English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I am not going to disappoint the noble Earl, Lord Devon: I will speak about Cornwall, but I will also mention our brothers and sisters in Devon at a certain point.

I start with a serious point. As Members will know, Cornwall is in the far south-west of the United Kingdom: only the Isles of Scilly are further south-west. It is a Celtic nation that is surrounded by the ocean, primarily, and a little bit of the River Tamar as well. It is also an area of the country, together with parts of Devon and the Tamar Valley, that was part of the first industrial revolution, not just in this country but globally, in terms of its extraction of minerals, tin and copper, and international trade with the Phoenicians way back in classical history, and it is a nation that is now looking at providing the nation with the mineral lithium so that, in Somerset, our first and only gigafactory can produce its output with British raw materials. It is also a nation that is surely one of the first sources of quality food and drink and all of that area.

Culturally—culture has been mentioned a great deal in this debate—it is the only part of the realm outside of Ireland, Wales and Scotland that has its own language, Cornish, which is recognised by the Council of Europe through the charter for minority languages and recognised by the Government as well. So it is an important part of the United Kingdom.

Although most of my colleagues here have been very critical of the Government and their proposals at the moment, the one thing I will definitely congratulate them on is Steve Reed’s announcement two weeks ago that Cornwall should have—let me get it exactly right—a “single foundation strategic authority”. That has been very much welcomed through the work of Cornwall’s six Members of Parliament—four Labour and two Liberal Democrat—and indeed the leadership of Cornwall Council under its Liberal Democrat and Independent leadership. So I want to thank the Minister for that move forward and the clarity that there is, and its importance for the people of Cornwall. I should explain that I am not Cornish myself. My family were migrants from Denmark into Suffolk in the 10th century. But residents in Cornwall feel that the personality of the land they live in and its culture are of importance to them, not just to those who were born and have long traditions there.

With those congratulations, my questions to the Minister are the following. First, will all strategic authorities be able to become members of the Council of the Nations and Regions? At the moment, that is quite an exclusive club in terms of authorities and, in the past, Cornwall has been excluded, even though the terms of reference make it sound as if it is for all authorities with “devolved responsibilities”. Clearly, all strategic authorities would have that.

Secondly, Clause 51 allows the established strategic authorities to come back to the Secretary of State and ask for extra powers. We do not want to see a caste system of strategic authorities, which would be very dangerous for the future. Could that ability to ask for further devolution be moved out to all strategic authorities?

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement. I am sure my colleagues would hope that a similar thing could be extended elsewhere, but I welcome it for Cornwall. I stress that we are not anti the rest of the south-west at all: we work very closely with other local authorities in the south-west. Although the noble Earl, Lord Devon, may put his clotted cream on his scones before the jam, we do not hold that against our brothers in Devon, even though we have a different culture ourselves.