English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

My Lords, size really does matter. Big is not necessarily beautiful. I am a practitioner, as many know, looking up the telescope from place-making projects we are working on across the country, I declare my interest as such. I am a voice, I suppose, from the charitable and voluntary sector and the social enterprise sector. As I said, I am looking up the telescope into these impenetrable large structures, trying to deliver place-making projects on the ground.

My experience over many years and today confirms what the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is saying: he is correct and we need to be very careful about these matters. My colleagues and I have been working with one county council leader on place-making projects for the past eight years within a large structure. He is an excellent, capable leader, but it was virtually impossible, even with his support, to get this beast to dance to an innovation tune on place-making in his county. It was like swimming through treacle, even though all the politics was in the right place to do it. I found that this structure was too large to have any sense of place or to have any relationships with people on the ground, where it really matters. If future place-making is about bringing people together, people and relationships are crucial.

In practice, this restructuring is already halting many place-making projects in challenging communities in the north of England, as staff look for new jobs. My colleagues and I see and experience it every day. The Government have a right to restructure, but they need to listen very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and those of us working on the ground: the practical details really matter.

The country is in danger of coming to a halt. We need to get interested in practice on the ground and what works in detail. At the moment, practitioners feel ignored. We want to help, but there needs to be a dialogue and real interest in what works on the ground in local communities.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken, in particular my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who made a number of important points about all three of the suggestions before us. I thought the point from the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, was extremely well made: this is about place-making and what happens on the ground. A top-down approach is building the other way around.

I will be very brief. This is a devolution Bill, yet it prescribes what can happen on the ground. I have said that at least half a dozen times in Committee, but I will repeat it again because it deserves to be repeated. I want to give the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, some extra support, because there is an issue with size, as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, pointed out.

I understand that we have an appropriate figure for the size of a unitary authority of some 500,000, but I counsel the Government against using population size as the basis for a calculation. I can remember, a few years ago, when the Minister was the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, having a conversation about the ideal size for Buckinghamshire and Bournemouth in Dorset. I remember being told that, in Buckinghamshire, the ideal size needed to be 350,000, but I was urging a figure of around 300,000. I am quite happy to be wrong about that but, if the Government are moving towards a figure of 500,000, they will have to justify it. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, rightly made the point that you need to consider natural geography, the identity of the authorities and so on. He put it extremely well.

I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government will consider the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I am sure the noble Lord would not mind them adding to it and improving it with new things, but it should form the basis for a consideration of what the ideal unitary size is, which may of course be different in different places. It is for local people to say whether they prefer a model of 500,000, fewer than that or whatever; otherwise, this process will be too top-down.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief in closing, but very clear about the position of the Official Opposition on this group. After many hours of debate, one point should now be beyond doubt: devolution cannot be delivered by compulsion. If the Government persist in reserving sweeping powers to direct and impose local government reorganisation from the centre, the Bill will continue to fall very short of its stated purpose.

We have heard many views, mostly negative, from noble Lords today, but I have been there. In 2007, under a Labour Government, I took my then council to a unitary. I was not very popular, but it was our decision: we planned it and we asked for it. It has been a great success; it is more efficient and more local. I will talk more about that in future groups today.

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[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise that I was not able to speak at Second Reading but I want to speak to the proposition from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, to abolish Clause 59 and Schedule 27. I do this as someone who has lived in Sheffield and who still represents the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, on the council. We were actually on different sides of the argument when that referendum was held in May 2021, when 90,000 people—65% of those who voted in Sheffield—voted to change from the strong leader model. The Liberal Democrats brought that in during the Blair years, because that is what we were told to do.

I find it ironic that we are discussing the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill but we are now dictating the governance arrangements that communities will have. I really do not see how you can stack that up. If communities want to move away from a governance arrangement, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, that can be a simple vote in council or it could be the route that the It’s Our City! community organisation took in Sheffield, which was to collect 25,000 signatures and trigger a referendum. I normally say to councillors that if communities are collecting 20,000-odd signatures, it is best to change your mind, otherwise you are going to get the vote that we had in Sheffield.

I urge the Minister to realise that if you can get the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and me on the same page, having for many years thrown rocks at each other in Sheffield, you seriously need to listen. Although you might favour the strong leader model, if you genuinely believe in community empowerment then let the people decide. If they ultimately want a leader-and-cabinet model, they will vote for it and support it through their local councils. Let us not have this top-down diktat. That is why, on these rare occasions, noble Lords can find me and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, on the same page.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Mohammed of Tinsley for speaking. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in particular. I strongly support the stand part notices on Clause 59 and Schedule 27. The reason has been explained. This is a devolution Bill about community empowerment, but the Government are removing the right of local people to decide for themselves what system of governance they want.

We have this devolution Bill, but the Government decide the form of local governance and say that there will not be a committee system. Where are we now? We are in Parliament, operating as a Committee. I have spoken on this issue many times in recent years. The reason why I believe that we should encourage committee systems is that they decentralise power but, more importantly, they enable scrutiny to take place at the point of decision-making. All too often, scrutiny in local government takes place after the decision. We will debate this further on our eighth day in Committee but I think that this is a fundamental right. I just want to keep the right of a community to create the structure that it wants. That right lies in the Localism Act 2011.

I very much hope that we will come back to this issue on Report. However, there are rumours that we may not get a Report stage and may end up in wash-up prior to Prorogation, because there are not many weeks left. We have a further day in Committee on 5 March and we have to leave an interval to reach Report. Can the Minister tell us whether we are going to have a Report stage? Also, if we are going to have a Report stage, I hope very much that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, will bring this back, because that would give us the power to say to the Government, “You have to think again on this issue. Do not tell local people in all local authorities what model they are required to adopt”.

In the Explanatory Notes, there are explanations for why the Government are undertaking this, but, frankly, they are spurious. They claim that there is evidence, but I do not know what the evidence is. In the end, why do we not just trust local people to make decisions? Otherwise, 56 million people in England will continue to be run out of London and Whitehall.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to continue what seems to be an emerging consensus and a Sheffield love-in. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, was the leader in Sheffield when I was at Sheffield University and I will always be grateful for the 10p bus rides that I was able to take.

As we have discussed, these amendments concern the committee system. Let us be frank: this is a devolution Bill. I reiterate yet again that this side of the Committee and these Benches believe in democracy and in devolution. If you believe in those two things, this is about allowing and empowering local communities to decide what is best for them.

I was leader of Central Bedfordshire and operated under the strong-leader model, which worked well for Central Bedfordshire. I am sure it will work well in many other places but, if local communities believe that the committee system is best for them, they should be given that opportunity. Does the Minister believe in devolution and local democracy and will she allow local communities to decide the governance model that best meets their needs?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.