English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to two amendments in this group: Amendments 256 and 264. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, has added his name to them, for which I thank him.

Both of these amendments attempt to tackle, though in slightly different ways, the problem of law/not law to which the noble Lord just referred. It is about that accumulation of sludge on the statute book of legislation that has been passed by Parliament but never commenced. That is a problem for two reasons. One is that, in a way, it undermines Parliament’s role because, when legislation is passed by Parliament, it is meant to become law. It is not meant to be simply a menu for future Ministers to pick and mix from as they wish, with commencement orders whenever they fancy. If Parliament has made the decision that something should be law, we should be able to have confidence that it will become law.

There is also a more practical problem: the huge complexity of the statute book, which flows from having this mix of legislation that has been passed and commenced, passed but only partially commenced and passed but not commenced. This is a problem because it builds up incrementally. Indeed, that is partly why the problem exists. At every individual level and every individual stage where we add a little more sludge to the system, it is easy to say, “Oh, it doesn’t really matter this time. It’s not really that important”—but it accumulates.

I will give a little example of the scale. The House of Lords Library very kindly pulled together a list for me of all of the Acts relevant to local government in England that have been passed since 1960 but have not yet been fully commenced. Bear in mind that some of these Acts were passed by Parliament before several Members of the House of Lords had even been born, yet 44 such Acts have never yet been fully commenced.

In these two amendments, I try to take two different angles on the problem. Amendment 256 is a probing amendment picking out four examples of legislation that passed a significant time ago but has not yet been commenced. If parts of that legislation have been hanging around for so long and never been commenced, perhaps we should do a little tidying-up and take the opportunity of this Bill to clear out some of those leftovers from the statute book.

The other amendment, Amendment 264, seeks to tackle this problem from a slightly different angle. It is in the nature of closing the stable door after the horses have bolted, because the statute book already has that complexity, but, as we keep on—to extend the analogy, perhaps to breaking point—adding new horses to the stable with a continuous flow of legislation, would it not be better to at least stop making things worse by ensuring that we have confidence that a piece of legislation will be fully implemented, at some point? Five years in the future, it provides a generous backstop to say that, whatever Parliament decides to pass overall, we will be sure that it comes into force at a particular date in the future.

I very much hope that the Minister will reflect on the fact that there are some areas of law where the Government absolutely understand and value having a neat and clear statute book. We have a regular rolling programme for consolidation of the rules of procedure for various parts of the legal system, which is hugely beneficial, but we should be a little more ambitious and not simply restrict the benefits of neat and tidy parts of the statute book to those where it has always been done; we should perhaps be a little imaginative in starting to extend some of those benefits to a greater part of the statute book. I very much hope that the Minister will, in due course, show some desire to expand the level of neatness and clarity in the statute book.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this is not the first time I have found myself getting in the way of the last part of a Bill, usually in talking about territorial extent. The last train that would get me to Saltaire tonight leaves King’s Cross just after 7 pm, so I will try my best to be brief.

This is about terminology but also about honesty. My amendments would provide some tighter definitions of “local”, “community” and “neighbourhood”. Having seen the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, tabled on “parish”, perhaps I should have also included one on that. I note that his definition of a parish council includes anything that may have the same population as Greenland. The intended ideal size for a “local authority”, which this takes us to, is about the same as the population of Luxembourg. That is not really local government and it certainly is not local democracy.

I grew up believing that all politics is local, and that citizen engagement is a fundamental part of what politics should be about. This would take politics away from the local community and neighbourhood representative model, with references to community groups that are not representative but are entirely self-formed from civil society. I would not only regret that but think it a deep step back away from the principle of democratic self-government.

I know from my early experience with the Labour Party in Manchester that there are many within Labour who regard the relationship between the party and local people as one in which Labour delivers services and the local people are supposed to be grateful for them. The Liberal approach to democracy is one in which we work with people, and we expect and encourage citizens to be engaged in local and community politics.

This is a Bill that abuses the terms “community”, “neighbourhood”, “parish” and “local”. It sets up sub-regional strategic authorities and reduces the number of local elections and councillors. If I understood the answers to the Question yesterday, it is intended that, following this legislation, the next thing will be to reduce the number of local councils and borough councils in the Greater London Authority so that we have local authorities in London that are roughly the size of Luxembourg.

I regret this; as I have sat through Committee on this Bill I have found the whole Bill deeply distasteful and weakening of our democracy—but there we are. However, I wish that the Government would at least be a little tighter in their use of these important terms than they have been, and those are the intentions of my amendments.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to this final group of amendments, beginning with Amendment 251 in the name of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, which would require the Secretary of State to review the operation of the Act after five years and to report before Parliament. This report would assess the extent to which the objectives intended to be achieved by this legislation have been achieved, and whether objectives and measures remain appropriate.

This amendment speaks to a broader concern throughout Committee on this Bill. It is simply not clear what the Government’s objectives are in the Bill, as it does not follow through on its title—as we tried clearly to explain with the purpose clause in the first group of amendments on the first day of Committee. I cannot remember how many weeks ago that was. As we have said before, the financial implications are unclear, as well as whether local authorities will have the capacity to deliver on their responsibilities. But I do not think that we should wait to find that out in five years’ time; we need, and indeed your Lordships’ House deserves, that clarity now about the finances and the geographical configuration of these new authorities.

Amendment 256 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pack, intends to repeal the statutory provisions, which have never been enacted. I thank the noble Lord for taking the time to do this to simplify the statute book, unless the Minister can outline reasons as to why these provisions must be kept or announces a timeline for their commencement.

Amendment 264, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pack, would ensure that the provisions in this Bill will be enacted within five years of its receiving Royal Assent. Again, we must have the assurance that the Government intend to follow through on legislation agreed in this House, and to be clear on what their exact plans are for the powers contained within it.

Amendments 257 to 259 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, seek to divine more clearly in law what is meant by “local”, “community” and “neighbourhood”. That has been a crucial debate throughout Committee; we need to ensure that newly reorganised authorities and local government structures are not just areas neatly drawn on a map for the ease of those in central government. We on these Benches believe that they must also reflect local people’s wishes and be in keeping with local history and traditions. However, we have to be realistic—these new authorities are also going to be responsible for delivering not just very local services, which are now delivered by the district councils or by the town and parish councils, but the big services of social care, SEND, highways and so on. This legislation must not be based on a shallow understanding of what constitutes local communities and neighbourhoods. If anything, I am not sure that the noble Lord’s proposed definition of “local” as

“an area suitable for shared government, linked by easy communication”

goes far enough. People do not think of their local communities and neighbourhoods as districts or from the top-down perspective of governance structures.