English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We as a Government are committed to putting in place a neighbourhood governance framework, and that framework will set in place the key principles. It will be a guide for what effective, strong neighbourhood governance looks like. We will put in place regulation and guidance to support local authorities as they go through the endeavour of working with their communities to put the right structure in place. We have done a huge amount of work with the sector, and have taken evidence, which has informed the principles, but one of the big messages we got from everyone across the sector is: “Whatever you do, do not dictate what this looks like; build on what exists, and ultimately leave it to communities and local areas to come up with the right model for them.” When the sector speaks, we listen.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

If the Minister reckons that Ministers should not dictate what local government structures should be, will she let areas that have two-tier government, and that want to keep their district councils, keep them? My area does; it wants to keep Conservative-run Broxbourne district council. Why is she mandating that we go to unitary authorities, when she is clearly saying, as a Minister at the Dispatch Box, that she does not want to dictate what local government looks like across the country?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I have had this debate many times with the hon. Member. His Government were in power for over a decade and oversaw the decimation and denuding of local authorities through a sustained period of austerity. His Government saw that local authorities were not sustainable, yet did not act. It falls to this Government to recognise those failures. We care about having strong local government that can deliver services for communities. Local government reorganisation is neither easy nor fun—it is hugely time-consuming, and we know that it is a difficult endeavour for our local authorities—but it was a necessity because of the previous Government’s failure to act for nearly a decade and a half. They saw the failings and issues in local government and did not respond; we have not done that.

We were clear that, ultimately, we would ask local areas to come forward with a range of proposals, based on a set of criteria. They have done that, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Homelessness is judging the proposals that have come forward against the objective criteria that have been set. What we would not do—I will never concede on this point—is nothing, because that would have left local government collapsing at the very time when our communities need it to be working.

I reassure hon. Members that we think that we have struck the right balance, particularly on town and parish council governance. We are clear that town and parish councils have an important role. We are driving forward community power—something I am fundamentally passionate about and committed to—but we have balanced that with the imperative that national Government must not dictate the structure; that must be left to local areas to decide.

I would like to pick up on “brownfield first”, raised by the hon. Members for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, and for Guildford (Zöe Franklin). I continue to stress that the Government fully agree with, and support, the principle of “brownfield first”. There is no difference in policy intent here, and there never has been. We have demonstrated our commitment by strengthening support for brownfield development in national policy in December 2024, and we proposed further changes earlier this year. I have been clear that the NPPF is the framework under which planning policy and decisions are and should be made, and it remains the most appropriate tool for supporting brownfield development.