Local Government Reorganisation

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for his important question, especially given the state of public transport in many parts of this country. I will take his question as a request that I include certain things in the statement later this week.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I draw the Minister’s attention to a poll conducted and published by YouGov? It shows that local government reform in Essex is really unpopular. What is more, the more people are questioned about it, the more unpopular it becomes. Why do we not have a referendum in Essex to find out whether we really want local government reform, instead of it just being imposed by politicians who think that they know better?

[Alison McGovern]

Obviously, like all politicians, I pay close attention to opinion polls.

Draft Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2026 General Committees

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words. Can we first admit that the Government’s policy of building all these houses is not going terribly well, and that it is not a great success strategically? Nobody in the house building industry or in local government believes that the Government will achieve their target.

I do not hold the Minister himself responsible for this confusion, but the question at the centre of my remarks is: what do we mean by the word “strategy”? I have worked on this subject during my time as a Member of Parliament. I chaired the Public Administration Committee—and then, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee—for nearly 10 years, during which we produced a stream of reports about strategic thinking and strategy in Government.

At the end of the last Parliament, the Liaison Committee, which I chaired at the time, produced a report about how Select Committees could help and enable Government to have more strategic thinking behind their policy and implementation, and we recommended a definition for strategy. In this Government’s response to the report, they said that they would adopt that definition, but I do not see any evidence that they have.

These spatial strategies are, in truth, plans, not strategies. A strategy is an active process—a doing word. When someone creates a strategy, they do lots of planning, and lots of plans will go into it, but a strategy constantly evolves in the light of events and changes in circumstances. One of the reasons why so many things go wrong in Government is that people think that they are being strategic, but actually they are just writing down a plan and forgetting about it, rather than thinking rationally.

The Government response to the Liaison Committee’s report said:

“Strategy in government is the coherent mobilisation of capabilities, levers, resources and partnerships towards successfully achieving public policy outcomes.”

Where is the evidence of that in, for example, the Government’s policy on house building? In my constituency, there is an ambitious project to build 7,500 new homes. I am grateful to the Minister for receiving delegations making representations about that.

[The Chair]

Order. Sorry to interrupt, but we need to stay within the scope of the regulations; talking about individual strategies and individual constituencies goes beyond that. Could we stay within the scope of the regulations, please?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I think I am within the scope of the regulations, Ms Jardine, because the amendments relate to the use of the term “strategy” in the primary legislation. I do not think I am out of order, but I will not dwell on the matter or test your patience. I have made the point.

[The Chair]

Order. If you could wrap up and ask your question, that would be helpful.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am making a speech, which I am entitled to do.

In the case I mentioned, where there is supposedly a strategy, we seem to be planning to build a garden community without the crucial link road being in place before the house building starts. That is a big problem. Will the Minister take back to the Department the question of whether the Government agree about what “strategy” means? Are they integrating the much more agile definition of strategy into the way they operate, so that we get better public policy outcomes? That is what the whole process was intended to achieve.

Incidentally, the Minister might draw on the national strategy playbook drawn up by the Cabinet Office in the first 12 months of this Government, which is apparently being implemented across Government. I do not feel that this type of reform is reaching into the entrails of his Department, which is responsible for so much that requires strategic thinking.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

We have, to the extent that marine plans impact on spatial development strategies; I will outline the relationship when I respond to the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes. To be clear, the regulation power that we are talking about is a simple notification requirement on SDSs to ensure joined-up plan making. The Crown Estate is involved with marine plans, obviously, and I will set out how many there are across the country and how that relates, but this is a simple change in scope.

I touched on brownfield land. I want to make clear where the democratic input comes from and who has to produce spatial development strategies: combined authorities, both mayoral and non-mayoral; combined county authorities, both mayoral and non-mayoral; upper-tier county councils; and unitary authorities. All will have a duty to produce a spatial development strategy. Those authorities, as I said, are known as strategic planning authorities.

The Government, however, will be able to group any of those authorities together to jointly produce a spatial development strategy, through a committee known as a strategic planning board. In those areas where, for example, a mayor is not in place and there is not an obvious geography to take forward an SDS, a combination of authorities will be put together to come up with an SDS through a strategic planning board. Each authority will have a voice on the planning board.

I should touch on the geography of an SDS. As hon. Members will know, in February and March the Government undertook a national consultation seeking views on proposed geographies for which spatial development strategies should be produced. That included proposals about which authorities will be grouped together under a strategic planning board. We intend to publish a response to that consultation in the summer.

Regulations will be needed to establish each strategic planning board. Before the regulations are laid, the affected authorities must be formally consulted. We intend to begin laying regulations to establish those boards after the summer recess, as I said; at that point, we will confirm the geographies. Local people will have a chance to input into the strategies, whether they come through the individual authorities involved or the mayoral link.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes knows, marine planning is the process for managing the use of marine resources in a sustainable and co-ordinated manner. It ensures that the right activities happen in the right place, at the right time and in the right way. To encourage sustainable development, marine plans guide those who use and regulate the marine area, while considering the environment, economy and society.

Marine plans operate alongside land-use planning systems to ensure a holistic approach to managing the coastal and marine environments. The six marine plans in England cover 11 marine plan areas. I come back to the specific change we are making through this amendment: it is just a notification—no veto is involved on the part of the strategic planning authority. It is being made so that we can ensure that, in areas where a marine plan abuts a spatial development strategy area, there is co-ordination and that the marine plan can be taken account of in decision making by the strategic planning authority producing the SDS.

I consider these to be simple, straightforward, minor and consequential amendments. We will have a chance to debate more fully the more substantive amendments that come when we establish the new strategic plan-making system.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not take a sideline into a philosophical discourse on the meaning of a strategy or of a report that I do not think he named and I do not think pertains to my Department. We are introducing a system of strategic planning, on which I think there is widespread consensus across the House.

The removal of any effective mechanism for cross-boundary co-operation has caused a variety of issues. The duty to co-operate does not work effectively and we have to put it back in place. The draft regulations allow us to do that. On that basis, we will have a series of SDSs that provide a high-level housing growth and infrastructure framework.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

rose—

[Matthew Pennycook]

If the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention is about the actual regulations that we are debating, I will give way.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

It is about the draft regulations, because they include the word “strategy”. The Minister cannot escape the consequences of that. The report to which I referred was a Liaison Committee report—

[The Chair]

Order. The strategy was debated during the progress of the Bill through Parliament. It is not consequential to the draft regulations.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

It is a whole of Government report.

[Matthew Pennycook]

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to write to me about the whole of Government report that he cites—I do not think that he has mentioned the title—I will happily consider some of the lessons learned from it and how they might apply to my Department. On that basis, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Local Government Reorganisation

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for putting on the record his point of view, which is different from others that we have heard this morning. I can confirm that we are supporting councils through the transition. If he has any specific concerns, he knows that he can come straight to me.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I inform the Minister that the previous Conservative Government listened to the people of Essex, and the MPs and county and district councillors for Essex, and cancelled any plans for LGR? That is because county government in Essex predates the Norman conquest. It is more embedded in our history than almost anything else, except perhaps our churches and ancient buildings. Nobody in Tendring district or Colchester city wants to live in an amorphous area called “North East Essex”. What is more, people there know that this upheaval and reorganisation will cost public services, inflict damage on continuity and push up council taxes—and it is good for us, because we will simply blame this wretched gerrymandering Labour Government.

[Alison McGovern]

Nobody could accuse the right hon. Gentleman of not having an opinion on this subject. I hear what he is saying. Close to me is the county of Cheshire. It was reorganised some years ago, and nobody would say that Cheshire no longer exists. We will move forward with these proposals. In the end, there is nothing that we politicians like more than discussing the architecture of power, but our job is to never lose sight of the wellbeing of the residents we represent.

Local Elections: Cancellation

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

Given the number of times buses have been raised with me when I have been door-knocking during elections, I am surprised that they do not lead the news more often. I congratulate my hon. Friend on her efforts to get decent bus services for her constituents, and would say to any local authority that if it wants to engage with residents on the things they care about, buses should be top of the list.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Is it just a coincidence that the only three councils in Essex that want to cancel the elections—Basildon, Harlow and Thurrock—are all run by the Labour party, while all the others—Braintree, Chelmsford, Colchester, Brentwood, Epping Forest, Rochford, Southend and Essex county council—want the elections to go ahead? Is the Minister going to listen to the majority?

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the points he raises. I have set out the way in which we are consulting with local authorities, and the Secretary of State will take the decision accordingly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. That is a continuation of the debate, and I am not responsible for the Minister’s comments; however, he has put his point of view on the record.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Forgive me, but I must correct the record: Harlow council is a Conservative council, but it is the exception that proves the rule that they are otherwise all Labour councils.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He has now corrected the record.

Local Government Reorganisation

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I invite the Minister to be open and candid with the House. Could she tell us what discussions there have been and what views, opinions, advice or instructions have been issued to her, her fellow Ministers or special advisers by the political advisers in No. 10?

[Alison McGovern]

As I have mentioned a few times, we have had representations from councils about their capacity. Of course we discuss these issues as Ministers and as part of the Government, and those discussions happen in the usual way, as the hon. Member would expect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is about the reply I got to my question. I have it on very good authority that these decisions have been taken by political advisers in No. 10, and the Minister did not deny that. Could she clarify whether I am right to take away that impression, or could she be more open and candid with the House?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

The hon. Gentleman will know that that is not a matter for the Chair. I am reluctant to allow continuation of debate via the mechanism of points of order, unless the Minister wishes to respond.

Local Elections

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Absolutely. We are very clear that with powers come responsibility and accountability. We are strengthening scrutiny powers for local government, and we will continue to look at ways in which we can strengthen scrutiny and accountability powers for mayors. We are absolutely clear that we have got to devolve power, but alongside that it is really important that local people can hold to account the institutions we are creating and building.

Since the Bill left this Chamber after Second Reading, the Government have made a modest number of amendments to ensure that it will operate as intended. To be clear, we have not introduced significant new policy; rather, we have responded to concerns raised by Members in the best traditions of parliamentary scrutiny. I am therefore confident that we are bringing a better Bill back on Report.

Today’s debate is concerned with parts 1 and 2 of the Bill, on strategic authorities and their powers, duties and functions. Many of our amendments are minor and technical, and I will therefore focus on explaining the more substantive changes we made in Committee and the further amendments we have brought forward on Report that relate to these parts of the Bill.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

It is the Government’s clear intention to devolve powers, but in the reorganisation of local government, the Government are taking sweeping powers to determine the outcome of any reorganisation—in Essex, for example. Will the Minister undertake to listen to the consultation and to reflect the consultation responses in the decision that the Government take? Currently in the Bill, there is no obligation on them to do so.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

We are very clear that the process of local government reorganisation should be driven by local areas. That is why we are going through a process in which local areas are coming up with proposals, and consulting constituent authorities and their communities. We will then make a decision based on those proposals.

It is very clear that this Bill is about devolution. Yes, there is a backstop power, but it is not one that we intend to use; it will be used only in extreme cases. The process of local government reorganisation is proceeding at the moment, and all areas in that process are engaging. Proposals are coming forward, and we will make decisions based on those proposals.

At the heart of the reorganisation is an objective: to have local authorities that are more sustainable and that can deliver for their local people. That is the central purpose of reorganisation, and it is something that we are absolutely committed to delivering.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes]

May I begin by welcoming the Minister to her place? We spent a long time together on the Bill Committee, working cross-party, along with many other Members on both sides of the House. They included the Statler and Waldorf of the Committee, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and the hon. Member for Banbury (Sean Woodcock), whose heckling of me throughout the sittings was very welcome. [Hon. Members: “More!”] A number of Members are saying “More!” from a sedentary position.

The Minister was bombarded with what I would argue are excellent amendments tabled by Members from all parts of the House, but I think she has been taking a leaf from the book of her colleague the Minister for Housing and Planning. Much of her response to amendments tabled by me—and by the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and, indeed, some of her own colleagues who wanted to see movement from the Government—was that she would “reflect”. She would reflect in order to make the Bill better, and she would reflect on whether she could make it better by accepting amendments tabled by Members on both sides of the House. Instead, she has reflected on nothing. Instead, she has brought us a Bill to which she has tabled a small number of amendments that the Government want, but any other amendments tabled by other parties have been completely ignored.

Just to show how unprepared the Government were today, let me point out that most of the Committee stage was taken up with discussion of Government amendments, because this Bill from a Government who wanted to govern in the interests of the people was so riddled with holes that they spent most of the time discussing their own proposals, rather than those of the Opposition.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Today the Government put forward 23 of their own amendments, which meant that the Minister allowed less than a minute for each one in her speech. That includes two new schedules. Moreover, we have still not seen a great deal of the regulation that will flow from the Bill, even in draft form. Is this Bill ready, in any way?

[Paul Holmes]

The answer is clearly no, because otherwise it would not have had as many holes as it had in Committee, and it would not have as many holes as it has today. If it were a Bill from a Government who genuinely sought cross-party co-operation on what could be a very exciting programme of devolution for local authorities and people throughout the country, the Minister and the Government would have looked more seriously at some of the excellent amendments and new clauses tabled by Members from all parts of the House, although not by the Minister’s own Back Benchers.

I am a big fan of the Minister, but when I intervened on her earlier, she showed some anger, which is not typical of her. She tried to object when I said that as a result of her local government reorganisation programme, councils across the country will be forced to reorganise, even if they do not want to. There is a backstop that the Minister said she did not want to use, but when she winds up the debate, I ask her to confirm what she refused to confirm in Committee—that if local authorities do not want to reorganise, she will force them to do so. It is about time the Government came clean about that, so that local authority leaders throughout the country know what they will have to deal with, and know that they will have a gun against their head and will be forced to reorganise, rather than getting on with delivering efficient services, as they try to daily.

[Paul Holmes]

My right hon. Friend absolutely knows her constituency. We have tried to ensure, both today and in Committee, that local authority leaders can choose who they work with. They should not be forced to do things by a Minister behind a desk in Whitehall, but that is what this Minister and this Department are doing. It is shameful. It is not what Members on both sides of the House want, and it is not what local authority leaders want—and they know best. I ask the Minister to look at that compulsion again.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Paul Holmes]

Very briefly.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am most grateful; my hon. Friend is being exceptionally generous.

I commend the Minister for being on top of her brief, but I did not have a chance to raise this question, which is directly relevant to the point that my hon. Friend is making. The regulations have not been written to show how the neighbourhood panels, or whatever they are called, will be created, but the Bill contains sweeping powers to direct how those neighbourhoods should be constructed. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we believe in devolution, this should be left to the local authorities to determine, rather than its being determined by Ministers?

[Paul Holmes]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct, and, indeed, in the Bill, there are plenty of other examples—which we discussed in Committee—of the Government not genuinely devolving to mayors, local authorities and combined authorities powers that they would actually quite like, but giving them the powers that they want them to have, while taking other powers away. That is not true devolution, and the Government should look again at delivering true devolution throughout the United Kingdom.

Birmingham: Waste Collection

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

I do not think that anyone could criticise my work ethic, but reorganising a third of England and the 20 million residents affected would be quite a reorganisation to deliver. As things stand, there is no intention of reorganising Birmingham, but there is absolutely an intention of resolving the underlying trade union dispute, getting people back to work, and reaching an agreement that is acceptable.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I point out that the strike started under this Labour Government, and under a Labour council—and despite all the Minister’s hand-wringing and anguish, the strike continues under a Labour Government, and under a Labour council? It is futile for the Government to pretend it is all somebody else’s fault, least of all the fault of the previous Government. Will the Minister avoid misrepresenting what my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) said? He made the perfectly reasonable suggestion that the Minister should reinstate the legislation that would allow agency workers to be brought in to pick up rubbish off the streets of Birmingham. Why will the Minister not do that? Because he is pussyfooting around and kowtowing to his Labour paymasters, the trade unions.

[Jim McMahon]

That certainly gets the award for the silliest question yet. There is no kowtowing or bowing. We played this with an absolutely straight bat in the interests of the people of Birmingham, as they would expect. On agency workers, our judgment is that they are not required, because the mutual aid from neighbouring councils and housing associations, and the redeployment of frontline staff from elsewhere in the council, has dealt with the waste that accumulated. We have seen 26,000 tonnes of waste cleared. As I said, now that trucks are leaving the depot as usual in most cases, more tonnes per day are being collected than during regular times, so the council is on top of this. There is no need to bring in additional agency staff in the way that the hon. Gentleman says.

Coastal Communities

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna). I do not need to repeat everything he said, because it all applies in spades to my constituency, which is very much a coastal constituency, which includes not just Harwich, but Manningtree, Mistley, Brightlingsea, and West Mersea. Those are all places of varying economic prosperity, but I wish particularly to talk about Harwich because it is so typical of what has happened to very prosperous Victorian port towns, where glorious terraces of grand houses would be worth millions if they were near London, but instead they are bedsit territory for some of the most unfortunate in our society who find themselves getting off the train and looking for somewhere to stay.

Having said that, as the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) said in his opening remarks—I thank him for securing this important debate, although obviously we have much too short a time—these places are full of potential. Harwich is a unique historic town. It is where the Mayflower sailed from in 1620. The captain of the Mayflower lived in Harwich, and his house is now a museum. When we say to the Americans, “Do you realise that you originally came from Harwich?” their eyes are opened. They think it is all about Plymouth, but they are not right. When we tell them what they could come and see, and that instead of some fake Victorian steps, they could come and see the real house of the captain of the Mayflower, they are amazed. It was an important Napoleonic port, it grew from a wonderful medieval naval base to being a very important naval base during the first and second world wars, and the entire German submarine fleet was gathered in the estuary.

Harwich is full of potential. We have the freeport, the offshore wind industry and wonderful manufacturing businesses, providing stable employment to their workforces. The place is full of potential, but I worry that without being championed by our own Tendring district council, which has done a marvellous job but is being lined up for abolition, we will not get the same support. When he winds up, will the Minister assure us that coastal communities will get the same support, under the new local government set-up, that they have always enjoyed from their district councils? I have my doubts, I am afraid, so I would be most grateful if he can address that.

English Devolution and Local Government

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is right to categorise what the Conservatives have done to local authorities, and it is not party political to say that; many councils of all different political persuasions will say that the way the previous Government went about local government was not to respect them and not to fund them. We recognise the vital public services that local government delivers and we recognise what it does. The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution will be setting out our plans to give sustainable funding for local government into the future, because we recognise that local government is vitally important and consider its work to be critical to this Government’s mission.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I invite the Secretary of State to publish the evidence that the local government reorganisations will actually, in the long run, save money? There is none, unless she can publish hard evidence. May I also ask her to heed the warnings of the Chair and former Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee—the hon. Members for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) and for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) respectively—who warn about the disruption of abolishing two-tier local government; that it will be a mess; and that the Secretary of State will have to fund that mess out of central Government funding, because otherwise there will be more cuts in public services to pay for the reorganisation? Which is it to be?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman should speak to his colleagues in Dorset, because they have made savings and they understand what local government reorganisation can deliver. We have seen that up and down the country. His party used to believe in devolution, and we have seen how that can deliver for local areas and we can save money. This is not just about saving money, however; this is about creating devolution and pushing power out of Whitehall into the town halls so that mayors and local authorities can deliver public services that are responsive to local areas’ needs. That is what we are trying to deliver from the bottom up, working with local authorities. The hon. Gentleman should get on board.