Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the scheduled local council elections in Surrey in 2026 will be (a) postponed and (b) cancelled.

The government considered requests to postpone local elections from May 2025 to May 2026 where it could be shown to help deliver both reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeframe.

The government will work with areas to hold elections for new unitary councils as soon as possible as is the usual arrangement in the process of local government reorganisation. For Surrey, our expectation is that the only elections that will take place in May 2026 are elections to new shadow unitary local government, with a view to going live in April 2027.