Draft Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority Regulations 2024 Draft Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority Regulations 2025 Draft Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority Order 2025 Draft Lancashire Combined County Authority Regulations 2024

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 General Committees

[Jim McMahon]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Mundell. Regulations were laid before Parliament on 26 November 2024 for Lancashire and for Devon and Torbay. The Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority Order 2025 was laid before Parliament on 4 December 2024, and the Greater Lincolnshire regulations on 11 December 2024. Although I recognise that combined authorities and combined county authorities are distinct legal bodies with different enabling statutory instruments, I hope Members will be content for me simply to use the term “the combined authorities” hereafter, unless there is a specific reason to separate them out.

To deliver on our manifesto commitment, in December 2024 the Government published the “English Devolution” White Paper, which sets out how the Government will widen and deepen devolution across England as part of our central mission to drive economic growth and improve living standards. These instruments are part of fulfilling the mission to move power out of Westminster and back to those who know their areas best. They are significant milestones in the devolution journeys of these four areas. The instruments provide for the implementation of the devolution agreements confirmed on 19 September 2024 between the Government and upper-tier councils in each of the areas concerned. On 18 November 2024, all the respective constituent councils consented to the making of these instruments.

The combined authority order will be made, if Parliament approves, under the enabling provision in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. The three sets of combined county authority regulations will be made, if they are approved, under the enabling provision in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. All four authorities will be established on the day after these statutory instruments are made. The Greater Lincolnshire combined county authority and the Hull and East Yorkshire combined authority have chosen to adopt a mayor for their authorities, with the inaugural elections taking place on 1 May this year. The elected mayors will take up office on 6 May, with a four-year term, and will take up their seats on the Council of Nations and Regions.

The statutory instruments make provision for the Government’s arrangements for combined authorities. Each authority has specific arrangements, enabled by either the 2023 Act or the 2009 Act and set out in these establishing instruments. In each case, the constituent councils nominate one or more of their members to form the combined authority, sitting alongside the mayor where one is being adopted. District council representation and input into the combined county authorities is determined locally within the framework provide by the 2023 Act. I know from conversations with local leaders, and through commitments they have made, that district councils will play a key role in ensuring the success of devolution in those areas.

The instruments confer public authority and local authority functions on the respective combined authorities, as agreed in their devolution agreements and set out in each area’s proposals. To accompany the order, we have laid before Parliament a section 105B report, as required by the 2009 Act; and we have laid before the House a section 20(6) report for the regulations, as required by the 2023 Act. The reports provide details about the public authority functions that are being devolved to these authorities. They include powers over transport and Homes England concurrent regeneration functions, as well as mayoral development corporation functions for the mayoral combined authorities. Additional funding will be available to the areas through the adult skills fund, which will be devolved to the combined authorities from the ’26-’27 academic year, as well as education and skills functions.

The Department for Education will work with the combined authorities to support their preparations and ensure that they meet the necessary readiness criteria, and we will legislate in due course when the Secretary of State for Education is assured that they are operationally ready and is satisfied that the required statutory tests have been met in each area.

As provided for in the enabling Acts, the constituent councils consulted on the proposals to establish the combined authorities based on their devolution agreements. Those consultations took place between December 2023 and March 2024 for periods of either six or eight weeks. Councils promoted the consultations using social media, communications campaigns, dedicated websites, and online and in-person events with the public. The councils also undertook targeted stakeholder engagement with businesses, the voluntary sector and key institutions in their areas. Responses could be made online via their website or email, on paper via the post or at dedicated events or collection points such as local libraries.

I can report that the necessary statutory requirements under the 2023 and 2009 Acts have been considered, and that the authorities preparing the proposals have provided the Secretary of State with a summary of the consultation responses when submitting their proposals to the Government in spring 2024.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Some of the areas that we are looking at are still two-tier areas. Will the Minister outline the Government’s approach? Can two-tier areas create combined authorities, or is it the Government’s ambition that new combined authorities will be created only in areas that are wholly made up of unitary councils?

[Jim McMahon]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about how we manage the transition from where we are today to the situation under the English devolution Bill when it eventually becomes law. We have broad ambitions to widen and deepen devolution, which means that we do not wish to wait for the English devolution Bill to be in place. The expressions of interest that we had had by the deadline last week showed that there is significant interest among local areas that want both reorganisation and devolution. There will be a streamlining of the process between devolution and reorganisation, in which a two-tier area could apply to become a combined county authority today and go through reorganisation, and convert to a combined authority in a single-tier system when that reorganisation has taken place. Those arrangements are transitional. Ultimately, by the time the devolution programme has finished, we expect that in most areas, if not all, the two-tier system will come to an end, with unitary councils forming that combined arrangement.

In laying the draft instruments before Parliament, the Secretary of State is satisfied that the statutory tests under the 2009 and 2023 Acts are met, namely that the constituent councils have consented to the establishment of the combined authorities, that no further consultation is necessary and that making the instruments would be likely to improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of some or all of the people who live or work in the area; would be appropriate, in having regard to the need to reflect the identities of local communities and to secure effective and convenient local government; and, in establishing the combined authorities, will achieve the purposes specified in the constituent councils’ proposals. The making of the draft instruments will shift money from central Government to our regions, as set out in their devolution agreements. That includes capital funding for each area and mayoral investment funds for the areas that choose to adopt a mayor.

I personally thank the local leaders and their councils for their hard work and the vital role they play in making the Government’s critical mission to widen and deepen devolution a reality in their areas. I commend the draft instruments to the Committee.