English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Like my noble friend Lady Pidgeon, when I looked at this Bill, I was excited by the possibilities. I thought, “Here is a real opportunity”. Sadly, I do not think we have seized all the opportunities that we could have done. But maybe, as somebody said, it is a first foot in the door.

I have been a local councillor in Liverpool for 38 years and was leader of the council for eight years. I was reflecting, as various people talked, scribbling and changing things on my notes, on what have been the real changes that I have seen during that time and whether there is such a thing as civic pride. Well, I think there was at the beginning. I felt truly that people were proud of the city. Perhaps they still are. I hope they are, but it is difficult to be proud when finances are constantly being cut. I do not know how Liverpool survived when it lost a third of its budget. Imagine your own family losing a third of your income. With the huge costs of adult social care, special educational needs and school transport, what is left is just about managing to keep statutory services going. There is little left for those things that might help to regenerate civic pride.

It took the Toxteth riot to get the then Prime Minister to come to Liverpool. It took a Liberal Democrat-controlled council to get the Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to come to Liverpool. He came willingly. He came in my first year as leader of the council. He came to a breakfast. He arrived late and Alastair Campbell told me I could not speak because the Prime Minister had to speak and go on to his next engagement. I was not allowing that to happen and we created a good relationship. One of the hallmarks of a successful Government in terms of working with local authorities—this is not in the Bill, of course—is the relationships that are created. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, is not in her place, because she helped us enormously with our cabinet model. Tessa Jowell helped us with winning Capital of Culture, although she remained impartial. The relationships that you have with Ministers are hugely important. Of course, Michael Heseltine almost became a Scouser: he changed his views completely.

In Merseyside now we have a combined authority that, I have to say, is remote from the people. You cannot access that. The cabinet or the group that advises them are all the leaders of the local authorities in Merseyside. And guess what—they are all Labour. Can you, as a citizen, find out what is happening? When it is decided, yes. Can you ask to see an agenda of what is being discussed? No. Can you go to a meeting and petition the meeting? No, you cannot. So, when we talk about devolution and opening up local government, it is not just about structures: it is about people themselves.

The former Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, at Second Reading of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill in the other place, said:

“I know that I will not achieve our goals unless we fundamentally change the way that our country is run. That means handing power back to where it belongs—to local people”—


Hallelujah. We all agree with that, do we not?

“so that they can make decisions on what really matters to their communities”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/9/25; col. 180.]

However, this Bill sees power remain at the centre. The Secretary of State will retain sweeping powers to merge authorities and extend functions without local consent or parliamentary oversight.

Place is important to people, whether it be a village, a town or a city. Regional identity is hugely important to people. When it comes to strategic elected mayors who have a real vision for their communities and the energy to drive forward that vision, two names come to mind, both with the same first name: Andy Street in Birmingham and Andy Burnham in Manchester, who are real, visionary champions for their combined authorities. Others have quite frankly been rather dull and not had the vision or the determination, and that is to the detriment of local government.

The Bill needs to ensure that all elected mayors are on equal footing and given the same responsibilities: as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said, equal financial security, not the drip, drip, drip of responsibilities and finance favoured by the previous Government. We on these Benches have always believed that decision-making should start at the lowest level, at the grass roots, and not become remote and removed from citizens. Elected mayors must always be accountable, and local government at all levels should be open and accessible to the electorate.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 202 in the name of my noble friend Lord Parkinson, to which I have added my name. I apologise that I was unable to take part in the Second Reading debate. This is a very important issue for our local media and I am most grateful to my noble friend for bringing it forward for debate. I declare my interests as deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group and chairman of the News Media Association. My noble friend powerfully made the arguments in favour of the case for removing these provisions of the Bill, so I want to emphasise only a few points.

Inevitably, the first concerns the financial sustainability of the local press. Whenever we debate media issues there is consistently strong support across the House for our local media and appreciation of the vital role that it plays in local democracy, scrutinising those in positions of power in local authorities and holding local politicians to account. But investigative local journalism of this sort is expensive, and it is becoming harder and harder for local publishers to support it, not just because of the structural changes in the media market but because of the continuing encroachment of the BBC into local news.

Revenues and, therefore, investment are under huge pressure. The publication of public notices is, in a highly visible way in local newspapers, aided by the Public Notice Portal as a one-stop shop—a digital database for all public notices. It is one of the remaining and vital sources of revenues for the local press, and it is crucial that it is preserved. Removing the obligation will place a massive question mark over the sustainability of local news. The Government and, indeed, Parliament cannot will the ends of a free press and local democratic scrutiny without also willing the means.

Secondly, it must be of great concern to us all that, as my noble friend has set out, at a time of significant structural change in local government—the biggest in a generation—which we have heard so much about this afternoon, we should have maximum transparency about the activities of local authorities and those in charge of them. Giving local authorities the power to flag important issues simply as they see fit hands them a wide-ranging ability to keep decisions secret, in many cases, by shielding them from large swathes of the public who still rely on published local media for information.

Local media has a vital role to play in ensuring that public notices are translated into lay language by local journalists writing about them in a way that is accessible and easily understood by local electors. As my noble friend said, if you remove the obligation to publish notices in print, you remove the incentive and ability of reporters to help the public understand and scrutinise them. That cannot be right at a time of such upheaval in local government.

Finally, although the vast majority of noble Lords in this place are able to access news online, we must recognise that not all citizens are equipped with digital access or knowledge. Age UK estimates that there are around 2.4 million digitally-excluded older people—that is nearly one in five of that section of society—who have very limited use of the internet, many using it less than once a month if at all. Yet local services and the decisions of local authorities are hugely important to them, perhaps more so than any other group in the population. They rely on their printed local paper for such news and information, and we should not be excluding them from that ability to have a say in the democratic process.

The Prime Minister says that his Government

“will always be on the side of pensioners”.

Let him prove it in deeds as well as words. I hope that the Grand Committee will support this amendment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. Good local government and community empowerment need a strong local media to shine a light on the council chamber, to offer scrutiny, and to encourage communities. However, over the past 20 years, we have seen the gradual decline of local news and media. I look at my own city of Liverpool: 20 years ago, there was a morning newspaper, the Daily Post, and in the evening, the Liverpool Echo. There was a very strong BBC local radio station, Radio Merseyside, and there was a local commercial station, Radio City.

Since that time, we have seen BBC local radio cut a considerable number of jobs and commercial radio become syndicated, with jobs going to London and being lost in Liverpool. The answer from the commercial radio sector—it even changed the name—is to provide news on the hour, which is often from London, as well. We have lost that link with the community. There are very few occasions when any investigative journalism is taking place, and it can be hugely important to the well-being of the city of Liverpool.

Sadly, the elected mayor was recently arrested and charged and commissioners were sent in. None of that would have happened if a very small digital news provider had actually done an investigation and seen what was happening. For the good of local government, and because of the importance of community empowerment, we need a strong local media. Do not take my word for it; your Lordships have had two Select Committees that looked at local news, both of which said, “Yes, we need to keep and protect local journalism and local news, and these are some of the ways we can do it”.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, because I had forgotten about this and it is really important. I hope the Government will take note, because it is also about saving local jobs, often in very poor communities. I hope the Government realise that we need a strong, robust local media to support local government, to shine a light on it and to celebrate what is happening there.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I enter this debate to support the three previous speakers. I declare an interest as the chair of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which regulates almost all local media. In that capacity, I have had the opportunity to visit a large number of regional newspapers, to talk to those who work on them, and to try to understand their circulation and advertising problems, and the difficulty they have surviving. Their financial model is very difficult.

I visited one quite well-known newspaper—I am not prepared to identify it—which used to have 50 people working on it. That newspaper is now put together by five people. It is a considerable challenge for newspapers to provide news and do the sort of investigative journalism that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, was talking about.

This amendment would take away the opportunity for journalists to follow up on public notices, which can give rise to interesting news and proper scrutiny. It is not just a formality. The Bill talks about ways that the local authority might think are appropriate to publicise these things, but I ask the Minister what precisely is envisaged. As noble Lords have said and the House has recognised, there is still a considerable appetite for local news. There are lots of people of a certain age who are digitally challenged—I think that is the euphemism used—who like local newspapers and think they are important. They even like them to be delivered to them personally, which can be quite a challenge for local newspapers.

If this is considered some form of subsidy, I respectfully ask: so what? It is a subsidy that is important in view of the role that newspapers play. I cannot believe that the Government really intend to damage local newspapers in the way that this provision will. I ask the Government to think again about this. It may have come about by accident to promote digitalisation, but the collateral damage will be very considerable.