English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to oppose Clause 57 and Schedule 26 and express my deep concern about the way in which the Government are pushing through local government reorganisation under the banner of devolution. Local government reorganisation is not new. It can and does happen but, where it does, it should happen by consent. Councils already have routes to propose mergers and restructuring where they believe it is right for their area.

What is different here is the scale and direction of travel. This feels rushed, top-down and imposed. It runs directly counter to the notion of devolution and the stated purpose of this Bill. I do not accept that the creation of new strategic authorities requires, as some kind of quid pro quo, the rapid abolition or forced merger of existing authorities. One size does not fit all. I have some experience of unitary authorities and recognise that they can work well, but that does not justify imposing them everywhere regardless of local circumstances, identity or consent.

Crucially, there is no strong evidence to support the argument that these changes will save money or improve service delivery. Larger councils are not automatically cheaper or more efficient to run. At a time when local government is already under extreme financial pressure, it is extraordinary that Ministers are pursuing structural upheaval rather than addressing the underlying problem of chronic underfunding. Local authorities are still grappling with the consequences of austerity. Councils across the country face serious and growing funding gaps and services are already stretched to breaking point. Before imposing disruptive reorganisations, the Government should fix that.

There are also serious risks to community identity and representation. Evidence from councillors on the ground suggests that these proposals could result in arbitrarily drawn, very large authorities with little sense of place or shared identity. Many towns with long histories and strong civic cultures—places that people care deeply about—are at risk of being effectively wiped off the local government map. It is important because democracy is about not just administrative efficiency but connection, accountability and trust. There is clear evidence that size matters for democratic engagement. Increasing population size and geographic scale risks reducing electoral turnout and lowering participation in local decision-making. We already have far too few elected representatives compared with many comparable countries. These proposals will significantly reduce the number of councillors overall, further thinning out representation at precisely the moment when communities are facing increasing pressures and greater complexity.

I am particularly concerned about the impact on casework and local advice. Councillors play a vital role as accessible, familiar faces in their communities, helping people navigate failing systems, resolve problems and get support in times of crisis. Many already work far beyond what their allowances reflect, often with limited support. When I was a councillor in Southwark, I could not do any gardening in my front garden because people would come up to me and tell me about their awful problems with black mould—clearly more important than my daffodils—so going into my garden was sometimes a challenge.

Schedule 26 risks abolishing whole tiers of representation almost overnight. That will inevitably lead to spikes in casework and confusion about where people turn for help. Local advice centres are already under immense strain, having lost staff and volunteers, while demand continues to rise. I see no evidence that the Government have seriously considered how this reorganisation will affect advice provision or where that additional pressure will land.

I do not agree that having services under one roof will make things simpler for residents. It might sound true in principle, but transitions of this scale are not frictionless. Removing thousands of local representatives at once is a disruption, and disruption without consent carries real democratic costs. Schedule 26 concentrates power in the hands of the Secretary of State, allowing directions to be issued, boundaries to be changed and authorities to be abolished with little or no local say. For all these reasons, I believe that Clause 57 and Schedule 26 represent a huge step in the wrong direction.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 196EC to Schedule 26 fairly sets out some of my concerns, which, having listened to the noble Baroness, I am sure are shared by others in the Room. I tabled it in part to probe how Ministers will determine the new pattern of unitary councils. I appreciate that, by and large, they will be shaped by the submissions being made by current local authorities to the department, but my concern is that there is little thought or discussion about the size, shape or culture of the new councils.

The Government’s White Paper, published in December 2024, was clear that unitary councils should have

“a population of 500,000 or more”.

It argued that this would be

“the right size to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks”.

The White Paper also said that

“reorganisation should not delay devolution and plans for both should be complementary”.

The Government have sensibly delayed the election of a number of the combined mayoral authorities and slowed the process down. Until the last general election, the pace of devolution was rather more measured, which was wise. Understandably, the new Government want to get a move on with their major reforms. At the same time, we will be asking the combined mayoral authorities and the new unitary councils to deliver much of the Government’s growth agenda and their political priorities in education, housing, childcare, nursery provision and so on. Quite right, too: they are the vehicles for a lot of those things, in particular transport. But the idea that these new and very powerful institutions will be capable of delivering new policies and plans while simultaneously creating themselves is something of a stretch. When Brighton and Hove City Council was set up back in 1997, we wisely gave ourselves two and a half years of preparation, including one year as a shadow authority. None of these structures will have that luxury.

It is well known that I favour unitary councils and have long argued for them, but they have to be well grounded to work and, to be well grounded, they have to be based on recognisable boundaries that have a clear relationship with local geography and a sense of community. My authority, Brighton and Hove, is constrained by the downs and, for that matter, it makes sense. It is a place, and place-making, as the Government say clearly in the White Paper, is of great importance not just to government but, more importantly, to communities. Make the unitaries too big and start tying urban and rural districts together and you lose that. You also lose the sense of community identity.

In the past, when unitary authorities were established, many place names were lost. I go back to 1974: who knew that Sefton was Southport and Bootle, or that Kirklees subsumed places such as Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Batley? Kirklees is the name of a hall on an estate, some of which is, I think, in the neighbouring borough of Calderdale. My point here is that place-making and community building, which are surely part of the stuff of local government, rely on the ability to be readily identified so that people can understand who is responsible for what and in whose name. Abolishing a lot of the place names, as the last local government review did in 1974, risks depriving people of that ready point of identity, which would be unfortunate and wrong.

Currently, looking at the size of authorities, we have few that fit the 500,000-plus margin—just nine: Birmingham, Cornwall, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester, County Durham, Wiltshire and Buckinghamshire. It is an open question as to whether their size makes them more efficient; it is possible that it makes them more remote. The more remote they are, the more citizens feel left behind and left out, and less engaged and able to influence local decision-making.

For that reason, my amendment seeks to ensure that, in making a direction on the future pattern of local councils in a given area, the Secretary of State must have regard to local geography, because of its influence on travel and community relations; the sense of identity that the new authorities will take on in terms of places and communities; and whether it is wise simply to glue together urban and rural areas for administrative convenience. Additionally, the environmental and financial sustainability of a council area, and its proposed size, have to be considered.

The White Paper seemed to assume the bigger the better and that savings would flow. I am less convinced. If I look back to the unitarisation of Berkshire in 1998, for example, when the council was broken up into six unitaries, all then had to find directors of social services, education, environment and highways. A similar impact will be felt with the unitarisation that takes place under combined mayoral authorities.

I suspect most councils have stripped out excessive costs over the past 15 years and most will have come from back-office mergers. There may be savings in the administration of council tax as larger council tax areas come into view, but the integration of many district council systems into new unitary council tax collections will certainly come at a cost.

To conclude, I have a number of questions for the Minister. Can she confirm that a fixed size for unitaries—the 500,000 figure—has been dropped? Do the Government have a number in mind? Will the Secretary of State be mindful of ensuring that mergers respect the need to have identifiable boundaries that respect urban and rural differences and the historical bases of councils, to enable place-making and help with community resilience? Can we be assured that resources will be in place to ensure a seamless transition from the current pattern of districts into larger unitaries?

What steps will the Government take to guarantee a level of democracy that makes councils accessible to local electors and residents? The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made the point that councillors already work hard. The White Paper confirmed that the number of councillors would reduce—that is pretty obvious, really—but can we be assured that councillors will be sufficient in number, and well enough resourced and supported, to represent the inevitably larger communities that they will be part of?

I do not oppose unitaries; in fact, I am rather keen on them. I do not oppose devolution, but it has to be done at a pace, and in a style and manner, that works for local communities to ensure that democracy, demography and community identity are preserved, because place-making should be at the heart of the changes. We all need to be assured that that will be the case.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, when I tabled this regret amendment yesterday, my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle gave me some advice. She said, “Don’t lose your temper”. I am going to try to do my best to heed her advice. I thank the Minister for his engagement; he has been very kind and polite, and I thank him for that. I had better state for the record that I am a protester of many decades, but I believe in non-violence: that is a limit for me.

However, there are many reasons why proscribing Palestine Action is a bad idea. Listening to the Minister, I thought that his descriptions of the three organisations had very distinct differences and that the actions of Palestine Action did not appear to have the same calibre of evil as those of the other two. Therefore, collectively organising these three into one SI is perhaps a little bit sneaky of this Government. Palestine Action is not like any other group that the British Government have so far declared a terrorist organisation. I was 12 years on the Met Police Authority and in that time I had lots of anti-terrorist briefings. To me, the actions of Palestine Action do not ring true as terrorist activities.

This SI also goes against the promises—

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

Would the noble Baroness give way momentarily?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am so sorry, but no. If the noble Lord does not mind, I would like to finish my speech.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Committee stage
Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 11 and 15 relate to sustainability—not the notion of sustainability that we have been addressing to date when considering this Bill but environmental sustainability.

We seek here to get something on the record about how we feel the regulator should approach this issue. Every sector, every industry, should consider environmental sustainability and football should not be an exception. The Government, quite rightly, have commitments to achieve net zero on carbon emissions. It is impossible to divorce environmental issues from issues of financial sustainability and there are numerous ways in which one could substantiate that. It would be negligent to exclude environmental sustainability from the regulator’s remit. It is a moot question whether this needs to be in the Bill, but it should certainly be part of the regulator’s thinking. Existing regulation in the world of football has failed to change sufficiently the culture of professional and semi-professional clubs.

With limited financial and staffing resources, nearly every club outside the Premier League has failed to make any notable progress on environmental considerations. There are some clubs, the first among them being Forest Green Rovers, which, notoriously, have a very good reputation in promoting sustainability. Others include Swansea City and Norwich City—which has recently been in the Premier League. It is the Premier League clubs—16 of them—that have, to their great credit, led the way in the football pyramid. We feel that it is necessary to encourage other clubs to do the same.

Obviously, Premier League clubs have more resources than clubs lower down the pyramid, but they should not continue to be an outlier in promoting more sustainable environmental practices. To noble Lords who might question whether football should have a role in this, I simply say that the Financial Conduct Authority has regulatory principles which include minimising environmental impacts. There is an environmental policy statement and an environmental management statement, which complies with ISO 14001. It covers issues such as energy, emissions, water usage, minimising waste, recycling, paper use, methods of business travel, digital services and ICT. Football clubs and how they manage the resources that they have at their disposal have an impact on our nation’s desire to head towards net zero by 2050, and that is what the amendment speaks to.

I hope that clubs adopt environmental good practices as Arsenal and Brighton & Hove Albion do, such as including free travel in their ticket pricing to encourage more people to get on to public transport. Clubs such as Tottenham, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea have similar strategies. This should be common practice across the football industry. Whether it is in the Bill or part of the regulator’s remit, the environment is simply too important for us to leave to chance. There is a role for football to play in leading the way, as it does in many other fields of social interaction, such as promoting good race relations, tackling misogyny and dealing with other social issues. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my 10 amendments in this group on environmental sustainability. I want to support almost everything that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, has just said. If you are talking about sustainability, which is what we have been talking about for two days on this Bill, you cannot avoid environmental sustainability, because it will have an impact on the financial well-being of football, and every other business. At the moment, most clubs do not think very hard about this. Forest Green Rovers are fantastic; Liverpool are doing their bit; but, by and large, there are little tweaks that clubs are doing, which makes them feel good—or perhaps they cannot imagine doing anything more, I am not sure.

We know the climate is changing; we know that the weather is changing; we know there are more floods and more droughts; so it is very short-sighted not to include environmental sustainability when you are worried about the future of clubs and their financial sustainability. Football is at risk from climate change, as are many other sports. Flooded pitches lead to cancelled games, lost revenues and disappointed fans, and droughts demand expensive irrigation. As Carlisle United discovered, a flood can lead to the kind of jump in insurance premiums that could put you out of business. So fans need the confidence that these growing risks are being prepared for and that they are not going to have a detrimental impact on clubs’ finances. The Minister kindly gave me a meeting on this, although we did not quite agree, so does she agree that climate change will have direct impacts on the financial sustainability of football and, if so, how is that recognised in the Bill? At the moment, of course, it is not.

My Amendment 103 requires the football regulator to include an assessment of football’s resilience against climate change in its “state of the game report” because, if the report does not consider environmental sustainability, it can give only an incomplete picture of the state of the game. Amendments 127, 131, 154 and 166 introduce climate and environment management plans as a mandatory licence condition for clubs. As the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said, it should be mandatory across all businesses, and these environment management plans would set out the clubs’ environmental impact and what is being done to mitigate it. Above all, they would also require clubs to identify the impacts that climate change is having and will have on the club and make plans to manage those risks.

Football, of course, also contributes to climate change and environmental damage; hundreds of thousands of single-use plastic cups and utensils are used every single matchday; fertilisers, herbicides and millions of litres of water are used to keep the pitch green; and cities and towns are choked up with traffic on match days. The definition of sustainability in the Bill, as it stands, allows all this to continue unabated. It would even allow clubs to damage the environment even more, as long as they keep on serving fans and making a contribution to the community.

It really is an own goal for the planet, but football clubs actually caring about the planet do not have to cost the earth. Forest Green Rovers, who have been described as the greenest football club in the world, are focused on sustainability across their business. Solar panels provide about 20% of the club’s electricity needs; the club organises coaches to away games, not planes; they have cut out single-use plastics in favour of reusable or refillable options; the pitch is organic and harvests rainwater for irrigation. This is a club that is at the top of their table, fit for the future and a role model that other clubs could aspire to. Liverpool, who are, regrettably, also at the top of their table, have their Red Way initiative, which is about environmental sustainability.

My amendments will lay the groundwork for greener pitches and truly sustainable sport, embedding environmentalism throughout the football regulator’s remit. Amendment 55 adds climate and environment to the football regulator’s objectives. At Second Reading, the Minister suggested that the football regulator must be focused on the financial sustainability of clubs. The Bill already lists safeguarding the heritage of English football as an objective, so why not safeguard the environment as well? Amendments 60 and 66 require the football regulator to act in accordance with the net-zero targets in the Climate Change Act and secure the long-term environmental sustainability of football.

If the football regulator cannot set sport on an environmentally sustainable footing, football’s long-term viability is at risk. Amendment 144 would have clubs consult their fans about climate and environmental issues facing the club. Sustainable football should not just be a luxury enjoyed only by vegans and eco-entrepreneurs. While Forest Green Rovers are showing what is possible, this Bill is an opportunity to embed best practice throughout the sport. I really hope that the Government can move on this issue.