English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire and a local government pensioner. I extend my thanks to the Minister for the time that she has given noble Lords today, as well as for the many constructive meetings that she has kindly hosted outside your Lordships’ House. I am likewise grateful to the many organisations and individuals who have written to us all and provided many submissions to and analyses of the Bill.

One question troubles me: what is the true purpose of the Bill? I remain far from certain. Over many years, we have seen a consistent trend of centralisation in the UK. As a councillor and an ex-chair of the LGA, I am a huge advocate of devolution, and I was looking forward to the Bill delivering real devolution. We have heard support across this House for genuine devolution. But—and there is a but—while “Devolution” is in the Bill’s title, as hard as I try, I find very little devolution in the Bill. Yes, the Bill devolves licensing of micro electric vehicles and removes outdated Secretary of State consent for things such as special event notices, the conversion of footpaths to cycle paths, and the construction of cattle-grids. Given our previous discussion on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, I am pleased to see the partial removal of the need for Secretary of State approval for lane rental schemes. While these are all very helpful, they can hardly be described as real devolution, and would certainly not justify a Bill of this size—well over 300 pages.

In fact, the reality is the reverse, with the Bill seeking to centralise powers in Whitehall. Reading the Bill, there are 43 mentions of “must have regard to”, including regard to guidance from the Secretary of State; 76 mentions of “duty” in relation to local government; and 105 mentions of the “Secretary of State may”. With all this new guidance and new duties that have to be followed, there is no mention of transferring funding for fiscal devolution in relation to, for instance, new duties for health, housing and education. Instead, there is an ability for mayors to increase taxes on hard-working residents, who are already suffering from a £68 billion increase in taxes over the last two Budgets. The Bill clearly risks substantial increases in local taxation from uncapped mayoral precepts that can be used for almost any purpose, no doubt to fulfil new duties and guidance as dictated by Whitehall.

Had the title of the Bill been “local government reorganisation”, this would have been more understandable. The Bill’s focus is on the establishment of mayors and strategic authorities and the transfer to them of powers currently held by existing county, district and borough councils. I ask the Minister: what is the purpose of the reorganisation? In the Bill, it is clearly not about devolving powers from Whitehall.

I will reflect on some comments that were made across the House. The noble Lord, Lord Best, raised development corporations, and I have a lot of sympathy with that, but do we really need mayors to create development corporations? The existing structures could do that. Taxis have been raised by many noble Lords, as has safeguarding—and the alarming statistic on the number of Manchester taxi drivers from Wolverhampton. These issues need to be addressed.

Why is there a delay to the mayoral elections? Why could they not have carried on? The Minister said that these strategic authorities would carry their formation, so why not have a mayor to help that? Also, the issue of town and parish councils is critical, and the Bill is rather reticent on that.

On devolution, there were some interesting quotes. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, called the Bill “constitutionally incoherent”. My noble friends Lady Shephard and Lord Trenchard spoke eloquently on local democracy and local identity. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said the Government should “pause and think” before rolling out. The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, called it a “woeful” Bill. My noble friend Lord Porter made an interesting comment: should we be judging this on how small Whitehall gets? Our suspicion is that it will not get smaller. The noble Lord, Lord Pack, made important comments on commencement, and I ask: why are we having a Bill when many powers that already exist on the statute paper have not been commenced? This should be about local identity, local democracy and real devolution. We should be trusting local people, as my noble friend Lady Maclean said. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, it should be about place-shaping, which is best done at the local level.

I will reiterate the important questions posed by my noble friend Lady Scott regarding cost and economies of scale. Both my noble friend and I have led councils through reorganisation, and we know the difficulties and the upfront costs involved, as well as the need for scale in certain services, such as social care. How will the Government ensure that any projected savings, potentially in the tens of millions, are actually realised and not frittered away by consequent changes? If such savings do materialise, will they be used to ease the burden on local taxpayers, who are already under considerable pressure? In Committee we will wish to probe in detail the areas of competence that the Government seek to shift, and, crucially, the rationale for doing so.

I must also raise what I consider to be a fundamental issue: what powers are actually coming down from government to local government—local councils and mayors? The Minister suggested that future powers will depend on what mayors demand, but how will these demands be made? Who decides which powers are devolved and which remain tightly controlled from the centre? As drafted, there is no clear pathway by which a mayor may secure the genuine authority needed to effect meaningful change—and, as importantly, funding for the services involved. Annual bidding for funds is not the same as having a guaranteed revenue stream against which you can plan. In this regard, the Government already have form, removing the incentive for growth provided by retained business rates, which are set to be removed by a business rates reset. The Bill does not devolve power; it simply rearranges administrative functions through Whitehall diktat.

Devolution has huge potential. Whitehall does not know and cannot implement holistically at the local level. If we as a nation are to address the issues of social care, health, economic growth and inactivity, it cannot be done centrally; it needs to be done by local partners working together at the local level to get the best outcomes for their communities. As we have heard across the House, whether it is Cornwall and Devon—there is a bit of a dispute about cream and scones, but hey—or Kirklees, Yorkshire or elsewhere in the country, they are all different and need to be looked at separately.

I hope that in Committee the Government will provide the clarity that is presently lacking and explain how they intend to bridge the gap between nominal competence and real power. Only then can we properly assess whether this legislation truly serves the interests of local communities or simply strengthens the hand of central government. For these reasons, I fear the Bill does nothing to empower local communities. Instead, it reduces local democracy through government-imposed restructuring, irrespective of local opinion, local geography or local identity—bureaucratic reorganisation that will cost money, distract from housing delivery and offer no evidential basis for improved services. It risks higher costs for residents through the new mayoral precepts, increasing borrowing powers, higher parking charges and the creation of further layers of mayor-appointed officials. Can the Minister assure the House that this will not lead to higher bills for hard-pressed residents while services are disrupted through reorganisation? These are serious concerns and I look forward to returning to them in more detail at the next stage of the Bill.