Local Government Reorganisation: Referendums

Rebecca Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jack Abbott]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is slightly mistaken. In my own patch in Suffolk, for instance, the devolution proposed under the previous Government meant handing out a few more powers for a tiny bit of extra money. We are proposing unitarisation of places such as Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, plus a mayoral candidate for the elections in 2028. What we are seeing is far more radical and significant; in fact, for my part of the world, it is the most significant change in local government for more than 50 years, so it is a big step change from what the previous Conservative Government proposed.

For decades, power has been hoarded in Westminster and Whitehall while local councils were stripped of capacity, fragmented in structure and left struggling to meet rising demands after having their funding hollowed out. Nowhere is that failure clearer than in my home county of Suffolk. In a past life I was a county councillor, and I do not believe that the current status quo is working—I do not think many people living locally do, either. Although I accept that that is due to severe hollowing-out of funding over 15 years, a do-nothing approach is clearly not an option for us either.

Those sorts of issues—pot holes left unrepaired, special educational needs provision in crisis, children and families passed from pillar to post and adult social care under unbearable strain—are not abstract problems. They affect people’s daily lives, their dignity and their trust in local democracy. The truth is that the current system is not working, and we needed to do something radical. As I said, a do-nothing approach is not a neutral option, but a decision not to change how local government is structured and empowered. It would simply condemn communities such as mine to more of the same.

That is why the Government are choosing to devolve and not dictate through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. We are rebuilding local government so that it has the strength, scale and capability to deliver—[Interruption.] We hear chortling on the Conservative Benches, but the Conservative Suffolk county council requested this process and has also consulted with the public. People were able to put their views forward.

Our county council has put forward an option for a single unitary authority, and all the district and borough councils have put forward an option for three unitary authorities, so there has been significant consultation at local level. Parties of all stripes, although they may disagree on which outcome they would like to see, have all engaged constructively in this process on the whole.

We are looking to transfer power out of Westminster and into communities, and to give local leaders the tools to drive growth, create jobs and improve living standards. This is about rebalancing decades-old divides and, as I said, we have not seen this sort of reorganisation in my part of the world for more than 50 years.

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

The hon. Member is making a very powerful speech for an area of the country that is still two tier. However, having been a representative in a unitary council and lived in one for a number of years, it is worth putting on the record that being part of a unitary authority does not mean that potholes or SEND provision are perfect. I appreciate that that is probably not what he is implying, but someone listening to this debate might be led to believe, mistakenly, that unitarisation is a silver bullet. Does he agree that we need to be realistic about that?

[Jack Abbott]

Absolutely. I agree wholeheartedly that unitarisation or local government reorganisation alone is not a magic bullet. The things the hon. Member describes are due to severe underfunding. Pothole and road maintenance funding fell to around £17 million a year, down from £20 million, although it crept up again. We are putting much more money into that. We saw bus services shredded in the previous 14 years, but we now have the biggest upgrade to bus services since 1998. Some of those things will help; I believe that unitarisation will help to deliver better public services, and provide more of a single point of accountability for voters, but change also comes down to leadership, culture and investment.

In Suffolk there is a credible, detailed and ambitious alternative to the status quo. In my opinion, the proposal for three unitary councils put forward by all the district borough councils of Ipswich, Mid Suffolk, Babergh, East Suffolk and West Suffolk clearly shows that this is not a partisan project, but a set of proposals put forward by politicians of all stripes. It is a collaborative effort across political parties, grounding in evidence and focused on outcomes.

I believe it would be simpler for residents: there would be a single point of contact, as mentioned earlier, and more accountability, ending the confusion over who is responsible for what. Anyone who has knocked on doors will have heard residents say, “I don’t care who it is—I just want the council to fix it.” That is a sentiment that is shared quite widely.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) for securing this debate.

I have made no secret of my views, unlike some Members who have kept their views to themselves on the outcome they would like. That is because I have a deep conviction, as someone who grew up in the area, of what feels right and what my constituents wish to see. I am in an interesting position because I am Plymouth born and bred, have served as a unitary city councillor, and now represent 40,000 residents in the city as their MP, but I do not believe the city needs to expand to deliver what it wants to. The plan is for an arbitrary number, which I genuinely believe is for land for homes and increased council tax receipts that villages such as Wembury, Yealmpton, Bickleigh, Woolwell, Newton Ferrers and Noss Mayo would provide.

Devon is an interesting county, and a big one. It is the fourth largest county in the country, which I think people often forget, and is therefore very varied. We have national landscapes, Dartmoor national park, the largest naval base in western Europe, the Roman city of Exeter, a huge amount of manufacturing, and cultural gems, such as Saltram House in my constituency. Therefore, a plan that is entirely bottom-heavy—two cities and a large town coming together to say, “We’ll look after ourselves, guv,” and the rest of the county being left on its own—has understandably not landed that well with what is considered “the rest of Devon” but is, I gently point out, more than 50% of the population.

What we know about the county of Devon is that local identity matters hugely. That means that the whole county needs to thrive as a result of local government reorganisation, rather than there just being pockets of investment and development and then everybody else. Along the lines of what my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said about the age profile, in a lot of rural Devon there are lots of older people, and the young and working population is in the big cities.

That is why it is not surprising that 90% of those who completed surveys that I have conducted on the local government reorganisation plans are against the plans to subsume 13 parishes in my constituency into Plymouth city council, and why approximately 1,900 people signed a petition to say the same. I have to say that, although Plymouth city council has done the consultation it is supposed to, the figure it shared with me for the number of residents it heard from was about half the number who have been in communication with me as the MP.

Those statistics come directly from constituents who currently have no formal voice in the LGR process. When the two cities in Devon seem determined to secure their own future rather than be realistic about the economic viability of the rest of Devon, it is not hard to see why my constituents are unhappy. As it stands, the LGR process has resulted in a bidding war and caused local councils, such as some in Devon, to pick the best bits at the expense of the rest. Obviously, that is my opinion, but that is what I am watching happen across the county. That is why I am against Plymouth and Exeter’s proposal to carve off the parishes that they think will get them to the magic number of about 300,000 that they have in their head, never mind what else happens. They literally call it, “the rest of Devon.”

The Government claim that consultation is taking place—I know that it is, because I have been invited to take part in it—but it is not the mass inquiry that I think we are talking about today. I do not necessarily think that it has to be a referendum, but something more formal would have been better. Options for Members of Parliament have been limited. I, for one, have been quite proactive. I have gone out to find out what my constituents think, and will be writing to the Minister to share their views. Other local MPs have written to the Minister simply based on their own political views without surveying their residents.

Local councils are being taken at their word. They may have carried out consultations, but they have been written up by the very people who want the change where there is a huge vested interest in seeing it delivered. They are quite literally marking their own homework. I know they have tried to be fair and spoken to as many people as they possibly can, but I am still not happy that that should be given greater weight than any of the information that Members of Parliament are sharing. One of the consultations the Minister will have received from the council implies that it has consulted with local MPs. Well, the only consultation was when I rang them to say, “Why have you said you have consulted with me when I have not actually heard from you?” They have had an opportunity and it has not been taken properly, which has left quite a bad taste in the mouth of Members of Parliament like me.

What we really need is a formal consultation of the communities affected. In this case, that should be county-wide, rather than just in the pockets that want to see delivery for themselves. Devon is a huge county, and a coherent consultation has been very difficult because so many options have been on the table. There has been a consultation for each individual plan, and none of them look at the big picture; they all look at the view that the particular council or group has been proposing. In a county like Devon, where the two key cities have Labour councils and majority Labour MPs, and with a Labour Government calling for this change, it is unsurprising that local people are doubtful of the proposals. I appreciate that it is all being done in good faith, but that is how it comes across at the moment.

Local identity really matters where there is a connection between urban and rural. That is what I am trying to present this afternoon. I am stuck in the middle, so to speak, between an urban city that ultimately needs money in its most deprived parts, and the country parishes, which are deemed richer. However, the whole south-west is poorer than large parts of the rest of the country, so we are comparing apples and pears, rather than like for like. Some 67% of those surveyed identified as being from Devon. I appreciate this was not a qualitative exercise, but 10% identified as being from Plymouth; and 18% typically named their small town or village as where they are from. That might not change, but to start having rubbish collected and services provided by the big city down the road is deeply concerning for a lot of rural villages, so imposing a top-down decision on communities like mine has, as I have mentioned, gone down very badly.

In the absence of a referendum, I call on the Minister to weigh heavily the evidence from MPs like myself where we can show community engagement among our own constituencies. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Perhaps the Department could have encouraged independent consultation rather than each of the groups’ creating their own plan and doing their own consultation, because I genuinely think they have gone and written up the answers that they want to portray. What I have heard is certainly not what I have had presented back to me by the councils.

I urge the Minister to look at Devon as a whole, as a county that has so much to offer. If it is left to cities and the rest of Devon, it will not necessarily be in the greatest interests of the county. I urge her to listen to the views of everybody, not just those from large cities, which, as I have said, make up less than half the county’s population.

I have one further question for the Minister. We have heard plenty this afternoon about the different services that can be provided by different councils. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) mentioned precepts. A confusing thing that has not been talked about is that as the change happens, we are not looking at a level playing field on council tax. In Plymouth at the moment we pay council tax to the unitary authority, but the district council, the parish council and county council get money. It is my understanding that precepts will remain for the parts of the unitary that are not in the city, and that we will end up with parts of my constituency paying more council tax than others.

Interestingly, there is an offer of creating town councils in new bits. Some of the independent councillors in one community in my constituency are pushing to create a town council in Plympton. I do not think the constituency is clear whether that means that the council tax will go up to pay for that new town council or the parish council. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that, just to make it ultra-clear what we are talking about on the ground.