English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Robbie Moore Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

Bringing decision making closer to local people and making it more accountable and more reflective of local needs is a laudable aim, but that is not what the Bill will do. Rather than bringing decision making closer to hard-working local people, it will cement the damaging present system of oversized unitary authorities and dubiously useful mayoralties. If we want our communities to have responsive local government with easily accessible political leaders who deliver on the desires of residents and are accountable at the ballot box, we should not be pushing for larger local government boundaries. If anything, we should be reducing their size.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

In Scotland, we have so-called devolution, but the reality on the ground is that the Scottish Government are centralising more and more power. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Bill creates the potential risk of that?

[Robbie Moore]

I absolutely share that concern, and I will give my hon. Friend an example of what we face across the Bradford district; the people across Keighley and Ilkley have long known the dangers to smaller communities when such amalgamations occur. In 1974, their well liked and well remembered councils were abolished and absorbed into a larger Bradford council unitary authority, which is one of the largest in the country with a population of 565,000; the average size of a unitary authority is about 250,000 people. Since then, Bradford council has consistently prioritised its namesake, extracting ever higher council tax and costs from outlying areas such as my constituency and neighbouring Shipley and funnelling them into city centre projects of no benefit to the people who have paid for them.

[Andrew Rosindell]

My friend is making some excellent points. The best example, which is from when this started, is the creation of Greater London in 1965. Ever since then, areas like Romford have been paying money into central London and losing our local control, local identity and local democracy, and it has been costing us an absolute fortune. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is a lot of red tape and bureaucracy and the wrong direction to go in?

[Robbie Moore]

I absolutely agree. The Bill is not about local democracy; it is about taking the power for decision making away from local people on where their council tax should be spent. That is why I am advocating that the Government should stop the Bill from progressing.

Bradford council is made up of 90 councillors, with Bradford having a greater number of councillors on the council than Keighley and Ilkley combined. That may be reflective of their rural population, but it is completely airbrushing out the distinctly different needs, desires and priorities of areas such as mine. That is why I will advocate continuously for us in Keighley, Ilkley, Silsden and the Worth valley—and indeed the Shipley constituency—to have our own unitary authority outside that of Bradford.

Mayoralties have been arguably a greater challenge. When a constituent has an issue, Madam Deputy Speaker, you and other Members of the House know that they should not have any difficulty in contacting their parliamentarians as our constituency offices are on the high streets and our emails are always open. We have personal and deep connections to the local communities we represent and are familiar with the businesses and the people that make up those communities. But mayoralties operate over regions with hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of residents within them. If a constituent tries to contact their mayor, it is highly likely that the correspondence will never cross the mayor’s desk. Mayoral regions are simply too large for one person to seriously represent the community level.

Aggregating decision making at the strategic authority level makes exactly the same mistake. If a community wants to make an objection, it will have to do so no longer to its local council but to a strategic authority: a body not tied by history, sentiment or even geographical area to those communities, but instead under direction sent by the Government.

If we were serious about devolution, we would follow the lessons experienced by Keighley and Ilkley and make local government work at a community level. We would empower not administrative monstrosities but parish, town and smaller, more regional councils. That is why I will continue to advocate for my area to be taken out of the Bradford unitary authority and to create our own unitary authority. I advocate reversing the local government amalgamations made in the 1970s, not doubling down on them. The Bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and should not be supported.