English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Third sitting)

Perran Moon Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I call Perran Moon.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

Meur ras—thank you, Sir John. The Bill places me in an invidious situation. For thousands of years, the people of Cornwall have been considered different from the rest of the country. Indeed, the word Cornwall means “land of foreigners”. We call it Kernow—the people of the promontory.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is not the only person with an interest, and that there are other amendments on the same topic. He mentions that he is satisfied with the Government’s assurances. We have not directly sought those assurances; would he be willing to set out for the Committee the nature of them, so that we can all understand what has been committed to and can be well informed when we come to make voting decisions later on?

[Perran Moon]

I have had no commitments; I have had discussions with Ministers. We have had discussions about the difficulties with the proposals made here, with the potential for the Bill to become a hybrid Bill and the complications that that would bring. I am happy to keep talking to the Government in a spirit of openness, reflecting the views of every political party in Cornwall bar one. On that basis, I am content to keep talking. I cannot support the amendments because of the negative change that I think they would make to the nature of the Bill, so I will be voting against them.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I put on record my thanks to hon. Members who are championing specific areas that have a unique identity, which the Government completely recognise. On amendments 43 and 44, I pay tribute to the hon. Members who have been championing the Isle of Wight and its proud history. The Government understand and support the intent behind the amendments, but we will not be taking them forward. Let me explain why.

Earlier this year, Isle of Wight council, Hampshire county council, Portsmouth city council and Southampton city council submitted a joint expression of interest in the Government’s devolution priority programme. They went through a consultation process, based on the proposed name of Hampshire and the Solent. This was not imposed by the Government; it came as a proposal from the local area, and on that basis a public consultation was conducted.

It is worth saying that of the 6,000 responses we received, only a small minority commented specifically on the name of the proposed combined authority area. The Government’s response to that consultation is online, if hon. Members want to look at it. It is important to say that once it is established, it is completely open to any combined authority or combined county authority to change its name by resolution, with the consent of its members and using existing powers. That is already in the Bill. The Liverpool city region combined authority and the South Yorkshire mayoral combined authority have both changed their names in the same way. There was no constraint from Government; the powers are there. It is within the gift of local areas to go ahead and do that.