Jack Abbott MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 21 Jan 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums · Hansard source

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  What the right hon. Gentleman describes is already happening. Suffolk county council represents the entire county. The argument he is making is already playing out at the moment. We are having these conversations. This has already happened. We have rural councils making decisions about urban issues and vice versa. I do not think it is either/or.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) for securing this debate. It is always right that the House has the opportunity to discuss how local government works, how it can work better and how we ensure that it delivers for the people we represent. Although I do not believe that referendums are necessarily desirable in the context of the current local government reorganisations, for reasons I will come to shortly, I do believe that there is real value in debating these issues openly and transparently. Local government reorganisation is complex, consequential and long lasting, so it deserves serious consideration. It is true that the Conservative-led coalition Government conducted a round of referendums in 2012 across a huge swathe of our major cities. The issue is that when people were asked whether they would like a mayor, every city—bar one—said no, but only a few years later, they got one anyway. They did not seek to repeat that exercise. The referendums the Conservatives held were, in truth, little more than lip service. I think that most people here will think that mayoralties in the main—with honourable exceptions—have been a successful endeavour: they give power and autonomy to the places that have often been forgotten in the past. Of course, in recent years many places underwent local government reorganisation with no referendum at all. It is worth mentioning an elephant in the room when it comes to the postponement of elections by a year in places such as Suffolk, which I represent, until all-out elections in 2027 and mayoralty elections in 2028. The Conservative party’s new-found aversion to postponing elections is quite remarkable, not least because, as Local Government Minister, the Leader of the Opposition postponed elections in Cumbria, while the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), also made the decision, as Local Government Minister, to postpone all-out district elections before reorganisation in Buckinghamshire in 2019. And Robert Jenrick—remember him? I was going to say he was the latest recruit to Reform—

• 21 Jan 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums · Hansard source

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  As I have already laid out, and as the hon. Gentleman will know from when he was a member of the Conservative party, postponing elections where a local government was undergoing reorganisation happened a number of times. I was not here, so I cannot remember whether he spoke out against his Government at the time for doing so. A number of local government Ministers decided to postpone those elections, and I presume that he fully endorsed those postponements at the time—although I am happy for him to correct the record on that point. The Government were elected on a mandate of change, and that included rebuilding and reforming local government as the foundation for meaningful devolution. The British people endorsed that programme at the ballot box, and it is our responsibility to deliver it. Our Government are embarking on the biggest transformation of local government in a generation. This is not change for change’s sake, but because the status quo has been failing far too many communities for far too long.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums · Hansard source

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  I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is slightly mistaken. In my own patch in Suffolk, for instance, the devolution proposed under the previous Government meant handing out a few more powers for a tiny bit of extra money. We are proposing unitarisation of places such as Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, plus a mayoral candidate for the elections in 2028. What we are seeing is far more radical and significant; in fact, for my part of the world, it is the most significant change in local government for more than 50 years, so it is a big step change from what the previous Conservative Government proposed. For decades, power has been hoarded in Westminster and Whitehall while local councils were stripped of capacity, fragmented in structure and left struggling to meet rising demands after having their funding hollowed out. Nowhere is that failure clearer than in my home county of Suffolk. In a past life I was a county councillor, and I do not believe that the current status quo is working—I do not think many people living locally do, either. Although I accept that that is due to severe hollowing-out of funding over 15 years, a do-nothing approach is clearly not an option for us either. Those sorts of issues—pot holes left unrepaired, special educational needs provision in crisis, children and families passed from pillar to post and adult social care under unbearable strain—are not abstract problems. They affect people’s daily lives, their dignity and their trust in local democracy. The truth is that the current system is not working, and we needed to do something radical. As I said, a do-nothing approach is not a neutral option, but a decision not to change how local government is structured and empowered. It would simply condemn communities such as mine to more of the same. That is why the Government are choosing to devolve and not dictate through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. We are rebuilding local government so that it has the strength, scale and capability to deliver— [ Interruption. ] We hear chortling on the Conservative Benches, but the Conservative Suffolk county council requested this process and has also consulted with the public. People were able to put their views forward. Our county council has put forward an option for a single unitary authority, and all the district and borough councils have put forward an option for three unitary authorities, so there has been significant consultation at local level. Parties of all stripes, although they may disagree on which outcome they would like to see, have all engaged constructively in this process on the whole. We are looking to transfer power out of Westminster and into communities, and to give local leaders the tools to drive growth, create jobs and improve living standards. This is about rebalancing decades-old divides and, as I said, we have not seen this sort of reorganisation in my part of the world for more than 50 years.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for that correction from a sedentary position. The right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), while Secretary of State for Local Government, when talking about postponements in places such as Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Somerset, said that elections in certain circumstances “risk confusing voters and would be hard to justify where members could be elected to serve shortened terms.” —[ Official Report , 22 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 24WS.] It is an interesting volte-face for both Reform and the Conservative party. That is the previous Conservative leader, the current Conservative leader, and the right hon. Member for Newark, who, up until last week, was agitating to be the next one, so I will take with a pinch of salt the Conservatives’ new-found desire for referendums or postponements—not least because one particular referendum was arguably the start of a psychodrama that continues to envelop them nearly a decade later. We did have a referendum in 2024: we had a general election. Local government reorganisation was a clear and explicit part of our Government’s manifesto. I know that, under the Conservative party, delivering on manifesto commitments fell out of fashion—they were little more than vibes, at best, by the end. But we were elected on a mandate of change, and that included rebuilding and reforming local government as the foundation for meaningful devolution. The British people endorsed that programme at the ballot box, and it is our responsibility to deliver it.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums · Hansard source

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  We are sitting here with a parliamentary party of more than 400 MPs. That is an overwhelming mandate under the electoral system that we have been operating under for centuries. The Conservative party can probably reflect on that, if we are talking about numbers.

• 20 Jan 2026 · ADHD Diagnosis · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) for securing this important debate. He spoke powerfully about the long and agonising waits that many people have to endure to get an ADHD diagnosis, but I want to focus on what happens next. For many people, receiving a diagnosis is not the end of the fight; in many cases, it is the start of a new one. Time and again I hear from people who, after finally securing that elusive diagnosis, encounter a set of new barriers that prevent them from accessing the treatment they are entitled to. In January 2025, local medical committees in Suffolk and Essex advised GPs to stop delivering ADHD treatment under shared care agreements. A survey by Healthwatch Suffolk of people’s experience of the changes to shared care found that only 40% had received prescriptions or monitoring from their GP. Of those, 69% said that their GP had already stopped or would soon stop providing support. Most received only two or three months’ notice that their shared care agreement was ending; some had no notice at all. Patients are left in limbo: they have been diagnosed, and maybe even stabilised on medication, and they are suddenly told that their shared care agreement is ending. In some instances, people are left with no access to medication whatsoever. I have received letters from terrified parents and families, panic-stricken at the prospect of being left without the medicine that they need to function every day. I look forward to hearing the Goernment’s response to the ADHD taskforce recommendations and I welcome the launch of the independent review into the prevalence of and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism. Reducing waiting times for an assessment and diagnosis is critical, but that work will be rendered futile if we do not also address the crisis of timely access to medication and support. For too many of my constituents—and I am sure for the constituents of many Members across the room—the hardest part of their ADHD journey did not end with diagnosis; it simply began there.