English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, this is the latest legislation in a long line of tinkering that has made our sub-national governance structures more fragmented, complicated, opaque and financially unsustainable. That the opening clauses enumerate 13 types of so-called strategic authority proves that point unambiguously. Such complexity has sown confusion among councils, voters and governments, preferring the wants of the administrative state over the people and taking power further away from residents and business to the dead hand of Marsham Street.

Over 20 years as a councillor, I have seen a mania from officials who live in the London borough bubble to tidy up things outside the M25 for their own bureaucratic convenience. This is just another attempt to lard on half-baked new structures in a half-done settlement that is already unwinding and unravelling before the legislation is even passed. For example, the Budget announced that mayors could raise a new tourism tax, and the Minister lauded that in her opening remarks. Surrey was promised a mayor to do so, but now that has been taken away in the same breath as the cancellation of the mayoral elections. The Bill asks mayors to write growth plans in pursuance of the urgency of driving economic growth. I thought this Government were all about growth and that the mayors were the key to unlocking it—it is clearly not that urgent, given that those mayors have been delayed for two years.

I have heard it all before: let us get rid of the districts and the 86 things that residents value the most, so that it can all be lost in a system where 70% of the money is spent on adult and children’s services, but somehow it will all be all right. It is nonsense. If we were really interested in community empowerment, the Government would sort out a system in which three-quarters of local government expenditure is spent on the 5% of the residents who need social care and those with special educational needs and disabilities. On this, the Bill is silent—another can kicked down the road.

Nowhere in the Bill do the Government set out what local government is for. There are lots of administrative functions listed, but none viewed through the lens that, if it is not foreign policy or defence, it is capable of being done locally. It is not hard to articulate a purpose. Local government exists to raise a family, grow a business, invest in local infrastructure and protect the local environment. On this, the Bill is silent. Instead, we get 380 pages of schedules and impenetrable processes so complex and convoluted that they come round to meet themselves in the opposite direction without working out whether they benefit either the resident or the firm.

As if to prove that point, whole parts of the Bill contain duplicative provisions for mayoral and non-mayoral authorities, with extra discriminations between London and everywhere else in a metropolitan apartheid that is all about shoring up Labour’s electoral heartland at the expense of everyone else. There are more councillors within the M25 than in all the county councils of England. Some 3,108 electors get to choose a councillor in London but in the shire counties it is typically more than 10,000. That is a cynical dilution of democracy.

Schedule 26 is all about reorganisation everywhere apart from London and the mets in Birmingham and Manchester—funny, that. It is nothing less than a gerrymander to save Labour’s councillors in the city while pursuing Labour’s war on the countryside by other means.

The Bill’s title is a confidence trick that promises more structures, not fewer. There will be mayors able to raise unlimited taxes for things they have no control over, new combined authorities with dodgy decision-making provisions, and confusion between tiers. Even smaller-scale powers such as taxi licensing will be transferred up to strategic authorities without the systems, staff or experience to execute them. Proud city councils will be disbanded and relegated to parish council status with unconstrained council tax raising powers.

There will be a vandalisation of our historic county boroughs and cathedral cities, which will lose their identity and civic pride, including their lord mayors, sheriffs and lieutenants. County councils with their pension funds, which the Chancellor wants to control, will be split up. There will be destroying of the districts, which do the things that people value most, with net budgets of only around £10 million to £12 million but which scoop up the most vulnerable people Labour tells us they are most concerned about.

Worse, we now get a new war on the motorist, with new civil enforcement powers for traffic contraventions. This is not a Bill about empowerment; it is about disempowerment and centralisation. It is a disembowelment of local accountability, because part of community empowerment is all about helping people to stand for election, but the Bill actually makes it harder for single mums or community-minded businessmen to stand, with larger councils further away from people and relying more and more on the rich and retired motorist. That is the effect of Labour’s vision for devolution and empowerment: more layers taking powers further away from people while creating a new professionalised councillor class.

I have heard it said that this will save money, but the people who called for this in 2020 now say it will not save a bean. Look at Somerset, bankrupted by an LGR process that is now to be visited elsewhere, and pension strain costs of at least £1 billion, which we know will have to be factored in but have so far not been calculated, to be borne by the local ratepayer. As for the parishes, Salisbury council, for example, was converted from a city to a district, and council tax for a £383 band D is up 44% in four years—a stealth tax if ever there was one.

Fly-tipped right at the end of the Bill are some provisions on investment-sapping commercial rent reviews, as if that improves devolution or community empowerment. It is well-meaning but counterproductive. Let us pin the tail on the donkey: everyone affected will pay more for less. It is all about top down, not bottom up. We should send the Bill back under the Trade Descriptions Act: it is about neither devolution nor community empowerment.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a brief comment on Amendment 196B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, which is worth discussing further, especially given how it fits with Amendment 191 from the Lord, Lord Bichard, which I strongly support.

The question I asked myself, perhaps trying to anticipate the Minister’s response, was: would it duplicate existing audit and scrutiny arrangements? I came to the conclusion that I do not believe that it would. Audit answers the questions of whether the accounts were properly kept and whether the acceptable processes and procedures were legally carried out. But this amendment addresses a different and much more important question: is public money being spent effectively across the whole system? Audit is retrospective, siloed and looks at individual organisations after the event. Local public accounts committees, as proposed in this amendment, would look across organisations in real time. They would look at how councils, mayors and public service partners are actually working together—they are not the same things.

The Bill deliberately—and correctly, in my view—will push power and spending into shared collaborative arrangements, but our scrutiny remains fragmented, organisation by organisation. This mismatch is the gap that Amendment 191 would fill. Without it, no one body would be clearly responsible for asking very basic questions such as: is it the case that joint working is working? Is it delivering value? Are overlapping budgets aligned with agreed priorities? Are partnerships working as intended? Audit does not do that—and scrutiny committees, as currently structured, will struggle to do that.

In contrast, this amendment would enable that. It is not more bureaucracy; it is better oversight. It is not another unnecessary new layer. The amendment is enabling, not prescriptive, and it allows Ministers to integrate these committees within existing audit and scrutiny frameworks. It provides coherence and not clutter, and in fact good system-level scrutiny actually reduces duplication by exposing it.

My main reason for supporting the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, is that devolution without strong, visible accountability risks undermining public confidence. If power and money are exercised at a mayoral strategic level, scrutiny must exist at that same level. Otherwise, we are asking people to trust structures they cannot see being properly examined.

In conclusion, Amendment 191 strengthens the Bill by aligning power, spending and accountability. It complements audit and scrutiny; it does not replace them. In fact, the financial cost of not having effective system-wide scrutiny could lead to duplicated programmes, misaligned budgets and failed collaboration, which will almost certainly cost a lot more than the modest investment required to make this work well. For these reasons, I hope that the Minister will give both ideas serious consideration.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I support the principle of Amendment 191 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. I observe that, for the first time, we are bringing local, parish and community councils substantially into scope, for I believe that the definitions provided in Amendment 191 will do so. What has not been fully understood is that one of the second-order effects of the Bill is that it will create a significant number of larger community councils as a result.

As a result of local government reorganisation, large numbers of cities, such as Oxford, Exeter and Norwich, and former county boroughs, such as Ipswich, Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn, which have been billing authorities hitherto, will now fall into the lower tier of local authorities. Those authorities have no constraint or cap on the amount of council tax that they can raise. In Salisbury, they have jacked up council tax by 44% in the past four years—they have let rip, and it is not good enough. There has been no scrutiny, there has been cost shunting, and the council tax payers have paid more.

I have laid amendments, which we will discuss later, that will make provision for those larger smaller authorities to fall under the constraints that all the other authorities will have. I do not seek to fetter the smallest parish council, but if you have a population that hitherto has been part of a billing authority, it is right that they should be constrained going forward, as they have in the past.

I am not sure that I entirely welcome all the provisions in Amendment 191 on local public accounts committees, but the amendment shines a light for the first time on where we will go with these smaller community parish councils. There is merit in the thrust of what has been proposed here. I wait to hear how the Minister reacts to what constraints will be placed on this new class of large parish or town council as a result of the changes proposed in the Bill.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I will take a step back to reflect on what this debate is really about. It is not simply about committees, processes or institutional design—it is about trust that power, once devolved, will be exercised well; trust that decisions will be open to challenge; and trust that the public will be able to see how and why those decisions are taken.

Amendment 53, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, speaks directly to that question. The requirement for mayors to establish scrutiny committees for commissioners recognises a simple but important truth: as we add layers of responsibility and delegation within combined county authorities, scrutiny cannot remain an afterthought. If commissioners are to exercise real influence, there must be clear, visible and credible mechanisms through which their actions can be examined, questioned and, where necessary, challenged. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain how the Government envisage scrutiny operating in practice where commissioners are appointed and whether they are confident that existing arrangements will suffice.

Amendment 191 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard proposes local public accounts committees. The noble Lord has raised a very important point: there has been a tremendous amount of devolution, just not to local government but to unelected quangos and devolved bodies. Anyone who has led a council will tell you how much difficulty they have trying to get those bodies to do things that are best for the local area because they have to report to Whitehall. This is an interesting proposal to try to oblige those bodies to work together with local government. I do not seek to speak specifically to that design—more to question of principle, because it goes back to the heart of scrutiny as we have more devolution and deal with these other devolved bodies. How will the Government ensure that appropriate scrutiny happens across an area where not only the combined authority but those other bodies are essential to deliver some of those services? As I said, local public accounts committees are one possible solution, and I am very interested in seeing what the Government’s suggestion on that is.

I also press the Minister on a number of broader points. First, has the department assessed whether existing local scrutiny arrangements are adequate for the scale and complexity of devolved expenditure now envisaged? Secondly, what assessment of the fiscal governance risks that arise when large multiyear funding settlements are devolved without strengthened independent financial oversight at the local level? As was raised earlier, how do the Government intend to identify problems earlier rather than having the audit function of explaining what went wrong afterwards?

Thirdly, I would be grateful if the Minister could address the question of cost—not simply its narrow budgetary terms but the strategic ones. If the Government do not believe that local public accounts committees are the right answer, what is the solution? If we are serious about devolving power, responsible scrutiny must sit alongside it, not trail behind it.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th January 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and my noble friend Lord Pitkeathley, I have added my name to Amendment 72 and the others already spoken to by my noble friend Lord Harris.

I have to say only two things. These amendments would provide the appropriate vehicle, as some of the tasks that fall within London are cross-borough. A lot of tasks and responsibilities fall to the GLA, and some fall quite clearly to the boroughs, but some are cross-borough. It is important that we have the correct vehicle for that to happen, both for statutory consultations and, as has already been mentioned, to make it possible to spend money in that way, rather than it having to be funnelled through a particular lead borough. It is therefore useful and probably necessary.

I do not agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, said about it being another level of government. That is absolutely not the intention. There is a non-statutory vehicle there, which is immensely useful, but there are a couple of things that it cannot do. It seems to me that defining it in statute would fill a gap and would be better for the people and boroughs of London.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I am not a London councillor, nor am I a vice-president of the Local Government Association, so I suppose I have a bit of an independent view here. I am just a provincial councillor from Norfolk. However, I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. It is time to have a look at governance in London, because 32 plus one is quite a lot. There is also an assembly and a mayor—arguably, London is over-governed.

It is time to have a look at this, because it is out of kilter with elsewhere. Outside the M25, the Government are proceeding on the basis that all local authorities must be half a million people or more, covering huge territories. Norfolk, where I come from, has over 900 parishes. It is 85 miles wide and 40 miles long. If you were to start here in Westminster and then travel down to the south coast, the width of Norfolk would take you 30 miles past Brighton and out into the English Channel before it ran out. That is the size and scale of the territories we have in the shires. In Norfolk, over 9,000 electors are needed to elect a councillor. In Essex and Kent, it is between 12,000 and 15,000. In London, just 3,108 electors are required to elect a borough councillor—and of course there are other representatives too. These London boroughs are much smaller territories and much more tightly defined—they do not have 900 parishes. As a result, not only is democratic representation diluted to an unacceptable extent outside the M25, but we end up with the nonsense of the borough bike wars. If you ride a Lime or a Forest, there is an inexplicable invisible line in the middle of the road that applies the brakes as you ride up the King’s Road.

London is overrepresented; there are more councils and more councillors. In fact, there are more councillors within the M25 than in all the county councils of England. This review should happen. I associate myself with the remarks of the London councillors who have spoken. You cannot reorganise local government everywhere else and leave London to sit it out. That is not good for democracy, councils, governance or the country, and it certainly is not good for the principle of equality of democratic representation.

In the other place, all the constituencies have been equalised, plus or minus 5,000, so that there is an equality of representation. The value of everybody’s vote is the same, wherever you are in the United Kingdom. In London, because of the excess number of councils and councillors, the vote representation is up to five times greater than it is outside the M25. That alone should be an example and a reason to go into a governance review. London cannot just sit it out any more while, elsewhere, there is wholesale reorganisation.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I too have a history in London local government, though nothing like as illustrious as that of my noble friend Lady O’Neill or the noble Lord, Lord Tope. I was a councillor for 28 years, in a borough that has been Conservative for 60 years. I am looking forward to it continuing to be Conservative for another four, or indeed 40, years, so that it reaches its centenary as a Conservative-held borough. I was a member of the executive of London Councils, and chairman of the transport and environment committee of London Councils for a number of years.

That is probably half my speech, and I only felt obliged to make it so as to keep up with the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and all the others who have recited their credentials for participating in this brief debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my opposition to Clause 16 standing part of the Bill. It in no way conflicts with the series of amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Gascoigne, so ably presented by my noble friend Lady O’Neill. I agree with the thrust of all she said. There is no doubt that, if Clause 16 is to be sustained, improvements to it, alongside those in the government amendments, would be useful. However, I do not favour that approach. I just do not believe that any part of Clause 16, which amounts to an unjustifiable fettering of the electorate—elect a good candidate or otherwise hand it to an elected mayor in office—should be sustained. Therefore, none of it should stand part.

The public are tiring of funny business in elections. I have laid amendments to later parts of the Bill that would make the cancellation of local council, mayoral and PCC elections illegal without the super-affirmative procedure, which would require a vote in both Houses. Labour is playing fast and loose with democracy—a cancellation of a vote here and a postponement there, asking those with the most to lose whether they would like to stay a little longer, and bogus capacity excuses from councils that do not even run the elections. We read today in the Daily Telegraph a Labour NEC member of many years standing disclosing threats with menaces to Labour council leaders to connive to strip the franchise from more than 4 million electors this May.

When I was a young man, my noble friend Lord Pickles told me, “If you don’t trust the folks, don’t go into politics”. He was right then, and that advice is still correct today; it should never go out of fashion. We need to encourage as many people as possible to serve the public at every level. In my public life in local government, I took the view that I did not have the time to be a double hatter, or even triple hatter, by seeking to serve my community as a parish, district and county councillor—combining it with a business career was quite enough for me—but that is not how it is for others.

The fundamental principle here is that the public should get to choose their elected representatives. If somebody wishes to serve at more than one level, that option should be available to them, but they should be accountable to the electorate, not anyone else. It is the public’s choice. We often have people who serve at more than one level, amplifying the experience they gain at one level to the benefit of another; that was not for me, but it worked well for others.

I listened carefully to what my noble friend said, but Clause 16 is nothing more than a grubby stitch-up to prevent the public having their free say. It would stain a banana republic for certain citizens to be denied the chance to stand, especially those who had demonstrated a track record of success. I have not had time to consult my noble and learned friends but I am sure that I could get an advisory opinion that such action is contrary to international law. You would think that that would be enough to put the black spot on it, but not for this Government.

I sense that, in drafting Clause 16, there was some intent to prevent my noble friend, who served with distinction as mayor in the north-east—and whom the public elected once, then again—standing as a mayor and being in the legislature. It might have been the case that, as in the last Parliament, a county council leader is also an MP. In those cases, the Bill would force that person to choose, but, if you believe in democracy, it is not for him to make that choice—it is for the public, via the ballot box. Clause 16 is state overreach and a case of party-political interference. That why it should be deleted. I read the newspapers and have been in politics long enough to know what is going on here.

It transpired in the past week that the Labour Party’s own internal rules prevent a Labour mayor from sitting in Parliament. That is a choice for Labour and one that should be available to other parties, but it is not a compulsion to be forced on parties that have a different outlook and better principles. Do not just take my word for it. There are others who cherish democracy more than this Government. The Electoral Commission and the Speaker of the other place have had cause to criticise the debased commitment to the sanctity of the vote. We heard from the Prime Minister himself earlier this week that the reason why the Mayor of Manchester cannot stand in this mother of Parliaments is that it is part of Labour’s rules and has nothing to do with the candidate’s suitability—it makes no judgment on whether the candidate has the appropriate experience. No, the Prime Minister told us that the decision was driven solely by the unwelcome financial cost to the Labour Party of running a second-order mayoral election—so not by statute but by internal rules, which we all know change from time to time. That was coupled with the inconvenience of spreading more thinly the campaigning capacity of Labour’s demoralised and depleted activists.

The Government may have thought that they were being clever with Clause 16, by preventing local leaders from exercising national influence, but they have been pricked by the back-draught from the good folk of Gorton and Denton, which tells me that there is widespread support for the notion that Clause 16 should be excised from this Bill. The public know a lemon when they see one. The former Deputy Prime Minister, who introduced this Bill in the other place, now appears to have a case of buyer’s remorse, as the measures that she published are now being used to deny her Manchester mate from putting himself forward to the voters. That is some irony: it is not just back-draught; it is blowback. Of course, in the case of the Manchester man, that is for future service. However, I am anxious that in other cases there might be a question of retrospection. My noble friend highlighted Johnson and Khan, which is a case in point.

When I was the leader of the council in South Norfolk, which is an electoral authority, I was always careful, in so far as elections were concerned, to separate my role as leader of the controlling group from the administration and operation of the election and electoral matters. If successive returning officers who served me were here, they would confirm that approach. However, that is not how it works in Clause 16. The Prime Minister told us that he would put country before party, but those who continue to promote this Bill clearly did not get the memo, because Clause 16 is about putting the wants of the Labour Party before of the needs of the electorate. It prevents the electorate from having their say on who should be elected, especially somebody who has done rather well in one area of politics and who might do well in the other. It is an abuse of the people, the law and democracy.

We have heard it said that your Lordships’ House is standing in the way of the will of the Government and somehow it is improper and, as a result, we need to be reformed. However, with these amendments, we show that noble Lords are standing up for democracy and community empowerment. The denial of a free vote on candidates is the pure expression of community disempowerment. Labour should be ashamed of itself for Clause 16. It does not trust the folks, as my noble friend Lord Pickles advised all those years ago. No, for them, it is party first and public second. This clause proves this, which is why it must go.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

Can I just make a brief statement? While it is right and proper that each and every amendment and clause is debated, I deeply regret how party-political the last two contributions have been. What we are all doing here is trying to do the best for this country and not make these things party-political. I deeply regret some of the comments that have been made by people opposite.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I am sorry if the noble Baroness regrets those, but the facts stand. A mayor who has done a rather good job in one part of the country is now going to be prevented from standing as a result of applying Labour’s rules for all the other parties. That is a statement of fact. I do not deny that Labour has the right to have its internal rules, but those rules should not be forced on all the other parties. I am sorry that the noble Baroness feels that way, but that is how we in the other political parties feel when another party’s internal rules are applied to everyone else. It is anti-democratic. As I say, I am sorry that she feels that way, but the feeling is equal on this side of the Committee. That should be placed on the record, too.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, these have been an interesting set of interventions. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that it is important that party-political contributions are kept to an absolute minimum when we are debating a Bill.

There is a basic issue in this group. The public have a right to expect that elected individuals do not end up with two jobs: being a mayor and being an MP. In some circumstances, it might be possible for the electorate to knowingly vote for that. However, that would be most unlikely to be the case. There is a question as to where, geographically speaking, the mayor might be the MP; it might be within the mayoral authority and it might be elsewhere. Either way, there is a clear conflict of interest, because Parliament judges the allocation of funding, for example, to the mayoral authority.

I do not think that you can have one person doing two jobs. Amendments 76 and others in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, would allow that, for whatever period, there could be an overlap of both mayor and MP retaining both offices. To be absolutely clear, we think that that is wrong. I say to the Minister that these matters are important and should not be for political parties to judge alone. It should instead be clearly understood that, when people have been elected to one of the posts, they should carry out the responsibilities that they have been given by the general public.

On Tuesday, I said that if, in a mayoral authority, there had been a large number of commissioners appointed by the mayor but then that mayor decided to become a Member of Parliament, he or she would leave the mayoralty and, as the Bill is currently drafted, all the commissioners would lose their jobs as a consequence. When politicians are elected to a job, they must see the job through and do it to the best of their ability, given that the public have expressed confidence in them doing so. They have an obligation to fulfil their contract with the electorate.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th February 2026 Grand Committee

My question to the Minister, which relates to that, is: to what extent do different departments in Whitehall consider, as they restructure the various public services, the need, first, for boundaries to coincide wherever possible and, secondly, to ensure that accountability is not simply to one part of Whitehall at each local level but that there is the maximum possible co-ordination? Chapter 6 of the strategic defence review talks about the need for local leadership and local resilience across various public services, absolutely including fire and rescue, but in the Bill as it currently presents I do not see that sort of cross-boundary and cross-departmental set of issues being addressed. It seems that we are dealing with a Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Bill that has not really been sorted out with other departments in Whitehall.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, some time ago in the teens, from 2015 until about 2022, I was a member of the fire services pension fund, which exposed me to a world that I had had no real previous experience of. I learned that there were 40 fire and rescue authorities in the UK and it astonished me that, of the 40 fire and rescue authorities, there were seven different structural constructs within them. I am speaking in violent agreement with the noble Lord who has just spoken.

For example, there were the single county authorities such as Norfolk or Suffolk, and there were the joint county authorities such as Dorset and Wiltshire, working together under a single canvas. There were joint committees, for example, as you might find in the West Midlands—I am not quite sure whether the Yorkshire ones that the noble Lord just referred to are in the same bucket as the West Midlands or indeed whether they form an eighth different variant. There are the mayoral ones in Manchester, the London Fire Brigade stands alone and, of course, within the police and crime commissioners there is the one in Essex, for example, which is different from the one in Hertfordshire. We are now going to add combined county authorities, so I think that makes eight, and now within the mayoralties there will be a case A or a case B, each of which may have in addition a commissioner or a deputy mayor.

This is crazy. For 40 types of authority there are—I have nearly run out of fingers—10 different constructs, I think. The Bill should be bringing order to that complexity. Instead, it is obfuscating and adding a further cat’s cradle of complication. I know that we are in Committee and that we will come back on Report, and I understand the complexity and the interaction with the police, because the police and fire and rescue work together in so many cases, but we have to bring some order to this chaos.

Although I do not necessarily support the entirety of the text of Amendment 170, it has probed the necessity of bringing some sensibility to what is a nonsense in the way in which our brave fire and rescue firefighters deal with not just fires. During my tenure as a trustee of the fire service’s pension scheme, I learned that the average fireman goes to a fire once every 12 days or so; this is about the other important work they do, in prevention and in attending road accidents and other national emergencies. They deserve better than the structures they have today.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 170 would require a mayor who holds fire and rescue authority functions to delegate those functions to a deputy mayor for fire and rescue, creating governance arrangements that mirror those already in place for policing.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, raises a number of interesting and important points, as we have heard from this short debate. I look forward to the Minister’s response, particularly on the issue of democratic accountability, as raised by my noble friend Lord Trenchard, and on my noble friend Lord Fuller’s point about making sure that public services all work from the same geographic area. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ensure that; it might take a little longer, but I am sure it is worth doing.

During our consideration of the Bill, it has become clear that fire and rescue services are not listed as statutory consultees in the devolution framework. For me, that raises a number of important questions for the Government. As we have heard, fire and rescue services play a central role in public safety, resilience, planning and emergency responses, yet when decisions affecting land use, building standards, transport corridors or climate adaptions are taken without any requirement for fire service input, there is a risk of the safety and resilience considerations being added only after decisions have been made, rather than being embedded right from the outset.

In that context, I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why fire and rescue services are not statutory consultees, whether the Government consider this omission appropriate, and whether steps are being considered to strengthen their formal role in devolution and governance arrangements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 196C. For me, this is a really interesting group because it is quite wide: part of it is to do with wanting to enable local revenue raising and part of it says, “Hang on. Hold on a minute, we need a bit more accountability here. Should we not put up some guardrails?” I am somewhere in the middle of that argument, I guess.

My amendment would allow mayors to levy a business rates supplement to fund local priorities. The first question is: why do that? These mayoral authorities are going to be quite large—perhaps not on the scale of Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, the West Midlands and so on, but they will be large geographic entities. One would think that they will want primarily to drive projects that relate to bits of infrastructure kit and transport, such as buses, trains and trams, and to ensure that they have adequate local funding to do so. It is welcome that the Government are consulting on a tourism levy but, even following the Bill, established mayoral authorities will still require considerable central funding and approval for major projects.

I do not quite buy the argument that the Bill is about decentralisation, not devolution; I think it is a mixture of the two. It is good that we are looking to decentralise more because that will eventually underpin a greater level of devolution. My amendment would change who can levy the supplement and under what circumstances. It would allow established mayoral areas to levy a business rates supplement without a referendum, as was the case for Crossrail. I am sure that most colleagues will remember that the Crossrail funding was a mix of central funding and local funding. The Crossrail business levy was an important element of that; it also meant that businesses across the capital had to think about what they were going to get out of Crossrail and make their voices well known.

Currently, the relevant legislation says that only the Greater London Authority, county and district councils can do this in England, subject to a referendum of businesses in those areas. My amendment would change this so that only established mayoral areas would be able to do so, but without the requirement for a referendum. This would align the economic growth policies of the mayoral tier with the fiscal incentives from a business rates supplement, as is the case in London. It would mean that the referendum requirement, which was put into the Localism Act 2011, would be withdrawn or would not apply. Crossrail has been a major success—everybody can see that. It has major benefits. I am sure that mayoral authorities, combined mayoral authorities and so on will want to see the sorts of improvement that have been gained from Crossrail spread more widely across the country.

I argue that we should lift those restrictions so that mayors can get on with delivering for their areas. This cuts to the point on central funding that the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, talked about. Most local government services are, in the majority, centrally funded, but that was not always the case. I think back to my time as a borough councillor in the early 1980s, when much more of the revenue was raised locally through business rates and rates on properties. That gave us more autonomy and more freedom, and it meant that local people could see that their local authority was spending their money. That increased the level of interest in local elections, which I believe is a very positive thing. I therefore hope that this will get some favour from the Minister, and that colleagues will find this an interesting solution to local financial support for combined mayoral authorities.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad that I am following the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, because I could not disagree more with his Amendment 196C. When I was the leader of a district authority, we had control over the business rates, and we were able to get full reliefs to the last pub, shop or community sporting club in a village with a population of less than 3,000. That was the source of a huge community empowerment. The effect of the noble Lord’s amendment would be another nail in the coffin for rural pubs and small businesses, and I reject it on that basis. I will also speak to my own Amendment 256A, which is a rag bag. We are talking about Clause 56 at the moment, but this would go right at the end, beyond Clause 85; perhaps I should have asked for it to be de-grouped, but here we are.

My amendment is consistent with the Government’s Clause 11, which relates to constraining the council tax-raising ability of the larger, newly created mayoral combined authorities. But I am looking at the other end of the spectrum, because I am concerned that, following local government reorganisation, the former district councils, which are currently defined as “billing authorities” under the Local Government Finance Act 1992, will disappear. In Section 39(2), they will become local precepting authorities. In other words, the district council, once abolished, will be converted to a third-tier parish or town council. This will affect places like King’s Lynn, a historic county borough; cathedral cities like Norwich or Oxford; county towns like Ipswich and Chelmsford; and coastal communities like Hastings, Eastbourne and Great Yarmouth.

Some of these places have large populations—for example, Norwich City Council, when it is abolished, will have a population of more than 150,000—and there will be lots of new large locals formed. The problem is that the majors are constrained in their ability to put up council tax—5%—but the locals are not. This amendment would change the definition of “local precepting authority” to include authorities with a population below 49,999. Where a local precepting authority exceeds 50,000, it would become a major precepting authority for the purposes of raising council tax and be subject to the same rules as other larger councils.

Of course, it is not just the former billing authorities that will flip into parishes; the former boundaries that flowed from the hundreds, the poor law unions, the urban and rural district councils, and the predecessors of the county boroughs in the Reform Act 1832 will disappear. This is why my amendment proposes a size scale, rather than being limited solely to the former district councils. These places will be joining that benighted club: Salisbury, Shrewsbury and Scarborough, which have all fallen out of previous rounds of LGR and must now stand on their own two feet in the sense that, unlike their predecessor billing authority constructions, they will get no formula grant in the future; they will need to earn what they spend.

We already know already that over 100 councils, existing principal authorities, want exceptional financial support this year as the Government shamelessly tilt the formula away from being population based. That is a denial of the simple truth that people consume services that need to be paid for and that it is more expensive to deliver them in the countryside, but that is a debate for another time.

But, under LGR, there will be a powerful incentive for authorities to cost-shunt the most expensive things to these newly created third-level authorities to get the liabilities off their books and on to the small fry. I am thinking of leisure centres, municipal theatres, parks and open spaces, youth groups, civic activity, and community pride events such as carnivals and festivals.

My wife was a parish clerk for over 10 years in a small parish with 500 souls, spending about £3,000 a year, so I know the value of what these unsung volunteers—real community champions—in parish councils can achieve. But I am focusing on the new large class of parish, town or even small city authority, with plenty of staff, plant and equipment, miles away from that “Vicar of Dibley” stereotype.

These residents need protecting from unconstrained tax rises, cost shunts from principal authorities and the smaller populations being made to afford the costs of facilities that have been previously amortised over a much larger canvas—that hinterland of surrounding parishes where people are able to chip in. This is not an idle concern. The noble Baroness has certainly mentioned Salisbury before, which has let rip. Its precept is up 44% in just four years. Its own website tells long-suffering residents that their council tax is the highest in Wiltshire. At £383 for band D, it is over twice the level of my own district council. I have looked at Shrewsbury. Following LGR, its parishioners’ band D is up 218% in 10 years—although I will concede that, at £87, it appears to be offering slightly better value for money. To those against my amendment, I say: look to Shrewsbury, because limiting council tax in these third-tier authorities can be done.

I have also looked at Stevenage, which is likely to be consumed and subsumed into the larger construct—taking power further away from residents and damaging the distinct identity that came from it being the first post-war new town, alongside all the other accoutrements. It is funny how all my examples begin with an S. In Stevenage, the band D was raised by just 3% to £246.41. If it carries on like Salisbury, a band D in Stevenage would pay £354 by 2030—a raise of nearly 50% or over £100.

We must be clear that these are burdens in addition to the new mayoralties that will be created—the huge new bureaucracies with the ability to raise precepts for things they are not even responsible for. There will be new mayoral CIL on top of existing CIL and new authorities where the effects of council tax equalisation within the canvas have not even been ventilated yet, and the costs of LGR have not been determined. We know it is going be subject to at least a £1 billion black hole from the accelerated pension strain costs.

Do not let the Government tell you there will be fewer layers; there will be more and at more cost. The public will be rinsed by LGR. People will pay more for less—that much is certain—but my amendment would at least seek to constrain those billing authorities that are already principal authorities and are constrained in their ability to raise council tax. That will still apply to them when they are transmogrified into third-tier councils, to make sure they cannot do a Salisbury too. That is right not only by residents but by the authorities, because as they approach this forced reorganisation, which will see a transfer of assets, they will know by this amendment that there is not a blank cheque. It will sharpen the minds.

This is not a dig at parish councils or the third tier. They do a lot of valuable work at a level that is closest to the people, but I have got their back, because it will stop those councils with the broadest shoulders from imposing liabilities and cast-offs on to those with the most limited means. That is an essential safeguard if the community empowerment part of this Bill is not to be undermined. I would be creating equity between the cathedral cities, the market towns, the new towns and so forth, so that council tax after LGR does not become an intolerable burden for those who live within the cities and provide perverse incentives for those just outside to become free riders.

I know the Minister is concerned about this and we have spoken for some time about it. I have suggested a £50,000 threshold in Committee, but as we move to Report I would be open to saying that perhaps there should be a £1 million precept or some other measure. But we have to have a measure between the small and the major authorities to protect parishes from having their leg lifted and, in turn, protect their residents from being rinsed.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down, I would like to clarify something. You cannot compare Salisbury as it is now to Salisbury as it was before as a district council. It was a far larger area; it was Sailsbury and south Wiltshire, not just Salisbury city.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Grand Committee

I do not agree that it makes sense to split my own county of Hertfordshire into two, three or four unitaries any more than it would have done to split Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire or Dorset. I know that they all have one or two additional bits that are unitaries but, basically, the historic counties—and the sense of place and identity that their inhabitants feel towards them—have survived. In the case of Hertfordshire, this will not result in any savings. According to my research, many of the councillors who support the splitting of the county into at least two unitaries do not believe that there will, in fact, be any savings. In Hertfordshire’s case, it is likely to lead to years of internal dissent and argument, with a highly damaging effect on people’s sense of identity. I certainly support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the clause stand part notice in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, uncharacteristically, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam.

Clause 57 and Schedule 26 should play no part in the Bill because the claim that larger units of local government are more cost-effective has been thoroughly debunked. We will just end up with larger, more expensive units that deny the pattern of life that people live. The 500,000 argument was comprehensively debunked by the Blair Government in 2006 with a seminal document that is still available on their website. More recently, the claim that this current round of unitisation will save money was initially made by the County Councils Network, citing evidence dating from 2020. Last year, the people who wrote the report said, “Actually, we made a mistake and there are no more savings to be had”. The savings that were promulgated in 2020 had already been made.

Bigger is no longer better. A forced reorganisation across the entirety of this country is likely to crystallise at least £1 billion-worth of unaccounted for pension strain costs for those who would be entitled to retire on a full pension up to 10 years early, having been forced out on grounds of efficiency. There is special meaning to those words. However, those billion pounds or so have not been taken into account, and it is local people who will pick up the tab. Through the Bill, we will end up with more expensive additional layers to have mayors who can raise taxes on things for which they are not even responsible.

I do not intend to relitigate the arguments I made on Monday, but there is no clarity on where the new town and parish councils will sit. This is unfinished business that we will need to revisit on Report. We must ask: is there even capacity in national government, let alone local government, for this reorganisation at a time when councils should be in the van of building homes, growing the economy and picking up the pieces for those who have fallen on hard times?

I ought to alight for a moment on the consequences of council tax equalisation in a territory, none of which has been considered at all. I am a veteran of several rounds of local government reorganisation over many years. In the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, there were some statutory tests, including on value for money, equity between areas and consistency of electoral quotient. There needs to be a broad cross-section of support, but none of this is included in the Bill. The requirement for consent has been abandoned—this is something that is going to be done to people.

Last night I was at a dinner in London and people told me how, 20 years ago, they travelled from all parts of the country to go to Norwich to celebrate their octocentenary; it was 800 years. Among them were lord mayors, honorary aldermen, the sheriffs and the reeves. The Bill is silent on how this important civic part of our nation is to be treated. In an unthinking reorganisation, the civic life of our nation will be vandalised. In future, there will be no more trips to Norwich, or anywhere else for that matter, for those people who are part of the social grease of the way our nation works.

I have heard it said that this will make local government simpler and more straightforward. As we have learned over many days in Committee, however, it will cost more, there will be plenty more expensive layers and there will be more complication. Last week we discovered for the first time that, among the 40 fire authorities in this country, there will be 10 different structural arrangements. What a missed opportunity this is. Rather than reorganising the deckchairs in local government, perhaps we could do something about simplification. But no: there will be less accountability and it will be more impenetrable.

Ultimately, families, businesses and the economy outside the M25 will suffer while London and the mets get to sit this one out. There is no equity there at all. People will be paying more for less, having powers taken further away from them. Nobody wants it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I feel bound to remind the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, that the Bill is a Labour continuation of a local government reorganisation started under the Conservatives. This is very much the Michael Gove—now the noble Lord, Lord Gove—view of how England should be governed, with mayors as the key element and large units imposed regardless of place.

I have done my politics in Yorkshire over the years. I think the imposition of a single unitary council, against the preferences of almost all local authority members in North Yorkshire—except York, because York was, by and large, a contest between Liberal Democrats and Labour—was a crucial example of ignoring place-making in everything else.

When I do my politics in Bradford, I am conscious that it is a large unitary authority and I see good councillors struggling to represent their wards, and councillors who are not so good leaving their wards pretty much unrepresented. I support very strongly everything that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said about the importance of place, and of recognising that different areas require different patterns. I also regret the tendency of successive Governments to go in for restructuring when they are not sure what else to do, the unlikelihood that this will lead to better government and, sadly, the likelihood that it will leave more people across England feeling unrepresented and ignored.

I was very struck by a letter I saw this morning from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Fire Safety, Building and Democracy. That seems to me to place the importance given to democracy in the appropriate place according to the Bill. This is supposed to be a democratic Government and a democratic country. All politics is local. The figures on public trust that I see every year show that the public trust Westminster less than they trust local government. Weakening local government is a very bad idea but, unfortunately, that is what the Bill is all about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

Yes, but the town council will be on our current boundaries, presumably, whereas to work with the last 30 years of building and development we really ought to incorporate all those large areas of housing and commerce that Wealden has stuck on our boundaries rather than elsewhere. Understanding how the Government intend to proceed on this is relevant to the decisions that we are being asked to take now. I very much agree with what other noble Lords have said. Representation is important, as are the concepts of parish and local identity. We would like to take what will be a rather challenging decision in the full light of knowing what the alternatives open to us really are.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a really important debate because it has emphasised and demonstrated the muddle that is in the Bill: the vacuum that will be created following the local government reorganisation process. How is it that Clause 60 cannot even bring itself to mention the town and parish councils that have formed the bedrock of our society?

I know it is inconvenient to have those pesky politicians interfering in that administrative competence: why do we want delegates and deputies at that lowest level? I can understand why the dead hand of Marsham Street has written Clause 60 as it has, but it is not good enough, because it does not have the golden thread of legitimacy that comes only with elections or democratic accountability. We are not seeing authoritative governance, but authoritarian governance; we will be leaving it to local authorities to impose relationships in some smaller parts of their territory without any regard or requirement for democratic legitimacy.

We have had an interesting discussion. The number bandied around was that 20% of places are unparished. It is not equally spread throughout the nation but, by and large, the historic county boroughs have not been parished because they have been billing authorities and districts in their own right. Areas such as King’s Lynn —a proud Hanseatic town—are currently going through a consultation to form their own parish so that there is not a vacuum. I am very attracted to Amendments 207 and 210, and especially Amendment 209A from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, because they would prevent a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum, but there will be one unless we have these absolute requirements here.

In our discussion about parishes, there was some confusion over what we might call ecclesiastical parishes —those parts of a town with a parish church—but we have not really got to constituted, incorporated parishes that are part of a parish council. It is important that our nomenclature is straightened out. I will talk about civil parishes as opposed to ecclesiastical ones.

There are already multiple arrangements. In my electoral ward, the two parishes of Alpington and Yelverton are inconveniently at both ends of the alphabet but have come together to form a community council—a joint parish council with warding for periodic elections. A minimum number of councillors from Alpington and a minimum number from Yelverton must come together as part of that. Put together, about 400 or 500 people live in those two parishes. Where is the equivalence between Alpington and Yelverton working together and Weston-super-Mare? We are trying to shoehorn this. The Bill should be clear.

In the previous session on the Bill on Monday, I ploughed a lonely furrow as I tried to make some sort of size distinction between these smaller parishes and the larger towns. I was on my own; had that debate been held today, I feel I might have got more support. Nevertheless, we must make sure that we end up with properly constituted, incorporated bodies to govern these smaller bits. Just establishing a joint committee or sub-committee of the new body that sits above it will not be any good, exactly because of the library point that was made so well.

The Bill is deficient because none of this texture is explained or laid out. There is just a muddle, with no legitimacy. This must be brought back on Report with significantly more flesh on the bones and I encourage the Minister to do so. I am not sure whether even Stevenage is parished; it was certainly a new town. That is a whole new class of authority that we may need to look at in this regard. We must try to bring together all those bits from my noble friend Lord Lansley, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and others to bring some order to this. Otherwise, it will be disorderly.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I apologise for intervening, but it is not just about legitimacy—it is also that local areas occasionally want to pay for local amenities that the large unitary does not want to pay for. Shipley, in which Saltaire is based, now has a town council because Bradford decided that it could not afford to pay for public toilets. Ilkley had its own town council so it could do it, and the other tourist destination, Haworth, has a Brontë museum, which pays for its own toilets. Saltaire is a world heritage site, but it had no money to pay for its toilets, so we had to form Shipley Town Council to reopen an absolutely essential part of our local community and economic area. That is a new tension that we have; for libraries and other things, we need some degree of fundraising power for local activities.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I did not want to come back, but I shall, to amplify my noble friend’s point—I think that I can call him my noble friend in this regard. The incorporation point is really important, because elsewhere in this Bill there are provisions for the community infrastructure levy to be passed down to neighbourhood areas. These bodies need to have a bank account and governance; they need to have representation and must have legitimacy. The Bill is silent on that and deficient in that regard. We must move forward, or we will just end up in a muddle.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, what a helpful discussion we have had about this group of amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, has rightly called this clause a muddle and said that we need to come back to it on Report with some flesh on it, because there is absolutely no detail here.

As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said in relation to Sussex, there is no local structure for when it goes unitary. That strikes me as fundamental. Clause 60 says nothing about town and parish councils. We have had a whole set of amendments trying to address this problem, but it should have been addressed before we got to Committee. It must be addressed by the time we get to Report.

I think that we have understood now what the problem is. My noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said at the start, in introducing this group, that he had an unease about Clause 60, which he called a “most dubious clause”—how right and prescient he has turned out to be. The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, complained that he had said a number of things on Monday about the muddle, gap or vacuum that there is. I raised this matter, and I am happy to agree that that is the case, but on day 1 in Committee, I talked about the importance of local authorities devolving power to town and parish councils—to lower tiers. At every level there should be a statutory requirement on all the bodies to devolve power to a lower level, wherever there was a case for so doing. The Government did not support that, but I remind them of that debate on and the amendment to Clause 1, as it would help to get them off the hook with this very poorly drafted Clause 60.

On a final point, as my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said, there is a confusion in terms in the Bill between local, neighbourhood and community—the three words I think he used—to which I add “area”, because we get that as well. The words start to become interchangeable because nobody is quite sure what they mean. They are not properly defined in the Bill. They ought to be, but the difficulty we have is that the Government do not quite know how to define them. The solution to the problem is to change Clause 60 to include, as part of the local government structure, town and parish councils, then to insist that areas of competence should be devolved to the lowest level possible for the management of that service.

I hope that the Minister is taking very seriously that we must have something much more substantial on Report.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, London does have a parish. It was set up in 2014 after a local referendum, and it is Queen’s Park—just so your Lordships know. There is nothing at all to stop the greatest city becoming parished.

I agree with many noble Lords that Clause 60 is a muddle. While it places a duty on local authorities to make appropriate arrangements for effective governance, it does not say whether that effective governance should be elected or non-elected. It also says that the Secretary of State would have powers through regulations to define neighbourhood areas and to specify the parameters of what arrangements may be considered appropriate. I find that very odd. I do not know which Secretary of State would understand the neighbourhoods of my now county of Norfolk, let alone the whole of England. However, we welcome efforts to bring decision-making closer to the communities that it affects. From previously setting up unitaries, it has been very clear that it is important to set up some more local organisations, but we need much more clarity on what they should be.

Neighbourhood committees or area committees—whatever they are called—are not the same as elected town or parish councils. They are unelected and in the control of and usually paid for by the unitary authority. I have experienced these committees and they work very well. They are probably needed for a bigger unitary authority, but they are no substitute for elected councils, such as town and parish councils. In fact, one of the strengths of neighbourhood or area committees is the inclusion of those local town and parish councils, so that all issues will be discussed locally by everybody concerned. Town and parish councils, because they are elected, are required to look at local plans and neighbourhood plans, and even at the budgets of the councils, to give a local perspective on those big issues for the unitary authorities. In that spirit, I welcome the intention behind Amendment 205, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, which seeks to strengthen the role and authority of locally elected councils and affirms the principle that neighbourhood governance must be rooted in democratic legitimacy and local accountability.

Amendments 206, 207, 208, 209A and 210, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Bassam of Brighton and Lord Lansley, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, are important because they quite rightly seek, in different but complementary ways, to enhance and secure the role of town and parish councils within this emerging framework of what the Government are calling neighbourhood governance. We all know, from long experience and evidence on the ground, that genuine community empowerment through elected town and parish councils is central to effective neighbourhood governance. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, is absolutely right that town and parish councils are a way for the larger authorities to test what is going on right down on the ground.

Parish and town councils are often the most immediate and accessible tier of democratic representation. They are closest to the lived experience of local people, they understand local priorities and they are often best placed to translate national policy ambitions into practical, locally sensitive action. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will think that that is a good thing for them to do.

Building on that point, I would be grateful if the Minister would therefore clarify how the Government see the roles of parish and town councils evolving within the wider framework of neighbourhood governance in this Bill. It is interesting that the Minister’s responses so far have been far from encouraging to town and parish councils. Why not encourage new unitary authorities to look at setting up more town and parish councils in their areas? That could go into a change to Clause 60.

In particular, can the Minister say how the Government intend to ensure that town and parish councils are meaningfully involved in the decision-making that affects their communities? That happens now, but will it continue to happen? Finally, can she confirm how the Government will ensure that any move towards greater neighbourhood governance will be underpinned by clear lines of democratic accountability, so that locally elected parish councils are empowered to deliver more as we, hopefully, get more of them and they are embedded?

Throughout our consideration of this Bill, we have spoken at length about the importance of parish councils in general terms. In the specific context of Clause 60, that importance becomes even more pronounced. If neighbourhood governance is to be effective, it cannot be imposed from above. It has to grow from what we have already in large parts of this country, which could be created elsewhere.

We are therefore clear in our commitment to continuing the central role of town and parish councils in providing effective neighbourhood governance. That brings continuity, it brings local trust and it brings democratic legitimacy. Town and parish councils provide an institutional memory and a community connection that, as we have heard from other noble Lords, transient structures simply cannot replicate without democracy.

In closing, while we must ensure that the framework set out in Clause 60 retains sufficient flexibility to reflect the diversity of local circumstances, that flexibility should not come at the expense of democratic clarity and local voice. The amendments in this group speak to that balance, we believe. They remind us that effective neighbourhood governance is about trust in local institutions, trust in elected representatives and trust in communities themselves; it does not come top-down from government.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I would like to make a point before my noble friend sits down. In her opening remarks, she spoke about the experience that she has had in local government. She talked powerfully about the important role that parish councils and the like can play, and I agree, but I had expected her to say what success does not look like. I have been on the receiving end of self-appointed pressure groups with an axe to grind and of transient social media campaigns. If we are not careful, an aggressive reading of Clause 60 could see us sleepwalk into legitimising transient organisations with crony co-option. We have all seen what that looks like. This is what we have to be careful about. I know that my noble friend has had experience of that to her cost. It is important that, going forward, we safeguard against the mistake being made again.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

In any local democracy, you will get that happening. That is right: people should get together to lobby, to make sure that their local representatives understand what they want and what they do not want. However, when you have town and parish councils, they have the legitimacy because they have been through the electorate. Also, if what they are saying is not what the local community want to hear, the electorate can get rid of them at the ballot box.

--- Later in debate ---

Multimember wards elected proportionally can help counter the sense of distance that people feel from increasingly centralised local government, while also allowing councillors to share responsibilities and remain rooted in their communities. Giving councils and communities the ability to move towards proportional representation is a way of encouraging participation and ensuring that decisions genuinely reflect the people they serve. I think there is a growing recognition across parties and Benches that the current system is failing to reflect the diversity of opinion in our local communities. In future, even Conservatives might start to think that it is fairer.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 216A, 216B and 216C. I also associate myself with most of the other amendments, certainly the ones in the names of my noble friends. The noble Lord, Lord Pack, in Amendments 211 and 212 proposes a sort of ban. I do not agree with this, but we do need to allow for emergencies, so I agree with the thrust of what he is trying to say.

I agree with my noble friends about the importance of not cancelling elections for LGR, but this does not take into account the funny business around cancelling mayoral or PCC elections or council polls when LGR is not the reason. My amendments are therefore drawn more widely than those of my noble friends Lady Scott and Lord Jamieson.

There has not been a revolution here for about 350 years. Your Lordships might say that this is because the British are a placid race, but they can easily be stirred. The reason the rule of law has been sustained for so long is that we are a democratic country. We sit in this House, in a building that is the cradle of democracy and mother of Parliaments. The people of this nation go to the ballot box to select those who are to represent them in pursuance of a stronger economy, better lives, robust defence and all those other things that the state provides. That consent lasts until the next election, at which point those elected are either replaced or re-elected.

I know that this is obvious, but it needs to be said because the Government have forgotten it. The democratic principle is the cornerstone of our society and our civility. It safeguards the boundaries between the state and the individual. It takes something pretty important to disturb that delicate equilibrium, such as national emergencies. The foot and mouth epidemic and Covid were two cases in point, when elections were delayed for proper purposes.

But this time last year, elections were cancelled. Last March, we had a debate and the Minister made it quite clear that the 12-month cancellation was strictly a one-off. Back then, LGR was nothing more than an outside possibility. No detailed plans had been submitted, there had been no consultation and it was not clear what type of reconfiguration might be proposed. Surrey thought it was getting a mayor until it was not, and London was most definitely in until it was not. It was all just nods and winks. Local government reorganisation was no more certain then than saying now that the Prime Minister will be in place until the next elections—which would have been in May, until they were cancelled.

I am not saying that the Minister misled the House last March, but events have shown that she did not have the authority to give the reassurances that she did. She certainly did not advance the ridiculous notion that decisions to cancel elections should be made by those who are already elected and have the most to lose. Had she explained that process back in March, she would have been laughed out of the Chamber, but that is her Government’s position today.

I have been a councillor for many years. I can tell noble Lords that you do not go into local government for the money but, once you are in, the money can be pretty handy, so asking those people whether they ought to stay on is both a conflict of interest and a moral hazard. Part of the justification for the delay was that economic growth was the number one priority. Mayors were to be the conduit through which growth would be delivered. Those elections have been delayed by two years, which says all you need to know about the commitment to growth. The mayoral angle is why I prefer my amendments over those of my colleagues, because I have amendments that would not just go for local elections but mayoral and PCC elections.

I am sure that the Minister will want to say that three elections were cancelled in Yorkshire, Somerset and Cumbria in 2021, and therefore there is precedent, but I do not accept that for a moment. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will be reassured that I argued forcefully with the Minister that, in the case of Yorkshire, putting Skipton, Selby and Scarborough in the same so-called local authority was crazy. But at least, by that moment, although I disagreed with the outcome, orders had been laid and proposals had been made and consulted on. There was certainty about the creation of local government reorganisation when the elections were cancelled—and, in any event, it was only a single year’s delay. None of that relates to today’s situation. It is dishonest to draw some equivalence between the circumstances in 2021 and those of today. That is why the law needs to be changed to stop the abuse.

Those who want to dodge democracy have advanced quite a few bogus reasons. The county councils talk about capacity issues, forgetting that it is the district councils that run the elections in the shires. They said that it was all rather expensive—but democracy has its price, and the money has already been salted away, accrued and set aside. So that argument holds no water. I have heard it said that staff are busy with other things, but running elections is a specialist task and the electoral registration officers tend to focus on that alone. They are not the people who are engaged in LGR and consultation on the big strategic matters with other authorities, including matters such as disposal of assets. All these arguments are bogus when measured against the fact that free and fair elections should be operated separately from those standing in them, which is one of the fundamental separations of duties and one for which the Electoral Commission, among other bodies, was established.

In an earlier group we discussed local government reorganisation. One problem is that the public have not been offered a chance to express an opinion on LGR, just in case the electors do not share the same view. My noble friend Lord Pickles told me in 2008, “If you don’t trust the folks, don’t go into politics”. He was right, but that does not suit a Government with a tin ear for democracy and the value of civic history. Democracy is being denied in councils; it has already been denied in the mayoral elections. While the Government are signalling that the police and crime commissioners are on their way out into the sunset, my amendments would at least require that the strongest possible relationship between the state and individual is not to result in a reckoning, because society has been abused by these proposals.

My proposal is that only the super-affirmative process can be used when you might want to cancel elections. I cannot think of reasons why you might want to do that in future but, if it was so, this would ensure that there was a two-step process whereby permission must first be sought to enter secondary legislation and then only by the affirmative method would it be separately approved by resolutions laid before both Houses. In any event, any resolution to cancel an election should be made no less than three months before the date of publication of the election, because it is important for parties and individuals to have enough time to prepare a manifesto, select candidates, raise funds and address all the practical matters that need to be taken care of. My amendments would ensure that the preparation could take place effectively, allowing voters to mark their choices clearly on the ballot.

It is not just that it is the right thing; it is wrong that confidence in elections has been undermined. That infects, contaminates and taints democratic structures and processes. Democracy is the underpinning of our society, the stability of our nation and the integrity of all we hold dear. Here is the paradox: this evening, in this Room, the unelected Chamber is standing up for the elected rights of the population. I am not going to go on about Schedule 28 and the funny business against first past the post, but by this debate, noble Lords are being seen to be on the side of the people. Those who would reform your Lordships’ House can see what a slippery slope would happen if we are shoved out of the way: more cancellation of elections. What an irony that would be. The law should be changed so that elections cannot be cancelled for ministerial convenience, except in the most extreme and robust cases of national emergency, such as Covid or foot and mouth, but not local government reorganisation.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 216D seeks to deal with a consequence of the correct and necessary but sad development that councillors and those standing for council seats and in other elections are allowed to hide where they live. It has become necessary. I am sad about it, but it has meant that in these elections it is extraordinarily difficult for an elector to contact people who are standing for election. There is no way of getting messages to them if they are not part of a mainstream party. Even where they are from a mainstream party, you send the message in and it sticks with that party’s central office and does not get out to the candidate because the candidate is allowed to have only the authorised views of the party. I would like to restore that connection between voters and candidates by making sure that there is a way in which voters can contact candidates and hopefully receive replies from them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 219 and 220. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has indicated, they attempt to achieve something very similar to Amendment 218 but go a bit more broadly. All three of the amendments in this group get at the idea that it is reasonable—in some carefully defined and carefully protected circumstances—for councillors to be able to participate in council business even though they are not able to be physically present.

One of the reasons for putting forward these two amendments is, frankly, a bit of embarrassment. Both Houses of Parliament, in their own way, allow some degree of remote or proxy participation. Although every noble Lord is undoubtedly very special, are noble Lords and Members of the other place really so special that, while it is okay for us to be able to do that, oh my goodness, we must not let councillors do it? Frankly, it is a little embarrassing that, although we understand that these powers need to be carefully protected and defined, we say that this is okay for ourselves, yet, so far, we do not allow councillors the same thing.

This is also a matter of pragmatism. Through the experience of the House of Lords, through the experience of the other place, through the experience of councils in lockdown and through the experience of councils in the UK but outside of England, we have a lot of accumulated knowledge and experience of how measures such as those set out in the amendments in this group work. The answer is that they have worked well. They have worked successfully. They are good ways of dealing with, for example, some of the challenges of geography and weather that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, mentioned earlier. They are good ways of dealing with some of the challenges around increasing participation in politics and the diversity of our elected representatives.

These are not just my views. The Government helpfully carried out a thorough consultation last year, asking for views on remote attendance and proxy voting in local authorities. Just as I did in the case of my earlier amendment on cattle grids, I will quote approvingly from the Government’s words—with more success, I hope, than I had on that amendment.

In the consultation, question 2 asked:

“Do you agree with the broad principle of granting local authorities powers to allow remote attendance at formal meetings?”


A resounding 86% said “yes” in response to that. Similarly, question 8 in that consultation asked:

“Do you think legislative change to allow councillors to attend local authority meetings remotely should or should not be considered for the following reasons?”


Reason number one was:

“Councils would be more resilient in the event of local or national emergencies”;


91% agreed with that. This was another option given:

“It would likely increase the diversity of people willing and able to stand for election in their local area”;


79% of people agreed with that.

The government consultation rightly concluded that, in the Government’s own words:

“The government is of the view that in-person authority meetings remain vital for local democracy”—


I agree—

“but that hybrid and remote attendance, and proxy voting, will enable local authorities in England to develop more modern, accessible and flexible working practices”.

The Government went on to say:

“We have carefully considered arguments for and against remote attendance and proxy voting, and we plan to legislate to support permanent provision in relation to both policies, when parliamentary time allows”.


Having raised this at Second Reading and listened carefully to what the Minister said in response, the puzzle for me is that we have in front of us a piece of legislation that would enable exactly those conclusions from the Government’s consultation to be implemented. The Government say that they need parliamentary time to do this; well, the parliamentary time is immediately in front of us.

The Government like talking about how they are taking action on many issues at pace. Here is the opportunity to act at a swift pace on the results of that consultation from last year. I very much hope that, when we hear the Minister’s response, even if we do not get my most optimistic outcome—a straightforward, “We agree to these amendments”—we will at least get to unpick this mystery a little. Why, when the consultation and the Government’s own conclusions were so clearly in favour, and other arguments so clearly stack up in favour, are the Government not taking the opportunity of the Bill in front of us to proceed at pace and implement what they themselves have said they wish to do?

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, like many others, I had a leading position as a councillor during Covid. The Minister and I corresponded on many calls. Remote working worked well during Covid, but there were some famous failures. Some councillors fell asleep live on YouTube—not in my council, I hasten to add. Others went to the toilet, got undressed or got out of the shower. Children bumbled in. There was that famous meeting where a woman had no authority but managed to cut the other chap out; I cannot remember her name, but we all know the one. So, yes, it can work, and there are safeguards.

I completely disagree with proxy voting, so I have no truck with Amendment 219. However, I am broadly sympathetic with Amendments 218 and 220, which are trying to ask how we can participate remotely, although I find it difficult to support them as they are currently constructed.

This is complicated. There are different types of meeting, and each has different consequences. There is the full council meeting, in which everyone gets together. It is important that everyone gets together to cast their vote as a council rather than as a set of individuals sitting at home—in their underpants, let us say. There are executive meetings and cabinet meetings. They are really important, and people want to see them; there are rights of attendance, and people will want to lobby. There are scrutiny meetings, but that is not an executive function. Then there are policy-formation committees, which are not for decision-making but are part of scrutiny. So we have the distinction between what are and are not decision-making committees. Then there are quasi-judicial meetings, such as those on planning or licensing; in-person attendance is really important for those. None of this fine-grained texture is in the amendments but, if they are to progress, it should be.

Local government is becoming more complicated. There is certainly a need to travel more, particularly in the larger authorities such as North Yorkshire. The answer to that is not to have something quite as big as North Yorkshire, but we are where we are. There are going to be more combined meetings under these combined county authorities. There are also more trading companies involved in local authorities now. They are at arm’s length from the council—they may be owned by the council but they are not of the council—and we have to take them into consideration, too. There are significantly more partnerships, some of which are joint committees of more than one council. We would have to work out, if two councils came together and one had the freedom to do online meetings and the other did not, how that would mesh in joint committees, of which we are seeing a lot more. We have development corporations as well. There is a lot of public money there, so will they be meeting in private or in public?

We have to sort out some of the ground rules. It is not quite as simple as the noble Lord, Lord Pack, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh said. I am interested in taking this forward, but it will need a lot more work before Report before any of it could really be considered a realistic proposal, rather than just a good idea for probing.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to this debate and wish to speak briefly on this group of amendments. They address fundamental questions about how local democracy is conducted, how local councillors discharge their duties and how we maintain the integrity of local decision-making. These amendments are well intentioned—we have certainly heard about the difficulties that there can be in arriving at meetings, particularly where significant distances are involved—but I fear that they do not sit easily with the principles of genuine devolution and open, accountable, transparent government where you can see where the decision is being made.

Amendment 218 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Amendment 220, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pack, would allow for remote meetings or remote participation in meetings. A cornerstone of our democratic life is the principle that significant decisions should be taken in person and in public, where elected representatives can be directly observed, challenged and held to account, and where the debate is in the room. During the pandemic, remote arrangements became an unavoidable necessity, yet many of us witnessed—my noble friend Lord Fuller alluded to some of the issues we saw—how public engagement was diminished, the debate became thinner and the essential character of our democratic exchanges was damaged.

I do not believe that we should return to arrangements that bring back that distance, both literally and figuratively and in terms of participation, between elected representatives and the people they serve. The default expectation of democratic office ought to remain that in decision-making councillors come together, face to face, to deliberate in the public view. Any move to the contrary, even in limited circumstances, would, I fear, be a slippery slope.