put their views forward.

Our county council has put forward an option for a single unitary authority, and all the district and borough councils have put forward an option for three unitary authorities, so there has been significant consultation at local level. Parties of all stripes, although they may disagree on which outcome they would like to see, have all engaged constructively in this process on the whole.

We are looking to transfer power out of Westminster and into communities, and to give local leaders the tools to drive growth, create jobs and improve living standards. This is about rebalancing decades-old divides and, as I said, we have not seen this sort of reorganisation in my part of the world for more than 50 years.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Jack Abbott and Tom Gordon

Thursday 30th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Tom Gordon]

Q We have had a lot of conversations and taken a lot of evidence over the last few days about a gag clause to prohibit medical professionals raising assisted dying as part of the options at end of life. We have heard from different states and jurisdictions on whether or not that is something that they had. Broadly speaking, the consensus was that it did not seem to work. Dr Mulholland or Dr Price, I wondered if you had any comment on that.

Dr Mulholland: That is something we have been thinking about carefully at the RCGP. Part of our normal discussion will often open it up for patients to lead discussions around their end of life. We see there could be potential restrictions for that clinical consultation with a gag order. We very much follow the opinion I heard from Dr Green from the British Medical Association earlier in the week. We go along with that.

We are very protective of our relationship as GPs, and want to give patients the options that they might want to choose for themselves. We are not usually pushing anyone to any decision, but supporting them through their end-of-life journey. We would want to protect that in whatever way, so we therefore feel that a service we can signpost to would be the most appropriate thing as the next step.

Dr Price: As a psychiatrist and as a representative of the psychiatric profession, it is noted in the Bill that mental disorder is a specific exclusion. It is very unlikely that a psychiatrist would suggest or bring up assisted dying in a conversation.

I think a concern allied to that is people with mental disorder who request assisted dying from their psychiatrist. It may be clear to all that they do not meet eligibility criteria for that, but it is not absolutely clear in the Bill, as it is written, to what extent a psychiatrist would have to comply with a wish for that person to progress to that first assessment. There is quite a lot involved in getting to that first official assessment, such as making a declaration and providing identification. A psychiatrist might therefore have to be involved to quite an extent in supporting that person to get there if that is their right and their wish, even though it may be clear to all that they do not meet eligibility criteria if that is the primary reason for their asking to end their life.

[Jack Abbott]

Q My question is also for you, Dr Price. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has been really clear in its statement that we as parliamentarians have to consider the outstanding questions about a person’s capacity to decide to end their own life, and whether it can be reliably assessed, and you particularly cite the implications for those with mental disorders, intellectual disabilities and neurodevelopmental conditions. Do you believe that anyone requesting assisted dying should be assessed automatically by a psychiatrist, or that certain criteria should have to be met for a psychiatric assessment to be undertaken?

Dr Price: If I take you to thinking about what an assessment of capacity would normally look like, if we think about clinical practice, a psychiatrist would normally get involved in an assessment of capacity if the decision maker was unclear about whether that person could make a decision. The psychiatrist’s role in that capacity assessment would be to look for the presence of mental disorder, and at whether mental disorder was likely to be impacting on that person’s decision making. They would advise the decision maker, and the decision maker would then have the clinical role of thinking about that information and assessing capacity with that in mind.

Psychiatrists sometimes assess capacity and make the determination, but it is usually about psychiatric intervention and issues that are within their area of clinical expertise, such as care and treatment, capacity assessment around the Mental Health Act 1983 and whether somebody is able to consent to their treatment. In the Bill, I am not absolutely clear whether the psychiatrist is considered to be a primary decision maker on whether somebody should be eligible based on capacity, or whether their role is to advise the decision maker, who would be the primary doctor or one of two doctors.

Should a psychiatrist be involved in every case? If there is a view that psychiatric disorders should be assessed for, and ideally diagnosed or ruled out, in every case, a psychiatrist might have a role. If they are seen as an expert support to the primary decision maker, that decision maker would need to decide whether a psychiatrist was needed in every case. We know from Oregon over the years that psychiatrists were involved very frequently at the beginning of the process, and now they are involved by request in around 3% of completed assisted dying cases. We do not have data on what the involvement is across all requests.