Local Government Reorganisation

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an important point. As we go through the reorganisation process, it is important that we continue to pay tribute to the local government staff who are driving this forward, and that we continue to keep a focus on what local government has to offer in terms of employment. One thing that really surprised me when I first became a local councillor was the huge range of employment in local government. We must strive to make sure that students and others know about that, and that we continue to protect the wide range of apprenticeships and training opportunities that local government provides.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I was surprised that the noble Baroness did not give a more positive response to her noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord John of Southwark, because he knows that there are more councillors within the M25 than in all the county councils of England. It takes just 3,108 electors to elect a London councillor, but in other parts of the country it takes over 10,000. That is an unacceptable dilution of democracy. What plans do the Government have, when they make their announcement by the end of March, to ensure that there is broad electoral equality across all the councils in England so that, directionally, people’s electoral votes are equal?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Proposals have come from all areas, which have put their own proposals forward; they have worked on them locally. In the areas that we are considering, we have a number of different proposals, but they have focused absolutely on making sure that there is proper representation for people in the new councils. That is very much part of the consideration as we make the decisions on these new areas, and we look at that as carefully as we look at all the other evidence that has been submitted in those proposals.