Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make it her policy that local authority areas which have had elections postponed in May 2025 will have elections in May 2026.

We have postponed local authority elections from May 2025 to May 2026 only, where it is crucial to do so in order to ensure that we can reorganise local government and deliver devolution as quickly as possible.

For those areas which are part of the Devolution Priority Programme, it is the government's intention to deliver a new wave of mayoral elections in May 2026.

For any area in which elections are postponed, we will work with areas to move to elections to new ‘shadow’ unitary councils as soon as possible as is the usual arrangement in the process of local government reorganisation.