English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Mawson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I feel bound to remind the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, that the Bill is a Labour continuation of a local government reorganisation started under the Conservatives. This is very much the Michael Gove—now the noble Lord, Lord Gove—view of how England should be governed, with mayors as the key element and large units imposed regardless of place.

I have done my politics in Yorkshire over the years. I think the imposition of a single unitary council, against the preferences of almost all local authority members in North Yorkshire—except York, because York was, by and large, a contest between Liberal Democrats and Labour—was a crucial example of ignoring place-making in everything else.

When I do my politics in Bradford, I am conscious that it is a large unitary authority and I see good councillors struggling to represent their wards, and councillors who are not so good leaving their wards pretty much unrepresented. I support very strongly everything that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said about the importance of place, and of recognising that different areas require different patterns. I also regret the tendency of successive Governments to go in for restructuring when they are not sure what else to do, the unlikelihood that this will lead to better government and, sadly, the likelihood that it will leave more people across England feeling unrepresented and ignored.

I was very struck by a letter I saw this morning from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Fire Safety, Building and Democracy. That seems to me to place the importance given to democracy in the appropriate place according to the Bill. This is supposed to be a democratic Government and a democratic country. All politics is local. The figures on public trust that I see every year show that the public trust Westminster less than they trust local government. Weakening local government is a very bad idea but, unfortunately, that is what the Bill is all about.

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

My Lords, size really does matter. Big is not necessarily beautiful. I am a practitioner, as many know, looking up the telescope from place-making projects we are working on across the country, I declare my interest as such. I am a voice, I suppose, from the charitable and voluntary sector and the social enterprise sector. As I said, I am looking up the telescope into these impenetrable large structures, trying to deliver place-making projects on the ground.

My experience over many years and today confirms what the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is saying: he is correct and we need to be very careful about these matters. My colleagues and I have been working with one county council leader on place-making projects for the past eight years within a large structure. He is an excellent, capable leader, but it was virtually impossible, even with his support, to get this beast to dance to an innovation tune on place-making in his county. It was like swimming through treacle, even though all the politics was in the right place to do it. I found that this structure was too large to have any sense of place or to have any relationships with people on the ground, where it really matters. If future place-making is about bringing people together, people and relationships are crucial.

In practice, this restructuring is already halting many place-making projects in challenging communities in the north of England, as staff look for new jobs. My colleagues and I see and experience it every day. The Government have a right to restructure, but they need to listen very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and those of us working on the ground: the practical details really matter.

The country is in danger of coming to a halt. We need to get interested in practice on the ground and what works in detail. At the moment, practitioners feel ignored. We want to help, but there needs to be a dialogue and real interest in what works on the ground in local communities.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken, in particular my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who made a number of important points about all three of the suggestions before us. I thought the point from the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, was extremely well made: this is about place-making and what happens on the ground. A top-down approach is building the other way around.

I will be very brief. This is a devolution Bill, yet it prescribes what can happen on the ground. I have said that at least half a dozen times in Committee, but I will repeat it again because it deserves to be repeated. I want to give the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, some extra support, because there is an issue with size, as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, pointed out.

I understand that we have an appropriate figure for the size of a unitary authority of some 500,000, but I counsel the Government against using population size as the basis for a calculation. I can remember, a few years ago, when the Minister was the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, having a conversation about the ideal size for Buckinghamshire and Bournemouth in Dorset. I remember being told that, in Buckinghamshire, the ideal size needed to be 350,000, but I was urging a figure of around 300,000. I am quite happy to be wrong about that but, if the Government are moving towards a figure of 500,000, they will have to justify it. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, rightly made the point that you need to consider natural geography, the identity of the authorities and so on. He put it extremely well.

I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government will consider the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I am sure the noble Lord would not mind them adding to it and improving it with new things, but it should form the basis for a consideration of what the ideal unitary size is, which may of course be different in different places. It is for local people to say whether they prefer a model of 500,000, fewer than that or whatever; otherwise, this process will be too top-down.