Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2026

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introductory comments, and I shall return to one or two of the points that she made in a moment. It is worth being honest in relation to election changes. In every party, when they make election law changes, they may hide it in one form or another, but, over their shoulder, they are looking at how they are going to benefit from any particular change, and that is worth acknowledging. In this case, the speed with which this order has been brought forward is striking. One has to ask the question: why on earth is it being brought forward at this stage, particularly because, as the Minister said, the legislation has just been passed, having received Royal Assent in April? She also went on to say that:

“Further legislation will be brought forward”


for other matters

“in due course”.

Every single debate in which I have participated on election law in the last decade has included a request to simplify the whole process of elections law, and to not make it more complicated. There has been persistent reference to the Law Commission, its original report, and further changes thereafter. What do we have here? It is an admission by the Minister that we are debating one thing this evening, but at some unspecified stage, further legislation will be brought forward. Why? The answer is quite simple: it is because the Labour Party has got itself into an almighty mess in the north-west. There is a by-election in Makerfield on Thursday, and there is the possibility of a by-election for the Greater Manchester mayoralty thereafter, at a cost—although the Government refuse to identify the actual figure—probably of around £5 million, to solve their problems. That is the first issue.

Let us be honest about this order. It is not normal to identify who would be affected by a particular change of law, but this order is an attempt to prevent Reform winning the possible Greater Manchester mayoralty by-election. It would be better titled “Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Stop Reform Winning the Greater Manchester Mayoralty) Order 2026”, because that is what it comes down to. There is no other justification for the haste with which this order has been introduced, other than that it solves the Labour Party’s problems and prevents Reform winning a mayoralty. It does not do British democracy well when the position is as blatant as that—nothing more, nothing less. Otherwise, the order could have waited until all the different changes necessary could be introduced in one go, at one time, in the near future.

I want to comment on one other element of this order, and that is the impact assessment. All changes in legislation have an impact; some are smaller than others. The Minister is right that we are reverting to a system that operated previously. Therefore, there should be relatively small changes, but they are changes none the less. It has been quite a few years since this system was introduced, and there will be many polling station officers, returning officers and people asked to administer the whole process who are new to this. A necessary set of changes will result in training courses. As the Minister identified, notices will be different and understanding will be different.

I cannot believe that when this is introduced, the Electoral Commission will not expect to provide guidance to the voters of Greater Manchester on how they will now vote, as against how they did last time. Although the costs in the impact assessment are relatively small, it is not correct to say that there will be no or virtually no cost. It is appropriate that we should be told what the cost is and what the total cost of a Greater Manchester by-election would be, as the Labour Party tries to get itself out of a mess of its own making.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their considered contributions today. I first pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, about the principle behind this. I think that is the most important thing; I did set it out in my introductory speech. It is that the Government believe that this is the most appropriate voting system for single executive offices where it is essential that an individual has a broad mandate. Having cleared up that point of principle, I will try to answer all noble Lords’ questions.

The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, asked whether the reason for delivering this change at pace was political advantage. The answer to that is, clearly, no. As I have already said, the Government were very clear during the passage of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act that we intended to make this change for mayoral and PCC elections after May 2026. There is now the potential for such an election; I will come on to more about that in a moment. We are therefore acting to deliver on our commitments made to Parliament.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, raised these issues as well—I am sorry that the charm offensive that I experienced yesterday has come to a shuddering halt, but never mind. The noble Lord referred to

“locking out the Conservatives … from power”.

They did a very good job of that themselves; I think that is clear.

The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, asked me about the cost of any by-election in Manchester. If he does not mind, I will write to him on that issue. It is paid for by the local authority and not from central taxation. However, in the general course of things, when it is not a by-election, these elections will be held anyway. Ballot papers have to be printed anyway. The count has to be held anyway. Those costs are very similar, whether the election is held under SV or under first past the post.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I am very pleased indeed by her commitment to write to me. My noble friend Lord Jamieson referred to the associated costs of introducing this process. Could we possibly have both at the same time?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I will have a look at whether it is possible to get that figure; I thank the noble Lord for that question.

The noble Lords, Lord Hayward and Lord Jamieson, asked me why we are changing the voting system only for two types of mayoral elections. First, to reiterate— as I think was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—these changes revert to the 2017 voting system, which was brought in by the Conservatives, and it was the Conservatives who changed it back in 2022. We are reverting to the system that the Conservatives had introduced for these single-office posts.

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 received Royal Assent in April this year and the Government’s stated aim has always been that we will work at pace to deliver secondary legislation needed to implement the new law at the earliest appropriate opportunity. Of course, the Government are conscious that there is now a possible scenario in which a mayoral by-election may need to be held in Greater Manchester in the coming months, subject to the outcome of a parliamentary by-election in the Makerfield constituency on Thursday this week.

To fulfil both Parliament’s will and this Government’s stated commitment to reimplement SV, we have drafted this order at pace to ensure that the necessary legislation will be in place for this system to be utilised if that mayoral by-election takes place. To meet this deadline, the order had to be kept concise and could not include measures to amend all other types of mayoral elections. Amending all the relevant mayoral and PCC election conduct rules would also require a range of statutory instruments, as they use different parliamentary procedures. We intend to implement SV for other mayoralties and PCCs in due course through separate instruments.