Jim McMahon MP: speeches

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Speeches

15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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We tackled that head on in the White Paper, which said that, for efficiency, the minimum population will be 500,000, but was clear in the same paragraph that—this is where devolution goes hand in hand with reorganisation—there needs to be some flexibility for the reasons that the hon. Member set out. That is our firm commitment.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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I thought I was going to get a request to reorganise Newtownards—I have got enough on my plate with England! The point the hon. Gentleman makes about the treatment of debt is important, and we understand there are pressures. In most places, the treatment of accrued debt is manageable within the geography, but we accept there are outliers—Woking and Thurrock have been mentioned—where the debt that has been built up is significant and that we need to take a view on that. We are not at that stage yet until we see what proposal will be developed further.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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From our perspective, we cannot allow the cancellation—or postponement, I would say—of elections to be driven by any political views. We are clear that this is an administrative process and it is about whether areas satisfy criteria that meet our devolution priority programme. Where areas are already in the programme because they have mayoral elections this year, it would be reasonable of me to say that we would need to see where the benefit is of elections being cancelled, given that devolution is taking place. But as I have said, we have only just received the proposals. We are taking time to review them, and we will make sure that is done in a fair way.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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I do not want to disregard the good work of district councils in this conversation about reorganisation, and about redirecting money to operational costs on the frontline, so that taxpayers get better value for money and see the benefit in their local public services. I pay tribute to council officials, frontline workers and councillors, whether they are in unitaries, counties or districts, for their work. I just set out the view that the best way to achieve efficiency is by having more streamlined local government structures that enable money to go to the frontline. On whether district councils will have a voice in the process, it is a fact that we have received requests for reorganisation, and statutory invitations go out at the end of the month, but it would be usual for the Government to be faced with a number of options for what those new boundaries might look like. The county might have a view about how many councils should be included in the reorganisation, and I suspect that districts might have a very different view. It would be quite usual for a number of different proposals to come forward for a county. It is for the Government to try to strike a balance that takes into consideration identity, efficiency and having an anchor to the area that makes sense. We genuinely want this to be a collaborative process, so that we get the right outcome for local people.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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A theme is developing of campaigning for elections to bodies that some wish will not exist in the future—that sounds familiar—and for referendums being the answer to some of this. It is about local leaders showing leadership. I understand completely that there are different views, but I am impressed by the leadership being shown by Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and others, because local leaders believe in their place and want the best outcome for it. I will leave the local politics to them. It is our job to ensure that we assess the proposals that come forward on a fair basis.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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We will see what comes forward from local areas. In some areas, there may well be a general consensus on the number of unitary authorities, but varying views on the boundary lines. In other areas, we can perhaps expect there to be entire disagreement on both the number of councils that should follow from the proposals and the boundaries that would be drawn as a result. At this stage, all we can say is let us see what comes forward. We will try to make the right decision by balancing identity, efficiency and the relationship to devolution going forward.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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The White Paper was directive on this issue. I can only assume the hon. Gentleman has not read it, or he got bored and gave up halfway through—I will leave him to answer that. Over quite a long period of time, councillors have been relegated to the back benches if they are not in the cabinet, and we do not believe that is right going forward. We want local councillors to be frontline councillors, community conveyors, leading in their local communities and getting things done. However we marshal the system—regardless of the size of the council, where it is, whether it is a unitary council in a met area or a reorganised council in a shire county—localism has to be at its heart.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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I think the right hon. Member is getting at the fact that there will be a range of views on this issue, but it is the Government’s job to give direction, and we believe that efficiencies can be drawn out. When asked, I think local people would say that they would much rather that local neighbourhood services are maintained and grown, rather than bear the overhead costs of organisations that exist for the sake of it. It is for the consultation, and the proposals, to draw out the best outcome in the process.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. Clarity is important for areas; they need to know whether they will go ahead with elections so that they can organise. We seek to give clarity by the end of the month, so in a couple of weeks at most.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend makes a very good case for reorganisation, and I agree with him.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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If we decide to postpone the elections based on a credible plan that moves devolution and reorganisation along, the councillors who have their terms extended are legitimate and have the powers and rights of any other councillor. As I have said, we need to be careful that we do not undermine the democratic process by trying to portray councillors who believe in their communities and who by and large are doing a good job, regardless of party politics, as somehow not there by right. They have been elected; it just so happens that in some places their term will be extended by a short period.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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The hon. Member is conflating two separate issues. One is the process of reorganisation, and his area of Harrogate has been through that process, including the postponement of elections to facilitate it. On housing development, if he wants to stop speculative development and to have control of what is built in local communities in Harrogate, the best way to achieve that is to have a plan in place where developers can be held to account.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend will be aware that Dame Louise Casey is conducting a broader review of adult social care for reasons that are well understood by the House. On whether the matter should or should not sit with local government, I will say that where local government really excels is in being local and rooted in the community, in being the deliverer of a public service and in being able to organise at a place level. That does make a difference, and we should not underestimate the impact when done well. We need to make sure that social services are adequately funded for the work they have to do to provide a good level of service for local people.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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The point that my hon. Friend makes about balancing identity is as much about culture and approach as it is about where boundaries for councils are drawn. Sometimes, the identity of a council will match closely with the identity of a place, but often it does not. In urban, rural or coastal areas, many communities are far more nuanced or localised, and there can be some quite tense local neighbourhood disputes as a result. Any reorganisation has to respect the historic locally felt identity of every part of the new area, not just the area in which its headquarters might be based or that its council might be named after, and holding firm on that has to be part of the approach.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend of that. Let me just say that in 2019, 11 district council elections were cancelled to allow reorganisations to take place, and so were seven in 2020. In 2021, the elections of three county councils and three district councils were cancelled to allow reorganisation. I say that because we cannot allow people to think that this is, in any sense, something new that has come out of nowhere. This is the day-to-day business of reorganisation done in the right place, in the right way, with full public consultation.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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We have to stick to the principles of the White Paper, because that informs the legislation that will come later this year. We are very clear in the criteria that we will not, and cannot, agree to any devolution proposals that create orphans that cannot be resolved. We expect that local leaders will come together and do what is right, given the geography of their place, to deliver devolution as soon as possible.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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The hon. Member makes a fair point. We are clear in the White Paper that we want to see devolution rolled out at an ambitious pace. We are doing that, and are pleased with the responses that we have had. We want to see local government reorganisation because we believe that efficiencies can be drawn out and reinvested back into frontline services that people see, feel and value. We also accept that that cannot be at the cost of local people feeling connected and empowered in the places where they live. Local empowerment and powers for the local community are central to the White Paper, and to our agenda going forward.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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From the Government’s point of view, acting in a legal, quasi-judicial way, we have to take such decisions on the value of the evidence and the proposals. It is not our job to get involved in the politics of whether the Liberal Democrats want to see the back of the Tories but the Tories want to avoid an election, or vice versa. It is our job to play with a straight bat, and look at the benefits of the proposals. Kent has applied, but we are going through the process of screening applications to ensure that they are realistic proposals for devolution and LGR that hold together. If they meet those criteria, we will support them. If they do not, we will not.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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When my hon. Friend said he got the Avanti train down on 5 July, I think the Chamber was half expecting him to say that he had only just arrived, but he has been here for some time. I know there are different views in Lancashire on what a good outcome looks like, and there are certainly different views on what a good process looks like, but I think there is a shared view that the time has come for devolution in Lancashire. When people look to Greater Manchester and the Liverpool city region, and see that Cumbria and Cheshire are organising to be part of the next stage, of course they want to be part of that. Lancashire is unique, in that we were already in discussions with it about its timetable and process. The level 2 agreement that is in place of course comes with investment, funding and other powers. Lancashire has agreed that by autumn, it will submit proposals to the Government that reconcile its organisational status; it will also bring forward a plan to move forward with a mayoral combined authority. Lancashire took the view that given that the timetable was already in place, it did not need to request that the election be cancelled. To be clear, we absolutely see Lancashire as part of our priority work. It is critical. The prize for the north of England is completing the work on Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria, so that the whole north of England has mayoral devolution. That will be game-changing.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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We need to separate out that the devolution priority programme is one stream and the local government reorganisation programme is another. We are trying to bring those streams alongside each other, recognising that they are to a degree separate processes, so that at key points in the decision-making process, they come together to ensure transparency and clarity and so people know what timetable we are working to. I accept to a point that they can be decoupled, but the two are linked. If we are going to reorganise and move towards mayoral combined authorities, we have to bring them in line to ensure that it is a programme that makes sense in the round.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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That is exactly what this is about. This is the most ambitious reorganisation in England for at least 50 years, maybe longer. We need to avoid the sense that this is just rearranging the local government deckchairs. It is not about that. The devolution White Paper is ambitious, and that ambition is about wresting power from Westminster and Parliament and putting it in the hands of communities up and down the country. For far too long, power has been held in a very narrow way by a handful of people, at the exclusion of millions of people in this country. Frankly, people have had enough, so we have to find a different route.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for those questions, and I am genuinely grateful for the spirit of consensus around the broader issue. I accept that there may be differences of opinion on pace, but we do not shy away from our ambition to see devolution experienced by the whole of England. I give a degree of credit to the previous Government for building out devolution in the north of England and the midlands, but surely we have to demonstrate that this project is not reserved for the north of England and the midlands. This is a project for the whole of England, and we are on with that. Our determination to ensure that we deal with these structural changes early in the Parliament is clear, but that is shared by local government. It is important to say that although of course we will set the timetable and provide support on both the devolution priority programme and local reorganisation, it is for local areas to self-organise and to agree to be part of the programme. We are not mandating this; we are not forcing it. All the requests that we have had since Friday have been from areas who share our ambition. The hon. Gentleman will know that it is sensible to take the approach that, if reorganisation is a genuine proposal—and the bar has to be high for that test—it is nonsense to have elections to bodies that simply will not exist. It is far better that we move at pace and create the new unitary councils and then hold elections at the earliest opportunity. I am not going to get into the subject of council tax, partly because it is outside the scope of the hon. Gentleman’s urgent question. Also, he was slightly mischievous in the way that he framed his remarks. On the point about capacity, however, it might be helpful if I lay out what the process will be. Local areas will make the request. We will issue statutory invitations at the end of the month, and areas will need to self-organise. It is not for the Boundary Commission or the Government to lay down which plans come forward. It is for local areas to submit proposals to us, and at that point the Government will decide on the right proposals among what could be a number of options that come forward from local areas. Again, it will be for local areas to self-organise and make those proposals to us.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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I would say that, given our housing crisis, 27,000 new homes seems like good news to me, and we need to see more of that. Councils need to operate in a business as usual way, making sure that they get their business done. The worst outcome would be for councils going through a reorganisation to press pause on important items of business. That would be a complete absence of leadership.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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We certainly accept, particularly in the case of Woking, where the debt is significant, standing at over £2 billion, that the question of debt has to be addressed through the process, but it is for the process to address it. We cannot say up front how we will treat debt in different areas, because every area is different. I do not think that any Member would expect us to do that.
15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source
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That is a very important point, and I pay tribute to MPs in Suffolk and Norfolk for the work that they have done in making the case for greater devolution of powers. I also pay tribute to county and district councils for the cross-party political leadership that they have shown in pursuit of devolution. Members will know that the original agreement for both Norfolk and Suffolk was not one to which the Government could agree, for a number of reasons that have been identified. However, the commitment from leaders in the area to finding a way through is appreciated and valued, and we will honour that in the next steps. We absolutely believe that in large parts of the country—I see it in Exeter, Lincoln, Ipswich and Norwich—we have important economic anchors in cities that previously have not had a seat at the devolution table because they have been district councils. We have to deal with that as we go forward.

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