English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Baroness Janke Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, when I saw the Title of this Bill, I thought that all the long years of deliberation and the many reports produced on the subject of local devolution were about to come to fruition. Experts such as Sir Michael Lyons, Tony Travers and the late Lord Kerslake are among the many luminaries and organisations that have advocated for the fundamental need to bring government closer to the governed. As a long-convinced supporter myself, I hoped that this Bill would empower local people, enabling their participation in matters that directly affect their lives and that they would be able to influence and see how their money was spent and hold directly accountable those who were responsible for governing their local area—an opportunity to address the present democratic deficit.

As the Bill says, we in England have one of the most centralised systems of government in the world, with citizens increasingly disaffected and scornful of those who govern—badly, as people are fond of telling us on their doorsteps—but the overall feeling is that it does not much matter how you vote or what you do as nothing changes. This powerlessness is expressed by many as a reason for not even going out to vote. Anyone who has ever canvassed as a prospective councillor must surely have struggled in trying to explain why people should vote in a local council election while at the same time explaining that local aspirations cannot be met because the Government in Westminster control all the money. Local councillors are bound by the stultifying financial constraints imposed by central government over popular local projects. This tramples on local ambition, demotivating communities and generating widespread cynicism.

The Bill’s Title raised our hopes, only to confound them as we read its woeful contents. Devolution is not the purpose of this Bill; empowering Ministers, not local people, is what we find here. If this Bill passes, the Secretary of State will have unfettered powers to bring about radical changes, such as merging or restructuring councils, without local input or consent and without proper parliamentary scrutiny. That is the opposite of devolution.

The Bill seeks to create a distant elite of so-called strategic councils covering large geographical areas delegating government policy implementation to mayors. They will control these authorities on behalf of central government, supported by unelected members—some might say cronies—who will have real decision-making powers but no accountability. With district councils being abolished, there will not even be the means of holding mayors or authorities to account by the people they will purport to govern. Mayors will answer upward to Whitehall, not to their communities. In many areas, a regional mayor may cover vast, diverse counties and communities with very different priorities. Experience shows that top-down solutions rarely meet local needs.

My noble friend Lord Wallace talked about the regional assemblies. This is another attempt to shoehorn locally diverse areas into large amorphous bodies. I was a member of the South West Regional Assembly, and that august body sought to combine the counties not just of Devon and Cornwall—which would be a challenge on its own—but of Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Bristol into one body. There was basically a huge conflict in that people who were members saw real dissonance between their local interests and priorities and those chosen by the RDAs, who, incidentally, were given most of the powers and the resources. As we have heard from my noble friend Lord Wallace, the referendum in the north-east gave a firm thumbs down to these bodies, with 77.9% against the idea, and the entire policy was abandoned. Therefore, I hope the current Government will look back on what went wrong with those attempts to impose top-down solutions on an unwilling population. They will eventually take their revenge in the ballot box, as we all know and have found out in the past, I am sure.

Furthermore, the Bill ignores the councils that are actually closest to residents: our towns and parishes. These bodies are often the first port of call for communities. Parish and town councils understand the local identity, the civic history and the practical day-to-day realities of where people live. Yet, in this Bill, they are barely mentioned. There is no statutory role for them in the new stretches and no guarantee that larger authorities will have to work with them.

It also should be said here that mayors are not universally popular. In my own city of Bristol, the city mayor was removed as a result of a referendum in 2022. The West of England Combined Authority and mayor are a matter of complete apathy to the local population, with a 30% turnout for the mayoral vote and a complete lack of understanding of what this body is actually intended to do and how it affects local people. So, if this model were to be replicated in our area, it would be considered absolutely derisory by the local people.

I believe that this is a damaging Bill and that it will be deeply unpopular; it smacks of desperation and despotism. The Government are saying that, in the interests of delivering change, they will remove the rights of those who disagree with them; they will create distant bastions of government policy, remove means of dissent and discount the views of local people where they do not coincide with their own. Participation-influenced scrutiny and accountability of government by those who are governed are hard-fought basic rights in any democracy. This Government will ride roughshod over them at its peril.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Janke]

14: Clause 3, page 2, line 32, at end insert—
“(3A) Before laying regulations to designate a single foundation strategic authority under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must consult all levels of local government in the affected area.(3B) Consultation under subsection (3A) must include consideration of—(a) the proposed geographic area, functions, and powers of the foundation strategic authority,(b) the governance arrangements of the authority, including membership, representation, and accountability to constituent local authorities, and(c) the financial implications of the designation, including funding arrangements, transitional costs, and the impact on existing local authority budgets.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult all levels of local government in the affected area before making regulations to designate a single foundation strategic authority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, in echoing my colleague’s comments reflecting on the previous debate, it sounds as though today we are agreeing on uniformity rather than devolution. The Bill gives the Secretary of State sweeping powers to merge, restructure or abolish councils without parliamentary oversight and local consent—all apparently in the name of devolution. A top-down authoritarian approach replaces local choice with a central direction from Whitehall. A single model is to be imposed across England regardless of geography, identity or local preference. It shifts real power away from local councils and into large strategic authorities headed up by regional mayors, with reduced numbers of local councillors serving larger areas and populations.

Civil servants in Whitehall carving up maps is not a process that encourages local participation and people having real powers, as devolution implies. In fact, it is the very opposite of devolution. When its results become apparent, they will fuel further distrust and anger, as local people will find that they have even less chance to influence decisions affecting their lives or opportunities to participate in the governance of their local area. Mayors do not have the confidence of the population all over the country, so imposing a universal model is asking for local dissent. In my area of Bristol, there was a referendum that decisively rejected continuing with an elected mayor, so this actually imposes something on an area that is contrary to what the local population said.

We had some talk about regional assemblies. Having served on the South West Regional Assembly, I dispute that all the RDA money goes into Bristol, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott—Councillor Scott—said, but that is something that we can perhaps talk about afterwards. Having looked at housing plans for the whole of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and more, I can tell the noble Baroness that rural affairs were very high on that agenda.

This amendment seeks to restore the requirements of full local consultation on the substantive changes being proposed, including the geographical area, functions and powers of the new authorities, and governance arrangements including membership representation and accountability. Consultation is also to include funding arrangements, transitional costs and where they will be borne, and the impact on existing local government funding. It is essential for there to be transparency and accountability on funding, and that local obligations and responsibilities are fully funded, with councils enabled to do the job for which they were elected.

It seems deeply ironic that an unelected Chamber such as ours should be party to removing powers and accountability from local communities and riding roughshod over local democracy. This amendment goes some way to restoring the rightful importance of local leadership, local consent and local participation.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I speak on this group of amendments concerning Clause 3, which addresses the creation of single foundation strategic authorities. The amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook are probing in nature, and we have also given notice of our intention to oppose Clause 3 standing part of the Bill.

At the heart of our concerns is the familiar theme that we have returned to throughout the Bill, and I suspect we will again—the balance of power between central government and local communities. Too often the Bill grants the Secretary of State sweeping powers to create, reshape or direct local government structures with minimal checks, consultation and accountability. That is not the model of devolution that we believe in.

I also ask the Minister for clarification on the role of single foundation strategic authorities. Will all unitary and counties not in a combined authority be offered the opportunity to be a single foundation strategic authority? What powers and funding will they be given and how does this compare to combined authorities, mayoral and foundation mayoral authorities? Where will a single foundation strategic authority fit in the landscape? Could it be forced into a combined authority?

Amendment 14 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, is sensible and necessary. It would require the Secretary of State to consult all levels of local government in an affected area before designating a single foundation strategic authority. Indeed, I would go further. Consultation should involve not only local authorities but local residents. If we are serious about localism and empowering communities, rather than simply rearranging governance structures, the voices of the people who live and work in those areas must be heard.

Amendment 15 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook probes whether the affirmative procedure alone is sufficient scrutiny for the Secretary of State’s powers under this clause. Given the scale of the decisions being taken and the potential impact on local governance and accountability, it is legitimate to question whether Parliament should have a more substantial role in overseeing these powers.

Throughout this Bill we have systematically sought to remove or constrain the Secretary of State’s ability to create new authorities or confer new powers without proper consultation or local consent. Clause 3 as drafted continues the pattern of centralisation. For that reason, we have tabled an amendment opposing the question that Clause 3 stands part of the Bill. We believe that the Government must provide far greater clarity about how and when these powers will be used and what safeguards will be in place.

As I said earlier, this is a theme that we will return to later in the Bill. For now, I hope the Minister will reflect on the strong arguments made today for a more genuinely localist approach, one that respects local government, involves local residents and ensures that decisions about local government are not taken unilaterally by the Secretary of State.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

For most local authorities—I have spoken to a great number of them over the past few months—the attraction of taking your unitary authority and going into a combined authority is the ability to have the greater powers that that level of devolution will accrue to the area and the communities for which you are responsible. I think that it will be the exception rather than the rule that people will want to be a single foundation authority, but they may be more comfortable with using that as a first step then working it out for themselves. This has happened to a certain extent through the whole devolution programme. Where people are in a unitary authority, they will look around them to see which of the surrounding authorities work best in terms of their economy and public services, as well as which model makes more sense to their local community, before they decide which way to go; if they wish to take some time to do that, the Bill makes provision for that.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her comments. I do, however, feel that there is a distinct lack of local input into the proposals in this Bill; that is one of the symptoms of the approach the Government are taking. They seem to be taking the view that they have decided what will be imposed on the country and are not particularly concerned about what local people think about it. I point to the regional assemblies, where they did the same thing and incurred huge hostility and a lack of trust from local people—not least in arguments about geography and local differences that took up quite a lot of government time and energy.

I think what the Government are trying to introduce here is uniformity, rather than devolution, and they will find an unwilling reception for their attempt to impose uniformity. People do not want mayors, who are very often seen as the outpost for central government; they also do not want local change imposed from Whitehall. I wish the Government luck with the Bill. Local government reform is a very sensitive business and maybe if Sir Humphrey were here, he would be saying that the Government are being very courageous. However, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment for the present.

Amendment 14 withdrawn.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th January 2026 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

95A: After Clause 19, insert the following new Clause—
“Secretary of State duty: strategic authority character and consent(1) Before undertaking a function listed in subsection (2), the Secretary of State must discharge the duties described in subsections (3) and (4).(2) The functions are any function carried out by the Secretary of State under—(a) sections 109B and 112B of LDECA 2009 (establishing or adding to a combined authority), as inserted by this Act;(b) section 25A of LURA 2023 (designating a CCA as an established mayoral strategic authority), as inserted by this Act;(c) section 3 of this Act (designating a council as a single foundation strategic authority). (3) The first duty is that the Secretary of State must publish a statement assessing how the following characteristics of the local government areas involved would be affected by the completion of the function—(a) the cohesiveness of the area’s community identity and physical character;(b) the boundaries of other public services in the area.(4) The second duty is that the Secretary of State must obtain consent for the function from any affected local government areas.”

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment would place certain requirements on the Secretary of State in the event of significant local government reorganisation. Before the Secretary of State redraws the local government structures, the amendment simply asks for two things: a realistic assessment of the impact on communities and services, and consent from the areas affected.

Local government boundaries are not abstract lines on a map. They shape how people identify with their area, how services are delivered and how effectively different public bodies work together. Ignoring those realities risks creating authorities that may look tidy from Whitehall but feel incoherent and unworkable on the ground. Delivering on strategic decisions is dependent on the successful management of a host of local issues and circumstances underpinning any strategic developments. I mentioned earlier the creation of the regional assemblies, which were the complete antithesis of that and suffered again from this incoherence and inability to deliver on strategic objectives because of a lack of support at local level.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, for her amendment and noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. This amendment concerns the powers in this Bill for the Secretary of State to direct the establishment or expansion of a combined authority and to designate single foundational strategic authorities and established mayoral strategic authorities.

The amendment would require the publication of a statement assessing the impact on community identity and public service boundaries when these powers are used, as well as requiring consent from the affected area. I am pleased to say that the Bill already contains safeguards to address these issues. For example, before conferring functions on a single foundational strategic authority or unitary authority, the Secretary of State must consider the effective exercise of functions for a local area. In addition, local consent is required prior to designation as a single foundational strategic authority.

The Secretary of State may designate an established mayoral strategic authority only if the authority submits a written proposal asking to be so designated. The authority’s consent is an inherent part of the process, as no authority can be designated unless it actively applies. Also, the criteria outlined in the English devolution White Paper are clear about the eligibility requirements for a mayoral strategic authority seeking to be designated as established. These criteria are designed to ensure the effective exercise of functions across a local area.

Finally, on the establishment or expansion of combined authorities, the Government have been clear that it is our strong preference and practice to work in partnership with local areas to develop proposals for devolution that carry the broad support of local leaders and the local area. The power to direct the establishment or expansion of a combined authority would only ever be used as a last resort where a local area has not brought forward its own viable proposal. This will ensure that all areas across England are able to benefit from devolution and that no area is left behind.

On the establishment or expansion of combined authorities more generally, the Bill already includes the necessary safeguards, including a statutory test to ensure effective and convenient local government across the areas of competence. Furthermore, where the geographical expansion of a combined authority area could affect the exercise of its functions, the Secretary of State must consider this before making an order to expand the authority.

I hope that, with this response, the noble Baroness is able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

I thank the Minister for the response, but I feel that the safeguards he has outlined do not address the potential risks in this Bill. The message that seems to be going out at the moment is that the Government are determined to deliver at any cost. Local communities are very mistrustful that they will listen to them. We have heard a lot about a bonfire of the rules and red tape that many local people see as safeguards and protections for themselves. I am afraid that the safeguards in the Bill are not adequate to reassure people: parish councils are barely mentioned and there does not seem to be much in the Bill about joint vision, mutual self-interest and shared benefits.

This modest amendment would be much more reassuring, particularly for areas that will be amalgamated into large tracts and counties which did not necessarily work well without district councils. For many areas, the loss of district councils is enormous. I do not believe that the safeguards outlined in the Bill address those concerns. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but may come back to it in future.

Amendment 95A withdrawn.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, Amendments 103 and 104 appear under my name. I confess that I can take no credit for drafting them; they started with my honourable friend Siân Berry in the other place. I take note of the Whips’ injunction on brevity, so I will largely focus on those two amendments. They may look rather long, with pages and pages, but they have the same injunction repeated three times relative to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act and the Greater London Authority Act, so they are actually much shorter than they look.

As the proposed titles state, they would create a duty on mayors to establish a deliberative citizens’ assembly within six months of being elected to inform strategic decision-making. That word “strategic” is important, because we have seen it demonstrated again and again that citizens’ assemblies provide a great way to address the big strategic questions. Proposed new subsection (6) in each amendment states that the mayor must take into account any recommendation made by the assembly, and publish a response.

Assemblies have really taken off up and down the country, if in a very piecemeal fashion—perhaps despite Westminster, rather than because of it. I am holding previous Governments responsible for that, but the current Government now have a chance to turn over a fresh leaf and act towards democracy by encoding citizens’ assemblies in this Bill. The organisation Involve, which has organised many of these, stresses how citizens’ assemblies are a way to

“strengthen legitimacy, foster trust, and solve complex problems”.

As it said in a recent blog post, it is a

“powerful answer to the breakdown in trust in our elected representatives and the wider crisis of democracy”.

Just to give noble Lords a sense of the kinds of government organisations that have been making use of citizens’ assemblies, Involve has organised various events along these lines for Innovate UK, UKRI, the Care Quality Commission and the West Midlands Combined Authority. There is a very long list; that is just a sample of them.

Under different structures and local initiatives, one area where citizens’ assemblies have proved particularly powerful is in looking at climate action. We have seen many local authorities set net-zero targets and communities have got together through citizens’ assemblies to work out how to do that. I take two examples of very different ones. In Kendal, right in the depths of the Covid pandemic, the town council organised a climate change citizens’ jury that was regarded locally as very successful. Then, in another place, very different politically and demographically, there was the Westminster citizens’ climate assembly in 2023. This is something that is taking off, but in a piecemeal fashion. This is a chance to really put a focus on deliberative democracy at the heart of this Bill.

Finally, on citizens’ assemblies, I draw attention to the powerful speech by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, on the lead amendment in this group and the really powerful testimony from a group called Citizens for Culture, which is based in the south-west. It talks about championing citizens’ assemblies in terms of arts culture and says that:

“When diverse voices come together to learn, deliberate and decide, it leads to decisions that are more legitimate, more inclusive, and more connected to the lived experience of local people”.


Culture, brought together with a citizens’ assembly, creates a vital space where communities can make meaning, build identities and imagine new futures. I think that expresses the idea very well.

I can see the Whip looking at me so let me just say something about Amendment 104. There are many different amendments, both in this group and in previous groups, about mayors having to work with—in this case—local public service providers and other local government. This amendment would provide one more way of doing that. We have heard from all sides of the Committee that that is a really essential and necessary thing that is missing from the Bill; I am not attached to any particular way of doing it, but this would be one way of doing it.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 196D, which would place a duty on strategic authorities to work with local and community-based bodies when exercising their functions. Devolving powers to the level of the people whom they affect means that effective devolution depends not only on transferring powers from Whitehall but on ensuring that those powers are exercised in partnership with the communities they affect. Without an explicit duty to work with community-based bodies, there is a risk that decision-making becomes remote, technocratic and insufficiently grounded in local reality. This amendment would ensure that parish and town councils are treated not as an afterthought but as partners in governance, helping strategic authorities to understand local conditions, priorities and constraints before they are implemented.

Voluntary and community sector organisations also play a critical role in the delivery of local support and preventive services. They are often hubs of energetic volunteers—people who want both to be involved in their local communities and to bring enthusiasm, energy and drive to local life. Following on from the story of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, when I was a member of a community council on the west coast of Scotland, volunteers and members of those communities persuaded the mighty Strathclyde Regional Council to support a town-twinning project and fund it. So you can find examples of this kind of thing all over the country.

I believe that, in all of the powers and strategic aims of this Bill, the key roles played by town and parish councils are forgotten; in fact, the Bill barely mentions them. Parish and town councils are key players in local communities. They are closest to the ground and most responsive to the day-to-day needs of communities. This Bill must contain a statutory obligation to work with the most local and community-rooted bodies—parish councils—as well as the other essential local groups and agencies that are involved in delivering services at a local level.

[Lord Freyberg (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 100 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, to which I have added my name, and Amendment 101 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale.

If the arts, culture and heritage are rightly recognised as an area of competence, as the noble Earl argued persuasively they should be, it follows logically that they should also be recognised as a basis for collaboration. Amendment 100 would simply make that explicit, placing culture alongside economic and social well-being as something on which mayors may work together, rather than treating it as incidental or discretionary.

I understand, of course, that the Bill currently frames collaboration as applying between neighbouring strategic authorities. I acknowledge that intention, but I would gently suggest that culture does not always conform neatly to a geography. Cultural ecosystems are interdependent in ways that often cut across administrative boundaries and sometimes beyond immediate neighbours; that is not an argument against the structure of the Bill but a reflection of how culture functions on the ground.

The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, spoke powerfully about cultural ecosystems, and I agree with him entirely. They are both geographically and economically interdependent. Grass-roots venues feed major institutions. Studios, rehearsal spaces and local festivals sustain the pipeline of skills on which national and international success depends. As is well known, cultural infrastructure —including libraries, museums, theatres, music venues, studios and heritage sites—acts as a form of civic glue, regenerating high streets, anchoring communities and driving wider economic activity.

We already see good practice emerging. Manchester and Liverpool, for example, have used accommodation-based visitor charges through business improvement districts to reinvest in culture, the public realm and visitor services. Although these schemes are imperfect, they demonstrate how locally controlled funding can support cultural ecosystems in a way that aligns the interests of residents, visitors and the hospitality sector. In that context, I very much look forward to seeing how the tourism levy evolves and how it can best support this kind of joined-up cultural ambition.