English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Porter of Spalding Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, I am slightly reluctant to follow such a position on the basis that I believe that the Government—if they stick to what they say in the Title of the Bill—are doing the right thing. Unfortunately, like some episodes of “Yes Minister”, this could be a case of “Get the hard bit out of the way” in the Title before you get to the detail.

Most noble Lords have expressed great joy in having the Minister lead this Bill because of her belief in the subject matter, but I hope she is truly in that space. Most Members of this House know that if you were to cut me right through the middle, I would have “localist” written through my core, which is why I stand awkwardly in your Lordships’ House to speak: it is not my natural space. However, I will put my signature to any amendment that anybody tables to make this Bill better. I obviously do not have the brains big enough to actually write any of the amendments that will be necessary to make it work, but I am quite prepared—now that I have mastered my new signature—to put my name to them and support them.

While I am standing, I also draw Members’ attention to the excellent briefing notes from the County Councils Network, which has got a position, and the District Councils’ Network, which has also got a position. Strangely enough, while they agree on some things, they do not agree on the detail nor the positions they agree on. They do agree, however, on constituent members having better scrutiny powers, but they are just not sure on who the constituent members should be. They both take on the hard challenge of accepting that they will disappear in the new world, but they are not agreed on what should replace them.

When we were first introduced to this Bill, we were told that London was going to be in scope, and that the number of councillors on councils would be fair across the whole country. Given that the last council the present Secretary of State ran was a 300,000 unitary, it would be interesting to know his position compared to the previous Secretaries of State on the numbers we should be aiming for. I am not advocating for one number over another, you understand, as the smallest council I have an interest in is 30,000-odd and the largest was a million, so I am quite comfortable someone will come up with the right number anywhere in between.

I have one technical question for the Minister. Where there is a proposition to take some power—not much—from central government and give it to a mayor, does that mean that central government will lose that power? I am thinking particularly about the ability to call in a planning decision from a council. If the mayor can call that decision in, does that denude the Secretary of State of also having that power? If that is the case, is there anywhere we can find it? If it is not the case, is there anywhere we can amend the Bill to make sure that it is the case? That is what devolution should really be about: it should be stripping powers out of Westminster and Whitehall and putting them into the local communities where we all live.

We know that, over about the last 14 years, Whitehall was grown by about a million employees and the town hall was shrunk by about a million employees. So, even in the devolution plan my noble friend Lord Gove saw through—which was the Osborne plan originally—the state centrally has managed to grow and not shrink. If devolution is going to be anything, it should be about a smaller centre and a bigger local. That is what I think most Members of this House would like to see.