English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Ben Maguire Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I rise to make the case for Kernow, or Cornwall, and its unique status in this United Kingdom. My constituents have been crystal clear with me: Cornwall must never be forcibly joined with Devon or merged into any wider regional authority. But that is not to say that Cornwall wants to go it alone. It is not about separatism at all; this is about respecting our distinct status and history. Cornwall has proudly partnered with other UK regions for decades. It has a proud and unique language, culture, history and—crucially—national minority status, which was granted over a decade ago. We were afforded the same status as our Celtic brothers and sisters in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and so the people of Cornwall deserve a devolution deal that recognises that.

This status is not just symbolic. It creates a duty on public authorities to promote equality for the Cornish people, to support our culture, language and identity and, specifically, to avoid any assimilationist policies. Under the UK’s Equality Act 2010 and the public sector equality duty, Ministers and local authorities alike must consider the impact of their decisions, including in this Bill, on the Cornish people. If they fail to do so, their actions can be challenged in the courts using an array of legal claims, including judicial reviews, an Equality Act claim and a Human Rights Act 1998 article 14 differential treatment claim. Therefore, these rights carry real legal and political weight. To disregard or dilute Cornwall’s status in this Bill would be insulting, unlawful and dangerous. I am alarmed that the Bill would grant the Secretary of State power to force combined authorities without local people’s consent. Devolution, in essence, should give power to the communities, regions and counties that it aims to empower, not to a mayor, a Secretary of State or an unelected commissioner.

At Prime Minister’s questions last October, the Prime Minister told me that he believes that

“Those with skin in the game know what is best for their communities.”—[Official Report, 16 October 2024; Vol. 754, c. 834.]

The Secretary of State has repeated that today. I agree with them both: decisions should be made for Cornwall and in Cornwall by a fully elected Cornish assembly—and not in Plymouth, Bristol or Westminster. They should be made by those from within the duchy who understand our unique way of life and our unique economic and social challenges—the immense challenges of funding rural transport; the unfair and unequal investment in our schools over decades; the plight of our farmers and fishers, who seem to be left out in the cold by Government after Government; and the enormous proliferation of second homes and holiday lets, which lock local people out of our housing market, generation after generation.

In my office, I proudly display a famous painting of the Cornish rebellion of 1497. It illustrates the Cornish spirit of fairness, justice and persistence, of proud Cornish men and women who had taxes imposed upon them by the Government in London. That spirit lives on. Given Cornwall’s history and that strength of feeling, if the Secretary of State imposed a mayor of Devon and Cornwall —completely disregarding Cornwall’s national minority status, as well as legal battles—she might have a full uprising on her hands.

The Bill would likely limit Cornwall to a foundation strategic authority with limited powers, funding and control. That is why we are fighting for a bespoke devolution deal. The Bill should have mechanisms in place to allow such a bespoke deal to take place. Cornwall’s MPs look forward to working together for the good of Cornwall, onen hag oll—one and all—to make that happen. I call on the Government to fully respect Cornwall’s national minority status; to create a Minister for Cornwall, who could sit in the Wales Office; to consider the feasibility of an elected Cornish assembly instead of a mayor; and to commit to a devolution deal that respects Cornwall’s historic identity by excluding it from combined strategic authorities with other regions. Kernow bys vyken!

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 21st April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to speak tonight in support of two specific areas of the Bill that will directly affect my constituents in Portsmouth North.

First, I welcome the strengthening of gambling impact assessments. That links directly to the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) and I have already been doing on our “Back Our High Streets—Stop Dodgy Shops” campaign, which has been calling for stronger powers for councils and trading standards to protect our local high streets from rogue, harmful businesses. As I have said throughout the campaign, it is not just about tax-dodging businesses, dodgy vape shops and cowboy barbers; it is also about making sure that our high streets are not overwhelmed by the uses that damage community wellbeing and push out legitimate local traders. That absolutely includes gambling premises.

In North End, one small part of my constituency, five betting shops and arcades are concentrated within a very small area. North End has a proud local high street, but it faces challenges, because the community is already dealing with significant economic and social pressures, alongside a high street that has been neglected for years. This concentration of gambling premises in one community is not an accident, and it is not acceptable.

This kind of clustering can deepen financial hardship, contribute to addiction and poor mental health and undermine the health of the high street. That is why Lords amendment 80 matters. It gives local authorities stronger powers to assess whether additional gambling premises are genuinely consistent with the needs of the area and licensing objectives. That is exactly the kind of tool I have been pushing for and that local councils need if we are serious about backing our high streets and restoring confidence. That is what the Pride in Place strategy should look like in practice—not just warm words on a page, but real powers to shape better high streets.

Secondly, I will highlight the amendments on taxi and private vehicle licensing. I wholeheartedly welcome Lords amendments 43 to 79. The gap in enforcement powers that exists when a vehicle is licensed in one authority but operates in another is real and a long-standing concern for my residents. Like colleagues from all parts of the House, I have concerns about the number of vehicles operating that are licensed outside Portsmouth. Mainly, they are licensed in Wolverhampton.

To be clear, I realise that Wolverhampton carries out robust checks and I understand why many drivers choose to license there—in particular because of the cost of living and because it is significantly quicker—but authorities have too often found themselves powerless to act swiftly when a driver poses a risk to public safety, simply because the licence has been issued elsewhere. These amendments close that gap.

Residents have also highlighted concerns where local standards differ. For example, in Portsmouth, licensed taxis are expected to meet local safety requirements, such as having dash cams and vehicle CCTV, while those licensed elsewhere do not. Can the Minister comment on the options for having a national framework for the licensing of vehicles? That common-sense reform would put the safety of all passengers and drivers first. These are practical, common-sense initiatives, but we need to make sure that our councils deliver on them.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I will briefly speak to Lords amendment 98. When it comes to regions such as Cornwall and my constituency of North Cornwall, this Bill neither respects nor gives due consideration to our unique national minority status. In a letter sent to the leader of Cornwall council in November last year, the Secretary of State said that he recognised Cornwall’s “distinct local identity” and said that the Government were

“minded, on an exceptional basis, to work”

with the leader to explore a bespoke deal for Cornwall.

Five months later, the Bill has progressed through both Houses and still we have nothing in writing about that bespoke Cornwall-only deal, or even provisions to allow for one. Instead, we see efforts by this Government to undermine Lords amendment 98. The Secretary of State plans to force his MPs to vote against that vital amendment, which would prevent the Bill from giving overreaching powers to Ministers, through which they could essentially force local authorities to combine, against the will of local people.

On 24 March, on Report in the other place, the Government Whip responded that discussions are “positive and ongoing” and urged my Lib Dem colleague in the other place, Lord Teverson, to withdraw his amendments that were specifically designed to provide appropriate legal protections for Cornwall. The Minister in the other place said:

“While the United Kingdom is a proud signatory to the charter and the framework convention, accepting these amendments risks creating uncertainty over the status and interpretation of those treaties in domestic law.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 March 2026; Vol. 854, c. 1413.]

Instead, the Government seem to have chosen to completely ignore the European framework convention and charter for languages, which opens up the Bill to potential legal challenges.

Our national minority status in Cornwall has been completely ignored, and now risks being ignored by future Governments as well. This essentially means that the current or any future Secretary of State could force Cornwall to combine with other authorities, and disregard its national minority status. Let me be clear: Cornwall does not want that, and my constituents regularly urge me to make this point. We do not want to be dragged kicking and screaming into a combined authority with Plymouth or any other wider south-west authority.

Without Lords amendment 98, we risk having a diktat from the Westminster Government that tells us what to do. That is not devolution. I urge Members from across the House to vote against the Government’s attempt to disregard this vital amendment, and I respectfully ask the Minister to come to the Dispatch Box and set out what protections for Cornwall’s national minority status the Government will bring forward, and when.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

That is the end of the Back-Bench contributions. I invite the Minister to respond.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

No, to our mayors, our local leaders and our communities. Not acknowledging that is quite simply churlish.

The right hon. Gentleman raised the key issue of scrutiny of commissioners and all the key decision makers at strategic authority level. We recognise and agree with that, which is why we have included amendments to introduce stronger local scrutiny committees with greater teeth, so that with greater responsibility comes an accountability framework to make sure that we hold decision makers to account on behalf of local people.

On the question of reviewing the protection of public spaces, I am the Minister responsible for green and public spaces, and I am absolutely committed to making sure that such assets are available to all our communities. We are committed to doing a review, and we are very clear that the powers that have been introduced with regard to statutory trusts will not be used until we have concluded that review.

The hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) spoke to Lords amendment 2. Again, there is no agreement on policy. We are very clear that mayors have a responsibility to ensure that their rural communities are looked after and protected, and the reality of what we are seeing in places like North Yorkshire is that that is exactly what our mayors are doing. We do not believe that we need to put that on the face of the Bill, because it sits within each of the competencies that mayors will have to take on board. The guidance that sits alongside that, which points to good practice and the work that mayors have done, will be far more powerful in ensuring that this policy bites in the communities where we want it to bite.

Several Members spoke about the brownfield-first approach, and we agree with that policy. That is very clear in the national planning policy framework, which we have strengthened to ensure that it is the case. [Interruption.] No, I am not just saying it, because that is the policy, and the policy determines what happens in the planning framework. However, we are clear that is there is variability—[Interruption.] The shadow Secretary of State says we are centralising, but we say we should leave it to mayors and local authorities to deal with diversity in their particular circumstances, so that they are not caught in legal wrangling, but can make such choices. The policy is very clear: it is about putting brownfield first. Critically, unlike the last Government, we are investing to enable our councils and our mayors to remediate and regenerate such land, so that the policy can bite in the way it is supposed to.

On the question of the cabinet and leader model, I go back to the fact that we are doing this because we fundamentally care about creating strong local authorities that can deliver for their people. Some 80% of local authorities already have this model, and it is effective. We have already made the concession that, where alternatives such as the committee model or the mayoral model exist in particular places, they can see out their terms. However, we think it is right to move in the long term to a model that will serve local people.

The hon. Member for Guildford also talked about devolution being imposed. On the approach we have taken to strategic authorities—I ask the House to judge us by the way we are acting, not just by the words I say—we are incredibly clear that it is ultimately for local partnerships to come together, and Government will enable and pass devolution down to them. We are not imposing, and we are committed to not imposing.

[Ben Maguire]

Will the Minister give way?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I will make progress because there is very little time left.

I do have to take issue with the point about neighbourhood governance. We are told that we are centralising and trying to impose models on communities, yet on the question of neighbourhood governance, the hon. Member for Guildford and her party want to impose a particular model on communities. We say that is wrong, and we take a very different approach. Ultimately, it should be for communities to determine the right neighbourhood governance structure for their place. Town and parish councils—I agree that they exist in 80% of the geography—will have a role in this, and where that is the will of communities, that should be what those communities do. However, other communities will want to take different approaches, and we think it is right that communities should build on what they have, and that it should ultimately be for communities to determine what they do.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Perran Moon]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I welcome amendment (a), which would include coastal communities, as the changes are very encouraging, but I would also like to speak to the Lords amendment on local authority consent. I am deeply disappointed that the Secretary of State’s right to impose on a local authority without local assent has been delayed for only two years. The reason why, and this is where I have to reference our experience in Cornwall, is that for centuries—since the Stannary Parliament ceased to meet in 1753—Cornwall has longed for greater powers to control its own affairs. The amendment was an opportunity to work with Government to provide that level of devolution. It should also be noted for constitutionalists that the Stannary Parliament was never actually revoked.

The hunger for greater devolution runs deep in Cornwall, and in the 21st century it has been enhanced by the Council of Europe’s framework convention of national minority status, which recognises the Cornish as a national minority. I fear that the Government’s refusal to accept some of the amendments that were tabled, including this one, runs in contravention to article 16 of that framework convention. The national minority status process began under the previous Labour Government. I am also very grateful for the elevation of the Cornish language to the status of all other British Celtic languages.

With this hunger for devolution and commitments from the party, expectations were high. However, as we approach the end of the Bill’s passage, I am disappointed by the progress made by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It is not as though the Ministry did not know what devolution we were looking for. I am deeply grateful to the Minister and to two Secretaries of State for so frequently meeting Cornish Members from both parties to elaborate on what constitutes a devolution deal. I am very grateful that the Treasury has delivered the Kernow industrial growth fund. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is moving ahead with support for the language, as I mentioned, and the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education are investing in Cornwall. However, it feels a bit like MHCLG is not moving at the same pace as the others. This was never more starkly exposed than on the day it was announced that Cornwall was losing its shared prosperity funding, and new shared prosperity funding was announced in northern English mayoralties.

I am grateful that in November 2025 the Secretary of State was mindful to offer Cornwall single strategic authority status, as the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) mentioned. Cornwall will never willingly become part of a mayoral combined authority, because to do so would compromise national minority status, as I have mentioned. However, when she gets to her feet, could the Minister please confirm when those outstanding areas, including transport, economic development, strategic place partnership for housing and British-Irish Council attendance, will be dealt with? Until then, there will remain distrust and scepticism of the Government’s intentions for devolution in Cornwall and its place within these British Isles.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I will keep my contribution brief and speak once again on Lords amendments 98 and 98A, to allow other hon. Members to speak. Along with many of my constituents, I was very disappointed last Tuesday that the Minister failed to mention Cornwall once in her closing speech, despite my pointing out the dangerous powers that the Government are still trying to instil into law—powers that could be used by this Government or a future Government, which could force Cornwall to merge with another authority without the consent of the Cornish people. Cornwall still faces the prospect of having no legal protections in the Bill. Liberal Democrats have made efforts here and in the other place to secure protections that would take our national minority status into account under the European Framework convention for the protection of national minorities.

I fear that my constituents are being held to ransom by this Government, who say, “Accept our terms, effectively give up your national minority status, be forced into a merger with another region, and we might give you more money—and if you don’t accept our terms, we have the powers to force you to do so in two years’ time anyway.” In my eyes, that amounts to nothing more than economic coercion against a national minority. The Minister keeps repeating, as she did last week, that the Government have already committed not to use these powers for two years. How does that provide comfort for my constituents? Either a future Government or this one could use that power after two years.

I therefore hope that all my Cornish colleagues and Members from across the House will join me this time to vote against the Government’s latest attempt at blocking Lords amendment 98. Let us please not hand this Government or future Governments this unlawful power to combine authorities against the will of local people—our constituents. To the Minister, I say again that she has not considered Cornwall’s national minority status, contrary to the European framework convention, and so she will likely expect a legal challenge if the Bill becomes law.

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I would like to speak to Lords amendment 94B and 94C on the agent of change principle. My particular concern, as I said last week, relates to grassroots music venues and the impact on them of the current lack of robust application of the agent of change principle through planning guidance.

To set a little context, there were 1,150 grassroots music venues a few years ago. The Music Venue Trust now believes that has fallen to 800 venues. Grassroots music venues are important, and not just to local cultural identity—Sunderland is a music city, as we all know. Those venues are core to the UK music industry, which is worth £5.2 billion a year in this country, and grassroots music venues are the research and development department of that industry.

It is tempting to assume that a lot of money is sloshing around because of the success of some of our international acts, but that is absolutely not the case for grassroots music venues trying to keep the show on the road, as it were, on our high streets. That is why 350 have closed in recent years. Of the 366 small venues that Ed Sheeran played in when learning his trade, more than 150 are now closed. Of the 34 venues that Oasis played in before being signed, only 11 remain. If we do not work to ensure that the agent of change principle is properly applied, which Lords Amendment 94 sought to do, we risk further catastrophic loss of venues. The closures are due not just to economic factors on the high street, which people have discussed; the Music Venue Trust conservatively estimates that since 2015 over 125 grassroots music venue closures have been due specifically to planning issues.