English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Paul Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

I rise to support the Second Reading of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which is a vital step towards modernising local government and delivering fairer investment and greater accountability across England. I do so with 17 years’ experience as a local councillor, for five of which I was leader of South Ribble borough council in Lancashire, which forms part of my constituency. Although the scope of the Bill covers many distinct subject matters, I intend to focus my brief comments—listening to what you said, Madam Deputy Speaker—on part 3, chapter 1 on local government reorganisation.

Let us be clear: Lancashire is now an outlier. While 74% of England’s population live under unitary authorities delivering all local services through a single accountable body, Lancashire remains part of the shrinking 26% operating under a two-tier system. Frankly, no one would design the two-tier system today—it is inefficient, confusing and expensive. Residents do not understand why one council is responsible for potholes and roads and another for pavements and parks, why education sits at county level while planning sits with district, or why one council collects their waste and another disposes of it. They do not understand why they are paying for two different sets of local councillors for the same geographical area, and for 15 chief executives and senior management teams when they only actually require three or four, or why our neighbours in Greater Manchester and the Liverpool city region are all unitaries, but Lancashire is left with two tiers of bureaucracy. The result? Duplicated services, inefficient staffing and confused accountability.

We know that change works. In South Ribble, through shared services with our district council neighbour, Chorley, we have saved over £1 million for local taxpayers—real money back into local budgets. Imagine what could be achieved with a fully unitary structure across Lancashire. In my time as leader of South Ribble borough council, I froze council tax for three consecutive years while still delivering effective and efficient frontline services. Yet our residents’ council tax bills kept rising as Lancashire county council increased their taxes annually due to its inefficiencies. My community were confused by these council tax bills, not understanding that the local district council only accounted for around 11% of their overall bill and, in fact, that they were paying more to the police and crime commissioner than to their district council.

Beyond efficiency, this is about fully unlocking devolution. Lancashire has been left behind. We will end up being one of the largest counties in the north of England without a metro mayor. We have missed out already on hundreds of millions of pounds of investment seen in Greater Manchester, the west midlands, West Yorkshire and the Liverpool city region. That is why I welcome the powers in the Bill that allow the Secretary of State to mandate reorganisation where appropriate from a two-tier system to a unitary model. It is a necessary tool to drive reform, and I commend the Secretary of State and the Local Government Minister for their bold vision.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.