English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Rachel Gilmour Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Vikki Slade]

I will come to that later in my speech, when I will share the concerns of electoral officials about whether the legislation can deliver in time for any of the changes scheduled for next year. Although I recognise that there is an anomaly for next year, even electoral officials are worried about the Bill’s timeline and the ability to make any changes for 2026 and for those who have already had elections delayed.

Across the sector, there are serious concerns about the power of the commissioners that will be appointed by mayors—people with significant influence but little scrutiny. There is concern that they will hold more sway than elected leaders of local authorities but without any democratic accountability. In the very centre, the Secretary of State will retain sweeping powers to merge authorities and extend functions without parliamentary oversight or local consent. I am seeking an explanation of how and when those powers would be used, so that we can assure our local leaders that they will not be overridden.

There is widespread concern about the loss of highly skilled, experienced councillors through the removal of district councils. I noted the Secretary of State’s concerns about putting power into the hands of too few people. How will she ensure that there is not a democratic and skills deficit and that people are properly represented across these larger regions?

For the last decade, the Conservative Government have cut funding to councils but forced them to do more. Their economic mismanagement and failure to fix social care has left many councils on the brink of collapse. This Bill was an opportunity for real local government reform, but it is an opportunity missed.

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

A particular concern of my constituents in Tiverton and Minehead, where we have one local authority in Devon and one in Somerset, is the real difficulties around special educational needs and disabilities. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill could create difficulties for local authorities that are struggling to deliver good SEND education for so many of our children?

[Vikki Slade]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Special educational needs are a huge passion of mine—I am sure Members have heard me talk about them many times—and this issue will take so many councils to a very dark place. I trust that the Minister hears that on a regular basis and that we will see in the fair funding review something really serious about special educational needs provision.

Local authorities have unique access to every household and business, which gives them a huge opportunity to improve people’s health and wellbeing. The Bill requires strategic authorities to improve the health of their communities, but I am concerned that it does not provide substantial funding to do that, and without that funding, I cannot see how it can be achieved. While the Bill makes substantial improvements to the workings of audit, it misses the opportunity to shine a light on all the places that taxpayers’ money is spent through the introduction of local public accounts committees. I was reassured to hear the Secretary of State refer to that being in her thinking, but rolling them out alongside strategic authorities would really aid transparency, improve value for money and enable organisations to share resources for the good of the community. I urge the Government to reflect on that as we go towards the Report stage.

The Bill also proposes that strategic authorities take on the functions of police and crime commissioners and fire authorities. However, because of the disparity in boundaries, there is a real risk that community priorities will not be maintained, and the control of such things by appointed rather than elected commissioners further reduces democratic accountability. How will the Government ensure fair funding and effective policing and fire services where strategic authorities cover vastly different communities?

Councils have expressed similar concerns about a mismatch between places within those authorities—for example, the different needs of urban and rural areas, or the inclusion of a single authority among a cluster of places with very different levels of deprivation or demographics. Some communities feel that where decisions are made by simple majority vote, their voice will not be heard. Weighted voting and the meaningful inclusion of town and parish councils can ensure that local insight is retained, particularly around issues such as planning and transport.

Representation must not end there. This Bill was an opportunity to ensure that local services draw on and are informed by the full range of lived experiences in an area.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Rachel Gilmour Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. The time limit for speeches is now three minutes.

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

I will speak in favour of new clause 38, which I tabled. It seeks to introduce measures to prevent developers from using their own surveyors who have a vested interest in downgrading agricultural land in order to secure planning permission—particularly for solar farms—to build all over our countryside, taking farmers’ land and livelihoods.

The new clause was born out of a specific issue that was raised with me in my constituency. In Washford, a farmer called Mr Dibble—no kidding—has a farm in his family’s name. They have been there for generations. Some time ago, developers came to see him with a plan for development on the farm, and he refused. His lease is guaranteed for another generation, but the solar farm developers did not seem to care. He reached out to me because of the unfairness of the situation. I was shocked to find out that the developers had organised a surveyor to visit his property, who had deemed it sub-par agricultural land. Anyone with eyes can see that that is not the case. Farmer Dibble would not have been able to grow the crops that he has on that land had it been of the quality that the developers claimed it was. His land is grade 1 or 2 at the very least, yet surveyors are coming in, paid for by the developers, to say that—surprise, surprise—it is grade 3 at best.

At present, local authorities’ hands are tied. They have no powers to order independent assessments of land quality, nor the ability to pass judgment on the assessments made by others. My new clause seeks to give them that power. It also seeks to enshrine the employment of a land use framework for planning and development decisions. Along with many others in this place, I am sure, I am still waiting to hear the results of the land use framework consultation from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but I hope that it follows the principles set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos). If a development is proposed for agricultural land that falls outside the land use framework and there are competing assessments of the agricultural grade of that land, then new clause 38 would give local authorities the power to demand that a new, independent assessment of land quality be undertaken. That would stop the railroading of farmers and help to preserve good agricultural land, rather than seeing it built over.

Our farmers are our future. I call on hon. Members to back new clause 38 and new clause 17, which has been tabled in the name of my party.