Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2025 Lords Chamber

The occasion in the year 2000 was one of those rare occasions, when I was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Several fatal Motions have also been carried out by this House on other occasions. I consider this to be an appropriate occasion for this House to say that Governments should not be allowed to postpone elections at the last minute in this fashion.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

We need a sense of perspective. I am a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which drew this statutory instrument to the attention of the House, primarily because we thought the Explanatory Memorandum was inadequate and did not answer a number of the questions that had been raised. I do not recall us discussing in the committee whether democracy was in danger.

Two points seem to me to be relevant. First, 18 councils sought a postponement of their elections. It came bottom-up from the councils; it was not a postponement imposed by the Government. These were postponements sought by the democratically elected representatives of the people.

Secondly, only nine of the 18 secured government agreement to the postponement of their elections, so the statutory instrument concerns only nine. Clearly, then, if this is the rights of the people being denied by the wicked Government—by the Ceausescus of the Front Bench—clearly, we are looking for the Trotskyite regimes that run the councils of East Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Suffolk, Thurrock and West Sussex. It does not feel like that to me. I do think we need to retain a sense of perspective and I would vote against both fatal Motions.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, but let me just point out to him that politicians do not want elections when they know they are going to lose, and they like elections when they know they are going to win. The fact behind this decision is that, despite the Conservatives’ regret Motion, most of the councils that are postponing their elections are Conservative-controlled. They know that they had a very good year in 2021—an exceptional year—and that they were going to lose control of most of the councils that had elections this year. Sadly, with Labour in government, it knows that its vote is going to be difficult to get out and it has concerns about how well it is going to do. We know we did quite well and have to accept that.

The top-down model that the Conservatives were talking about—in respect of the reorganisation of local government—is actually pretty much the model they had in government, for what they were going for. Their main motivation is that they would lose against the results in 2021. In my area, there are no elections in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. I understand that the Government want their reorganisation, but I think they could have either postponed the consultation a little bit by a month or two, or, indeed, arranged that the elections should be held in June, a month or two later, after the consultation.

I will give you the example of my own patch of Hampshire. We have big financial problems in Hampshire. The Conservative-run county council has a deficit coming up of £183 million next year. It wanted to put council tax up by 15% and asked the Government to put council tax up by that much. A lot of the problems go back to their Government, because they did not provide the money, but that is the reality in Hampshire. We are going to end up, in Hampshire, as a result of having no elections, with a fag-end county council, which I would say is unrepresentative, having to impose pretty severe cuts on services when it knows it probably will not exist in three or four years’ time. Probably, in our patch, we will have no elections until 2027 or 2028, unless the Government promise we will have county elections next year. If we are going to have county elections next year, we might as well have had them this year.

There are three conclusions I draw. One is that it is better to have elections this year than wait for possible elections in 2027 or 2028. I think the Government should declare whether we are going to have elections next year or, if there is a reorganisation, whether we are going to have a further extension of councillors’ remit, so that they will have been in power in the county council for seven or eight years by the time we get around to having elections.

The second thing that is really important is that, for God’s sake, we must sort out the finances of these councils. Southampton is Labour-controlled and Hampshire is Conservative-controlled, and they are frankly in deep, deep trouble. If those problems are handed over to a reorganised Hampshire local government organisation, it will not succeed. That is why we need reform, but we do not benefit that reform by getting a postponement of the elections. Unless the financial situation is sorted, reorganisation in my county of Hampshire will not get off on the right foot. We will have all the local authorities in that area blaming each other for the fact that it is not going well, and trying to push the financial deficits on to each other. It will be a disaster.

Let me just give your Lordships a bit of hope, which I hope, by having elections, we might see. Southampton, Hampshire and Farnborough in the 1930s were the Silicon Valley of the United Kingdom. We had a very successful aviation industry, with the invention of the Spitfire; Farnborough was also a big centre of research and Southampton was one of the main ports to America. The Blitz and the war led to a lot of those industries moving north or to the south. What we need in our county is a well-funded series of unitary authorities and a mayor who will lead us back to that growth that we want and which the Government want.

However, we are not going to do it if we start off with unrepresentative councils as a result of elections being suspended. The county council is hugely unrepresentative now, because it had an exceptionally good year in 2021 and will probably be in power for six or seven years through this period. The county council is going to be leading some of the discussions on reorganisation in Hampshire, and that is the problem. We want to start with representative councils and do not want to postpone the elections.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I forgot to mention that I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. A lot of issues were raised and the Minister has given a very full answer, which I am sure I will read with great interest in Hansard tomorrow. Clearly, she and the Government will be held to account on that.

It seems a little mean to accuse us of bringing this so late to your Lordships’ House when actually it is the Government’s timetable that we are operating to. We had no choice. The fact that it is 7 pm on the night before is not our choice; it is the Government’s choice to do it, so the Government have made it too late to do this.

There is also the fact that Labour has completely changed the meaning of devolution. What is happening is not devolution; it is actually sucking power upwards. My Motion is not about devolution but about the way it is being done. I think that is deeply undemocratic, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, had to say about it. I am quite disappointed that the Conservatives, His Majesty’s Opposition, could not vote for a fatal Motion. I did use their wording in my fatal Motion to encourage them, but clearly that did not work. If the Government are wrong—on this side of the Chamber we all agree that they are wrong—surely we want to draw that mistake to their attention. They are making a terrible mistake, and if we are not going to draw their attention to something like this now, when are we going to do it?

I also regret that the Liberal Democrats did not reach out before tabling their Motion. That is a real shame. I am not known for my powers of compromise, but I am, I think—I hope—known for my principles, and I would have done my best to come to some agreement. The Liberal Democrats did not attempt that, so to me what they are doing now looks like game playing, not a principled move. Surely a fatal Motion is a fatal Motion, and whether you vote for mine or for theirs, it does the same thing: it draws attention to the fact that many of us are not happy about what is happening. We care about local democracy, not game playing.

Affected councillors and residents do not have a vote here, but we do, and there are times when we really ought to use that vote for the common good. I feel that is not happening this evening. I hate to waste the time of your Lordships’ House, despite the fact that it is only 7 pm—it is not even my bedtime yet, and I go to bed very early.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

Too much information!

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Who said that?

I do not play games and I vote on my principles, so I am going to withdraw my Motion. I will vote for the Lib Dems’ Motion, but I am appalled at their behaviour this evening and I think it will come back to haunt them.