English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Mohammed of Tinsley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I very much support the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in opposing Clause 59. As an opponent of centralised control of all sorts, I feel that, if we are talking about democracy, it really ought to mean what it says. Centralised control of any sort is, for me, not democracy.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise that I was not able to speak at Second Reading but I want to speak to the proposition from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, to abolish Clause 59 and Schedule 27. I do this as someone who has lived in Sheffield and who still represents the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, on the council. We were actually on different sides of the argument when that referendum was held in May 2021, when 90,000 people—65% of those who voted in Sheffield—voted to change from the strong leader model. The Liberal Democrats brought that in during the Blair years, because that is what we were told to do.

I find it ironic that we are discussing the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill but we are now dictating the governance arrangements that communities will have. I really do not see how you can stack that up. If communities want to move away from a governance arrangement, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, that can be a simple vote in council or it could be the route that the It’s Our City! community organisation took in Sheffield, which was to collect 25,000 signatures and trigger a referendum. I normally say to councillors that if communities are collecting 20,000-odd signatures, it is best to change your mind, otherwise you are going to get the vote that we had in Sheffield.

I urge the Minister to realise that if you can get the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and me on the same page, having for many years thrown rocks at each other in Sheffield, you seriously need to listen. Although you might favour the strong leader model, if you genuinely believe in community empowerment then let the people decide. If they ultimately want a leader-and-cabinet model, they will vote for it and support it through their local councils. Let us not have this top-down diktat. That is why, on these rare occasions, noble Lords can find me and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, on the same page.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Mohammed of Tinsley for speaking. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in particular. I strongly support the stand part notices on Clause 59 and Schedule 27. The reason has been explained. This is a devolution Bill about community empowerment, but the Government are removing the right of local people to decide for themselves what system of governance they want.

We have this devolution Bill, but the Government decide the form of local governance and say that there will not be a committee system. Where are we now? We are in Parliament, operating as a Committee. I have spoken on this issue many times in recent years. The reason why I believe that we should encourage committee systems is that they decentralise power but, more importantly, they enable scrutiny to take place at the point of decision-making. All too often, scrutiny in local government takes place after the decision. We will debate this further on our eighth day in Committee but I think that this is a fundamental right. I just want to keep the right of a community to create the structure that it wants. That right lies in the Localism Act 2011.

I very much hope that we will come back to this issue on Report. However, there are rumours that we may not get a Report stage and may end up in wash-up prior to Prorogation, because there are not many weeks left. We have a further day in Committee on 5 March and we have to leave an interval to reach Report. Can the Minister tell us whether we are going to have a Report stage? Also, if we are going to have a Report stage, I hope very much that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, will bring this back, because that would give us the power to say to the Government, “You have to think again on this issue. Do not tell local people in all local authorities what model they are required to adopt”.

In the Explanatory Notes, there are explanations for why the Government are undertaking this, but, frankly, they are spurious. They claim that there is evidence, but I do not know what the evidence is. In the end, why do we not just trust local people to make decisions? Otherwise, 56 million people in England will continue to be run out of London and Whitehall.