Local Government Reorganisation

Baroness O'Neill of Bexley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

There is no dimming of the Government’s ambition around devolution and local government reorganisation. We are pushing on with the agenda. I thank my noble friend for recognising how well councils have worked together. I have been in meetings with many groups of councils, and they have said to me that this has got people talking together. They may have had a falling out 20 years ago and they could not even remember what it was about, but having to sit around the table and work on these proposals has been a really positive experience right across local government. I welcome that and think that it bodes well for the future. Certainly, the Government’s intention is to carry on with both the local government reorganisation and the devolution process.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister said that she recognised the value of the electoral returning officers. I absolutely agree with that, but the fact is that they are always looking at the next set of elections, so the fact that they stood down some elections would have caused a difficulty. The Minister said that the Government got legal advice before they proceeded to cancel the elections. If they did, what changed in that legal advice to make the change to reinstate them?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It is usual practice continually to review legal advice. The legal advice came forward and, as I have said before, there is a long-standing convention not to reveal the content of or publish legal advice, so I cannot enlighten the noble Baroness any further on that. When the legal advice was received, the Government took a very prompt decision to withdraw the cancellation of the elections, because we knew how important it was for local authorities to deal with this promptly.