Local Elections Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Bernard Jenkin
Main Page: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)Department Debates - View all Bernard Jenkin's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Miatta Fahnbulleh
Yes. It is easy to plough on, but we care about the outcome we are trying to deliver, and about ensuring that at the end of this process, we have strong local government, strong strategic authorities and effective mayors. That matters for the people we are here to serve, so I will never regret us taking decisions that have that approach at their heart.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Does this latest and inconsistent decision underline that the whole of LGR and devolution is in a state of total chaos? The Government must be rueing the day that they bought the Department’s line that imposing a metropolitan concept on counties and the countryside was the right thing to do. Can the Minister explain, for example, why it was logical to cancel the district council elections last year, but not this year? Where is the logic in that? Is it not about time that she got together with her colleagues and cancelled this whole process, to save money, and so that people can get back to their jobs of running better social services, filling in potholes, and delivering for their local communities, as the excellent Tendring district council does?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We believe in unitaries; whether it is Cheshire or the other unitaries across the country, we can see that they deliver for people. I come back to the reason why we are doing this, and the fact that it takes some cheek for Conservative Members to say, “The status quo is fine.” The status quo is not fine—it is the Conservative party’s mess, created over 14 years, and Conservative Members should hang their heads in shame. We are acting and responding, because the status quo is neither sustainable nor desirable and will not deliver for the people we are all here to serve.