English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Vikki Slade and Perran Moon

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Public Bill Committees

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

Q A quick question to Councillor Hicks. In your role as chair of the County Council Network, have you had any discussions with or representations from Konsel Kernow, Cornwall Council? If you have, what is the nature of those discussions in relation to mayoral combined authorities?

Matthew Hicks: I have only been in post a week, so I cannot give you an answer as to whether those discussions have taken place in the past. Certainly I know we have looked at the Cornwall business case and Cornwall has always been well represented and a strong voice at the CCN, putting its case very strongly, and I am sure that will continue in the future. However, I cannot answer that question today.

[Vikki Slade]

Q This is a big question, but I know you need to give a quick answer. I think everyone is agreed, or most of us are agreed, that local government needs to reform urgently. Is this it? What is not in the Bill that should have been if we are going to do this properly? There is still an opportunity for us to do that.

Bev Craig: As we touched on earlier, sometimes a conflation of resource and organisation. It is important to draw the distinction that we are not here today to put forward the LGA’s position around the resourcing component, but it is important that we still see that outside the Bill. From an LGA perspective, we would be looking for more clarity on competencies as people move into strategic authorities, and really important is thought around what capacity and support is given to councils as they move through their transition. There are other things that we will continue to push for—for example, thinking about the role of civic and cultural competencies in strategic authorities and how they play into place. Fundamentally, in the Bill we want recognition that local authorities play a key role in delivering all of this, and without collaboration there will not be success.

Kevin Bentley: If I can leave you with one word, it is implementation. Although it does not feel like it, drawing lines on a map and putting the evidence forward is the easy part. Doing it is something very different. We learn from the experience of others and we look at others. This round of devolution is very different from what has happened before. We are creating new large authorities and devolving and disaggregating services upward to those authorities, so we must resource implementation properly. I would like to see a much firmer line on resourcing—not telling us how to do it, because I think we know locally how to do it, but making sure there is resourcing for us to do it. We have to remember that while we are doing that, with shadow elections for us in 2027, we still have to deliver the day job. That is about people and certainly in upper tier authorities, it is about some vulnerable people.

My only concern throughout all of this, and I am and always have been a great devolutionist, is that we do something or miss something and somebody falls through a crack and is left behind. None of us must allow that to happen. I know we will not and we will work very hard, but we need the proper resourcing to make that happen. This is fundamental change and is very unlikely to happen again for the next 50, 60 or even more years in the future. We have to get it right. Our successors will not thank us if we do not.