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

Martin Wrigley Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 General Committees

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Hobhouse.

I would be delighted to invite the Lib Dem leader of Somerset council to elaborate on the condition in which he found the council when he took over, if I thought that the hon. Member for Broxbourne wished to read it; I suspect he would not.

I thank the Minister and the Government for some things, such as for including the districts in the final invitation to participate in this process. I thank them for not allowing Devon county council in its outrageous attempt to stop the elections in Devon, knowing that 66% of the existing Conservative councillors now intend not to re-stand. I wonder why they wanted to stop the elections. They put forward a proposal that had no consensus across Devon whatever. I also thank the Minister for the multi-year settlements that are in sight, stopping the hand-to-mouth and “Hunger Games”-type funding that has been the scourge of local councils across the country.

I am, however, very worried about the timescales, the volume of work and the cost of the work required of local councils. I am particularly worried about what might happen with the projected 2027 elections if the timescales are not met. Will the Minister clarify the dates that we are looking at in this process? Which are fixed and which flexible? How will the process be managed as we go through, and should we not meet the fixed dates that are set out so far? What will happen with multi-year settlements for councils that are not involved in this first phase of reorganisation? Can we expect to see those coming through sooner rather than later, please?

[Jim McMahon]

All those are fair questions. On the timetable, there are in effect three tranches. The first tranche is Surrey, which is being brought forward because there cannot be devolution as a single county unless we do the reorganisation and create a combined authority after that. This is fairly well covered, but it has quite significant issues of debt that need to be reconciled as part of that process. Surrey has 9 May as the deadline for its final proposals.

Areas that have had their elections postponed are in the devolution priority programme. They have until 26 September to submit their final proposals. All other areas have until 28 November to submit their final proposals. I will just say that there is sufficient time. Surrey is clearly the exception, and that is an accelerated timetable by agreement with the local authorities in that area—we will ensure that adequate resources are provided to meet that challenge. For all other areas, however, we believe that there is sufficient time. I should also say that the difference between September and November as the end date takes into account the election period, recognising that the preparatory work that would take place otherwise would not take place then.

[Martin Wrigley]

The issue with most such situations in the past has been not only a short period of time for councils to respond, which they typically have managed to do, but the prolonged period of radio silence once those responses have been sent to Government. Can the Minister assure us that the Government will respond quickly to the proposals, so that councils can get on with them?

[Jim McMahon]

We absolutely understand that that gap of silence can be undermining to the process. Even conflicting advice or information allows people to fill in the gaps or exploit the situation. Clarity is needed. I think we have done that. Whenever we have brought a statement to the House, it has been extremely well attended. I think that the two on this issue have run for more than an hour, in terms of parliamentary interest.

On the interim proposals, the deadline was on Friday and we submitted the written statement to Parliament on the Monday; we submitted that the minute that Parliament reconvened. So we do want to ensure that that communication is there.

We will marshal departmental capacity. We are speaking to the LGA, to the County Councils Network and to the District Councils’ Network, and we appreciate the leadership that they have shown. They have been quite challenging in their representations at points, but I think they have done an excellent job in reflecting the on-the-ground reality back to us, and we have appreciated that.

On the areas in scope, we have provided an additional £7.6 million to enable proposals to be developed, so it is not a financial pressure entirely on local government to do that. We want and expect, in some areas, that they will have a unified proposal that they can rally around and for which there is broad support, as that would make everyone’s lives easier. We also live in the real world and understand that there may be different views on what a good outcome is. I think that is legitimate, and it should be allowed for in the process. The Government’s role at that point will be to take a view on the proposal that best meets the criteria set out in terms of efficiency, sustainability and, importantly, identity, as having that local anchor is a very important part of that too. With that within the process, we can take into account the range of different views.

I have covered the population size issue, in terms of that being a starting point. That does not mean that it is the end point for every area; but we do not want to reset that number. I can guarantee that if we were to say, “Right, it is not 500,000 any more; it is the mid-300,000s, and that is the new starting point,” I would get a queue of councils asking, “Can we have a conversation about the mid-100,000s?” That completely undermines the principle for doing local government reorganisation and takes us back to square one. Having a starting point that can be flexed, with some give—I think going to the mid-300,000s is give, but let us see, given that the other way is give too—is where we need to be.

Even though this SI of course deals with the election postponement in these county areas, district council elections will follow, and with a fair wind—I accept there is a way to go yet, and we are still in the consultation phase, which is important—they will also have mayoral elections in those areas for the first time. For the first time, they will actually be able to receive further powers and further budgets from central Government in a way they have not before. So, this should be welcomed. For democrats in the room, this is additional democracy, accountability, freedoms and flexibility, which is genuinely rewiring the way that we govern England. It is long overdue.