Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums

Jack Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) for securing this debate. It is always right that the House has the opportunity to discuss how local government works, how it can work better and how we ensure that it delivers for the people we represent. Although I do not believe that referendums are necessarily desirable in the context of the current local government reorganisations, for reasons I will come to shortly, I do believe that there is real value in debating these issues openly and transparently. Local government reorganisation is complex, consequential and long lasting, so it deserves serious consideration.

It is true that the Conservative-led coalition Government conducted a round of referendums in 2012 across a huge swathe of our major cities. The issue is that when people were asked whether they would like a mayor, every city—bar one—said no, but only a few years later, they got one anyway. They did not seek to repeat that exercise. The referendums the Conservatives held were, in truth, little more than lip service.

I think that most people here will think that mayoralties in the main—with honourable exceptions—have been a successful endeavour: they give power and autonomy to the places that have often been forgotten in the past. Of course, in recent years many places underwent local government reorganisation with no referendum at all.

It is worth mentioning an elephant in the room when it comes to the postponement of elections by a year in places such as Suffolk, which I represent, until all-out elections in 2027 and mayoralty elections in 2028. The Conservative party’s new-found aversion to postponing elections is quite remarkable, not least because, as Local Government Minister, the Leader of the Opposition postponed elections in Cumbria, while the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), also made the decision, as Local Government Minister, to postpone all-out district elections before reorganisation in Buckinghamshire in 2019. And Robert Jenrick—remember him? I was going to say he was the latest recruit to Reform—

[Andrew Rosindell]

The right hon. Member for Newark.

[Jack Abbott]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that correction from a sedentary position. The right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), while Secretary of State for Local Government, when talking about postponements in places such as Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Somerset, said that elections in certain circumstances

“risk confusing voters and would be hard to justify where members could be elected to serve shortened terms.”—[Official Report, 22 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 24WS.]

It is an interesting volte-face for both Reform and the Conservative party. That is the previous Conservative leader, the current Conservative leader, and the right hon. Member for Newark, who, up until last week, was agitating to be the next one, so I will take with a pinch of salt the Conservatives’ new-found desire for referendums or postponements—not least because one particular referendum was arguably the start of a psychodrama that continues to envelop them nearly a decade later.

We did have a referendum in 2024: we had a general election. Local government reorganisation was a clear and explicit part of our Government’s manifesto. I know that, under the Conservative party, delivering on manifesto commitments fell out of fashion—they were little more than vibes, at best, by the end. But we were elected on a mandate of change, and that included rebuilding and reforming local government as the foundation for meaningful devolution. The British people endorsed that programme at the ballot box, and it is our responsibility to deliver it.

[Tom Gordon]

The hon. Gentleman says that the electorate endorsed that at the ballot box. I wonder if he might show a little contrition in acknowledging that Labour got less than 50% of the vote, so trying to make out that that general election was a glowing endorsement of this Government and this manifesto commitment is perhaps putting a bit of a shine on it.

[Jack Abbott]

We are sitting here with a parliamentary party of more than 400 MPs. That is an overwhelming mandate under the electoral system that we have been operating under for centuries. The Conservative party can probably reflect on that, if we are talking about numbers.

[Andrew Rosindell]

Can the hon. Member will tell us whether it was also in the Labour manifesto to abolish local council elections?

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[Jack Abbott]

As I have already laid out, and as the hon. Gentleman will know from when he was a member of the Conservative party, postponing elections where a local government was undergoing reorganisation happened a number of times. I was not here, so I cannot remember whether he spoke out against his Government at the time for doing so. A number of local government Ministers decided to postpone those elections, and I presume that he fully endorsed those postponements at the time—although I am happy for him to correct the record on that point.

The Government were elected on a mandate of change, and that included rebuilding and reforming local government as the foundation for meaningful devolution. The British people endorsed that programme at the ballot box, and it is our responsibility to deliver it. Our Government are embarking on the biggest transformation of local government in a generation. This is not change for change’s sake, but because the status quo has been failing far too many communities for far too long.

[Tom Gordon]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman giving way and being so generous with his time. He talks about change, but we are seeing the continuation of the same local government reorganisation that we saw under the previous Government, with the rolling out of the same mayoralties as well. This is not change so much as a continuity of plans that were already in place—unless he wants to give us anything new that I am not already aware of.

[Jack Abbott]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is slightly mistaken. In my own patch in Suffolk, for instance, the devolution proposed under the previous Government meant handing out a few more powers for a tiny bit of extra money. We are proposing unitarisation of places such as Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, plus a mayoral candidate for the elections in 2028. What we are seeing is far more radical and significant; in fact, for my part of the world, it is the most significant change in local government for more than 50 years, so it is a big step change from what the previous Conservative Government proposed.

For decades, power has been hoarded in Westminster and Whitehall while local councils were stripped of capacity, fragmented in structure and left struggling to meet rising demands after having their funding hollowed out. Nowhere is that failure clearer than in my home county of Suffolk. In a past life I was a county councillor, and I do not believe that the current status quo is working—I do not think many people living locally do, either. Although I accept that that is due to severe hollowing-out of funding over 15 years, a do-nothing approach is clearly not an option for us either.

Those sorts of issues—pot holes left unrepaired, special educational needs provision in crisis, children and families passed from pillar to post and adult social care under unbearable strain—are not abstract problems. They affect people’s daily lives, their dignity and their trust in local democracy. The truth is that the current system is not working, and we needed to do something radical. As I said, a do-nothing approach is not a neutral option, but a decision not to change how local government is structured and empowered. It would simply condemn communities such as mine to more of the same.

That is why the Government are choosing to devolve and not dictate through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. We are rebuilding local government so that it has the strength, scale and capability to deliver—[Interruption.] We hear chortling on the Conservative Benches, but the Conservative Suffolk county council requested this process and has also consulted with the public. People were able to put their views forward.

Our county council has put forward an option for a single unitary authority, and all the district and borough councils have put forward an option for three unitary authorities, so there has been significant consultation at local level. Parties of all stripes, although they may disagree on which outcome they would like to see, have all engaged constructively in this process on the whole.

We are looking to transfer power out of Westminster and into communities, and to give local leaders the tools to drive growth, create jobs and improve living standards. This is about rebalancing decades-old divides and, as I said, we have not seen this sort of reorganisation in my part of the world for more than 50 years.

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

The hon. Member is making a very powerful speech for an area of the country that is still two tier. However, having been a representative in a unitary council and lived in one for a number of years, it is worth putting on the record that being part of a unitary authority does not mean that potholes or SEND provision are perfect. I appreciate that that is probably not what he is implying, but someone listening to this debate might be led to believe, mistakenly, that unitarisation is a silver bullet. Does he agree that we need to be realistic about that?

[Jack Abbott]

Absolutely. I agree wholeheartedly that unitarisation or local government reorganisation alone is not a magic bullet. The things the hon. Member describes are due to severe underfunding. Pothole and road maintenance funding fell to around £17 million a year, down from £20 million, although it crept up again. We are putting much more money into that. We saw bus services shredded in the previous 14 years, but we now have the biggest upgrade to bus services since 1998. Some of those things will help; I believe that unitarisation will help to deliver better public services, and provide more of a single point of accountability for voters, but change also comes down to leadership, culture and investment.

In Suffolk there is a credible, detailed and ambitious alternative to the status quo. In my opinion, the proposal for three unitary councils put forward by all the district borough councils of Ipswich, Mid Suffolk, Babergh, East Suffolk and West Suffolk clearly shows that this is not a partisan project, but a set of proposals put forward by politicians of all stripes. It is a collaborative effort across political parties, grounding in evidence and focused on outcomes.

I believe it would be simpler for residents: there would be a single point of contact, as mentioned earlier, and more accountability, ending the confusion over who is responsible for what. Anyone who has knocked on doors will have heard residents say, “I don’t care who it is—I just want the council to fix it.” That is a sentiment that is shared quite widely.

[Andrew Rosindell]

All of us knock on doors and talk to our constituents. The thing they are really unhappy about, in all councils, is the fact that councils are not operating effectively and getting the true local jobs done in their local communities. The more remote the system and the bigger the council area, the less effective it will be. Does the hon. Gentleman see the point about smaller towns, villages and boroughs losing their identity and local control because it goes to some big bureaucracy somewhere else, a long way from where they are?

[Jack Abbott]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point; there is a balancing act to be achieved, ensuring that we have the size and scale of councils to deliver public services efficiently, while also rooting them in their local communities. That is why I am backing a proposal for three unitary councils over the proposal from the Conservatives at Suffolk county council for a single unitary council.

As part of the local government reorganisation, places such as Ipswich, which I hope will turn into a greater Ipswich authority, would still need to retain a town council, and the parish council element would be really strong. I used to be a parish councillor, so I recognise the value and importance of those communities and having that very local representation as part of this.

Funnily enough, that leads me directly on to my next point: crucially, the three unitary councils proposal strikes the right balance: it is big enough to deliver but local enough to care. A greater Ipswich council, alongside strong East and West Suffolk authorities, would allow each area to play to its natural economic strengths, make faster decisions and champion its communities with strong local voices.

Although this has been a constructive debate in my part of the world, the conduct of the county council has at times been deeply disappointing. Rather than making a positive case for its own proposal, it has repeatedly resorted to misleading and aggressive tactics. Nearly £50,000 of taxpayers’ money has reportedly been spent on social media advertising for its own single campaign, with further tens of thousands earmarked for so-called “Alice in Wonderland” leaflets, which seek to ridicule all alternative proposals. That is not engagement; it is propaganda, and I urge the Minister and the Department to look at it carefully. At a time when potholes are going unfilled and children with special educational needs are being failed by that same county council, voters and residents in my area are entitled to ask why public money is being spent on spin, rather than services. The council’s behaviour betrays a lack of confidence in its own case and a disregard for local people.

Local government reorganisation must be about the future. It is about not just tomorrow, but the next 30, 40 or 50 years. It certainly cannot be about the preservation of power, status or the status quo. It must be about improving services, strengthening accountability and restoring trust. The Government have set the direction. We were elected with a mandate for change and we are delivering on that. Devolution is fundamentally about people, ensuring that communities such as Ipswich and Suffolk have the resources, powers and trust to determine their own futures. That is why referendums are not needed to delay or derail this progress. What we need is leadership, honesty and the courage to build a system that finally works for the people it serves.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you presiding over these proceedings today, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) on securing this important debate; it is good to have an opportunity to discuss these issues openly.

It is also a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott). He made a lot of the fact that there are hundreds of Labour MPs and the great mandate that that has given this Government. I find it vexing that, with a majority as large as the one this incoming Government have, that they should choose as priorities things such as digital ID, attacking jury trials, taking away school freedoms, trying to ban vaping in pub gardens and trail hunting, and a costly reorganisation of local government.

I am relatively agnostic when it comes to the structure of local government. Some people say that they are in favour of unitaries or of two-tier authorities; I always find that a peculiar position. It is possible to give a decent argument in favour of almost any structure of local government. The one thing I dislike is the upheaval when they are changed. Sometimes there is a good argument for change and we must do it, but we should never pretend that there is no cost to that change. There is a financial cost to reorganisation—what happens to buildings and all sorts of other things—and an effectiveness cost when any organisation is in a state of flux.

In the case of Hampshire, we will be moving from a two-tier system to a single tier of unitaries. There will be some economies of scale and benefits that come with that; for example, bin collections will be on bigger scale, and we should be able to get that at a lower unit cost. There will also be diseconomies in those services that are moving from the county level to the smaller level, for example adult social care and aspects of children’s social care and so on. We do not know—unless the Minister is able to intervene and tell me—what the net effect will be. I have tabled some written questions to ask what the Government’s assumption is on the net effect, and we do not have an answer to that.

If there is a net benefit from the mixture of those economies, diseconomies and costs of transitions, I guarantee that it will not come in year one. All of these plans end up being a classic hockey-stick sales projection—“Of course things are going to get better, but first we have to invest to make that happen,” so the curve goes down before it goes up. I am afraid that, for many sales projections, years one to three turn out to be accurately predicted, but the out years much less so.

There are big choices to be made in reorganising to unitaries—as was alluded to a moment ago in the context of Surrey and Suffolk—in terms of the number of different unitaries in a particular area. That can make a very practical difference to residents. Big-cost items are going to move from county level—the upper tier—into these unitaries. As everybody knows, the two biggest costs are adult social care and high needs children’s social care in education. They are going into the unitaries, so it will make an enormous difference for a district council, depending on which other areas it goes in with.

To fund all that expenditure requires income—from business rates, for example. The overall age structure in the broader footprint of the area also matters. People of working age are net contributors. Retired people and children need cash support. There is also the question of housing, which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire put accurately and succinctly. There is a lot of controversy about the current targets for housing in rural areas, which have gone up under this Government by an average of 71% in new areas and 100% in areas such as mine—East Hampshire.

Some people feel that reorganisation and merging with nearby councils will solve that problem—all that housing will not have to go in the countryside after all; it can go in brownfield sites and developed areas, as it should. I fear that the opposite may be the case. We look to councillors to understand—as they do—the areas they represent. The further away decisions are made on things that really matter to local people, the less likely they are to be good for them.

[Jack Abbott]

What the right hon. Gentleman describes is already happening. Suffolk county council represents the entire county. The argument he is making is already playing out at the moment. We are having these conversations. This has already happened. We have rural councils making decisions about urban issues and vice versa. I do not think it is either/or.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful. I was talking about housing development and planning, which in Hampshire is decided by East Hampshire district council, not by Hampshire county council.

There is also the question of identity. Counties and parishes are anciently formed areas. Districts are quite often not; they are modern constructs in many cases, sometimes dating back only to 1974. How does that affect people’s sense of identity? That is half a century ago. I know that makes us all feel a little depressed; I was born in 1969. Over time, they acquire more of an identity, which we should think about.

The hon. Member for Ipswich was right when he said that local government reorganisation is complex, consequential and long-lasting. He also made a lot of having a mandate for change. There were loads of things about change in the Labour manifesto—it said “change” on the front cover. It did not say that the change would include this precise type of local government reorganisation, involving moving specifically to unitary councils. Because it is complex, consequential and long-lasting, it warrants a steady and sober assessment of the implications for all our residents.

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[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) on securing this timely debate. I have listened to colleagues who feel passionate about their towns, villages and counties. We have heard about Leicestershire, Hampshire, Suffolk and now Devon—all wonderful great English counties. It shows that whatever party we belong to, we care about the communities that we come from.

We want the best local government structure that works for local people and delivers services, but it is also about identity. For me, as a proud Essex MP, being stuck in this artificial creation called Greater London has never been good, so radical reform of local government is needed, and it needs to be as local as possible. True democracy is at a local level, not in some bureaucratic organisation in a city. It is local to villages and communities, which is where it should be. We should all work to achieve that and make it as democratic as possible.

On behalf of, I believe, local people the length and breadth of England, I would like to add my voice to the chorus of outrage against this Labour Government’s decision to delay an ever-increasing number of local government elections under the guise of restructuring. That is just an excuse not to hold elections. It is nothing less than a blatant attempt to hide themselves from the scrutiny of the ballot box, silencing the voices of millions of voters on the local issues that matter most to daily lives. I, alongside my new Reform UK colleagues here in Parliament, totally oppose the ditching of democracy in such a way.

Reform UK has launched a legal challenge, including a judicial review, due to be heard this week. We are clear that democracy delayed is democracy denied. The Labour Government are running from the fight of their lives in the upcoming elections on 7 May. There is no way that the British people will let them off the hook. They may delay the elections, but they are just delaying their own defeat and demise. The British people will not forget that it is Labour who have abolished democracy in whole swathes of the country on 7 May.

History tells us that only dictators cancel elections yet, shockingly, 30 local authority leaders have written to the Secretary of State requesting that local democracy be denied and their positions secured for another period without elections.

[Jack Abbott]

As I asked earlier, when the hon. Member did not correct me, did he have an issue when his former leader—either his current former leader or the one before—delayed elections as Local Government Minister? Considering his recent conversion, did he also speak out when the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) postponed elections when he was Secretary of State for Local Government? Does he liken those individuals to dictators as well?

[Andrew Rosindell]

There is always a legitimate case to have a short delay when there is a serious purpose for doing so. I remember when Mrs Thatcher abolished the Greater London Council—what a glorious day that was. We did not have elections for the GLC and extended it for one more year. In circumstances such as that, where it is one more year, there are legitimate reasons to delay, but we are talking now about up to three years. That is unacceptable and completely beyond what is reasonable or necessary to get everything organised and ready for any local government restructure.

[Jack Abbott]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Andrew Rosindell]

I am not going to give way because I know what the hon. Member is going to say. In my borough there have been no delays or restructuring for many years, so it has not affected my area. That is why I have not spoken about delayed elections in other areas; that is for other Members to have done during those restructures.

I would love local government to be restructured in the Greater London area—I have been calling for that for many years. Sadly, my former party refused to countenance such a thing. Tony Blair recreated the GLC under the guise of the GLA and introduced the elected Mayor of London, which nobody really wants and is very costly. We had the opportunity for 14 years to do something about that.

The hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) also has concerns about the way that the Mayor of London and the GLA have operated, and he will reply from the Opposition Front Bench later. I am interested to hear whether a future Government that the Conservatives are part of will be radical and actually do something about the artificial local government structure that has been imposed on us in the Greater London area.

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[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) for securing this important debate and congratulate him on the excellent points he made in his speech.

Local government holds a special place in our multilayered and multifaceted democracy. It is democratically accountable, inherently bottom-up and strongly community-minded. The average local authority delivers more than 800 different services, providing key day-to-day functions that represent, for most people, the most noticeable interactions with political choices and democratic management. Whether it is bins, potholes, recycling and waste, libraries, adult social care or SEND services, the most obvious impact of many people’s choices at the ballot box are those delivered at the local level in their parish, district or county council.

I am especially aware of that having served as a local councillor in the London borough of Bexley for 23 years and, on a regional level, as a London Assembly member for 13 years. It was a privilege to serve my constituents in those positions, just as it is as a Member of Parliament. That is why I know that local government deserves support and respect. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly clear that the Labour Government do not share that view.

Along with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), I noted that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) said that local government reorganisation is complex, consequential and long-lasting. He is completely correct on that. However, my right hon. Friend was also completely correct to say that there was nothing in the Labour party manifesto that suggested a top-down, nationwide structural reorganisation of all local councils. There was no mention of riding roughshod over the wishes of local people and local government, but that is exactly the course the Government are pursuing. We have heard today from right hon. and hon. Members how the Government’s plans, which stretch far beyond the platform that they stood for at the election, will impact their local area and constituents.

The Government’s programme of so-called devolution is already having sweeping impacts on councils and local people—not least, as we have seen for the second time in as many years, with the likelihood of the cancellation of local elections across vast swathes of the country. It is telling that of the 63 councils offered the chance to postpone elections by the Government, nearly three quarters of those doing so are Labour run or have a Labour majority. Following on from the Liberal Democrats spokesman, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), there are a further four local authorities where the Liberal Democrats have at least a share of power, and one where they are in outright control.

It is widely believed that Labour is denying democracy and running scared of voters by cancelling elections where it feels it will get a pasting. Independent voices—from academia to politics and the Electoral Commission—are urging that the elections should go ahead. Just recently, the Government told us they would. As the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, told the House on Monday:

“Just before Christmas, the Minister highlighted that councils were asked to delay elections, after the Secretary of State had repeatedly told our Committee that they would be going ahead…I am concerned that we are seeing a postponement yet again.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2026; Vol. 779, c. 58-59.]

Her argument was supported by the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer), who said:

“As a former leader of a major council and a Labour MP, I find this completely embarrassing. A Labour Government should not be taking the vote away from 3.7 million people. It is completely unprecedented for a Labour Government to do that. There is clearly a vested interest for some councillors who may feel, looking at the opinion polls, that they will lose their seat.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2026; Vol. 779, c. 60.]

He is surely correct in his assertion that this is what lies behind the Government’s actions. When 3.7 million people are being denied the right to vote and the Government’s excuse is their own radically top-down and botched reorganisation of local government, it is no wonder that local people feel so ignored and insulted, as hon. Members have made clear today.

Let me make it clear again: the Conservative party’s position is that the elections should go ahead. Our line has been completely clear and consistent. This mass suppression of democracy is, perhaps, the most egregious of the many negative outcomes of the Government’s bungled restructuring programme, although it is far from the only one.

The greatest scandal comes in the Government’s approach to local councils as they seek to carry out this unmandated position. It is vital that local councils—the elected representatives of local people—and the communities in which they live are heard throughout any process affecting the make-up, functions and form of their local democratic institutions. Instead, Labour’s approach has been to dictate from Whitehall, forcing councils to sign up to a prescribed model of restructuring, imposed from the centre and leaving local people without a voice. We believe that true devolution requires clarity, accountability and sustainability in funding, elections and structure, but the Government have offered none of those things.

While local referenda are expensive and non-binding, they provide another collective voice that could feed into the debate about how people want to be represented. The voices of local people should be front and centre of any restructuring process, but sadly, given their current approach, even if there were local referenda, it appears likely that this Government would simply ignore any view that did not correspond with their own.

[Jack Abbott]

I think there is a short-term memory issue here. The hon. Gentleman talks about referendums, but the Conservative Government held a whole heap on mayoralties in 2012 and then ignored all the outcomes. He says he values local government, which is incredibly welcome, but his party hollowed out local government funding, and we have seen the cost of that. When the Conservatives were in power, they suspended a number of elections to consider local government reorganisation, including those involving the Leader of the Opposition—why has there suddenly been this volte-face in the last few weeks?

[Gareth Bacon]

Three local elections were delayed by one year in 2021, all of which were the result of local government reorganisations; a consultation took place with the authorities affected in advance and their views were taken on board. That is in complete contrast with what the Labour Government are doing right now. They are riding roughshod over the views of local people and cancelling elections for the second year running.

It is vital that communities get the real empowerment they deserve, that taxpayers get the accountability they pay for and that new structures face proper scrutiny. That is why, on Report and Third Reading of the devolution Bill, the Opposition urged the Government to look again and accept amendments to ensure that the Bill provided those key tenets; true to form, the Government ignored those entreaties. The Opposition will continue to vote against the Government in Parliament on their botched handling of this issue.

If the Government do not listen to local people, through whatever democratic means, we face a future for local government in which power is stripped from genuinely local authorities and people—parishes, town councils, neighbourhood groups and civic institutions—and centralised within geographically and demographically distant authorities instead. While the Government’s track record speaks for itself with rushed, top-down reorganisations of local government and higher council tax burdens on residents, the Conservatives believe that communities deserve a voice—not another expensive restructure that sidelines local priorities, moves decision making further away from voters and inflates the cost for taxpayers.

While referenda, like elections, could be ignored by a Government who appear indifferent to the views of voters, the Opposition believe in local voices and will continue to stand up for our local democratic institutions. Our electoral process should not be abused or bent to the will of a particular party for its own partisan benefit. Ministers should treat voters with respect instead of disdain, stop undermining our democratic system and let the people of this country make their own decisions.