English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Alex Mayer Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Peter Fortune]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. I have tried hard to ensure that my new clauses are objective and would apply to anybody serving as mayor. If I could be cheeky, I can completely understand why she might not want to limit mayoral powers, being mindful of future ambitions that she might have.

New clause 65 would rectify the democratic deficit in London by giving the Assembly the power to direct that the mayor not take proposed decisions while they are under the Assembly’s review and scrutiny. It would also give the Assembly the power to recommend that the mayor reconsider a proposed decision. These powers should be standard for any devolved authority, and would ensure that the views of all Londoners are heard loud and clear by the mayor. The leaders of the 32 London boroughs have made a united cross-party call for a seat at the table as part of the devolution settlement for the capital, and I fully agree with them.

New clause 66 would start the process in delivering that new settlement, requiring the Secretary of State to consult on proposed reforms to the London Assembly, including proposals for greater involvement of London borough representatives in GLA decisions. I am firmly of the view that any new model must give the 32 boroughs a voice and a vote in London, so that not only my borough of Bromley but all London boroughs are able to contribute to and challenge decisions that impact them directly.

It is right that power is returned to our cities, regions and communities, but this must come with effective scrutiny and accountability of those who hold devolved power. There is a glaring democratic and accountability deficit in London, and anyone who is serious about the success of devolution in London will see that my new clauses are sensible first steps to rectifying that deficit. This is not political in nature. At this point, I note the excellent new clause 32, tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry), which also seeks to equalise that democratic deficit. As I said to the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), this is not political—indeed, the very make-up of the GLA means that these new clauses would return power to Assembly members of all parties, as well as empowering London boroughs and local councillors to do the job they were elected to do.

I urge the Government to embrace these new clauses, listen to London’s council leaders—the majority of whom are from the Labour party—and ensure that we have a properly accountable mayor in London and in all combined authorities up and down the country. It is difficult to see how anybody could seriously argue for less accountability.

[Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab)]

I really welcome devolution and look forward to a time when every local area really wants a mayor. I have tabled a number of amendments and new clauses, which I will go through in turn.

First, on the question of commissioners, I have to say that I disagree completely with the hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) in her amendment 85 to clause 9. I really welcome commissioners being brought in; I think that if we want our mayors to do a good job, we need to give them tools that enable them to do that. I think of the commissioners coming in as the Magnificent Seven.

However, I have tabled amendments 161 and 162 on this matter, because my concern is how we got to the number seven. I have a gut feeling that we just went down the list and counted all the responsibilities that there were and came up with the number seven. As it stands, an individual commissioner can work in only one specific area, which I think gets rid of any sense of bringing in people with cross-cutting responsibilities. The Government talk a lot about governing in missions—what if mayors want to do the same kind of thing? We could get rid of the cap of seven or that list of responsibilities in order to enable people to look at different things. Of the responsibilities that mayors have at the moment, transport and infrastructure tend to be where they have the most. If we wanted to stick with the number seven, and a mayor wanted to look at somebody who was doing more of transport—an active travel commissioner, or anything like that—we should let the mayor decide.

New clause 60 is on the question of deputy mayors. This is, I think, a bit of an oddity. At the moment, the pool of people from which a mayor can choose their deputy is really limited, as it is made up of the people in their cabinet from each of the constituent authorities. That means that we could have a situation—as we already do in one part of the country—where a democratically elected mayor who stands on a political ticket is forced into choosing a deputy mayor who is not of their own political party. My new clause would open this process up so that they could choose a councillor who is also democratically elected, but from any of the different authorities that they represent. This would not solve the problem entirely—it would not help if an independent were elected, for example—but for the vast majority of people, whether the mayor is from the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, Labour or the Greens, or Reform, probably, it would solve that problem.

New clause 61, which brings in the concept of mayoral special advisers, is not going to be particularly popular, but I do think it would be useful. I just think this process needs to be more transparent; it happens at the moment, but it happens with a wink and a nod. I would like to bring out into the open the people who are providing political advice to democratically elected mayors.

On a more general level, it continues to concern me to some extent that all this devolution is based on the Greater Manchester model, and I think we need to look more widely than that. The Greater Manchester model is very different from other parts of the country, not least because it has a lot of councils that are all of the same political persuasion, and so the mayor ends up with a cabinet of people of the same political persuasion. That is not going to be the case as we roll out devolution further, and I think we need to think about that carefully.

Also, as local government reorganisation goes forward, we will have fewer councils from which cabinet members can be drawn, so it will be much easier for one individual to block something. Mayors need to be able to get on with decisive and responsive governance.

I turn to transport and clause 27. I often bore Transport Ministers because I really do think that bus stops, bus lanes and buses should all be looked after by the same individual. They are not at the moment, and that is down to the long-standing issue of a split between transport and highways. My area has a unitary authority, so those responsibilities are together, but they would be split up as soon as we got a mayor, as I hope we will, eventually. I very much welcome the power of direction on key route networks and—looking at that split—we could take that further.

I have some sympathy with amendment 23, tabled by the Conservatives, on micro-mobility. It seeks to ensure that there is enough parking for e-scooters. That, again, is a reason for looking at the highways and transport split. I welcome the Bill. It presents a real opportunity, and it could well be the most consequential Bill of this Parliament. I am absolutely committed to ensuring that we get devolution right by considering a few tweaks.