Tag Archives: english devolution and community empowerment bill

Defending Local Democracy

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 2nd April 2026 - 9:20 am

While we are all campaigning in this year’s local elections, Liberal Democrats need to be aware of the implications of the ‘English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill’, which has already passed the Commons and is now close to completing its passage in the Lords. It’s designed to complete the project the Conservatives began of imposing elected mayors and ‘Combined Authorities’ all across England, with larger unitary authorities to replace remaining district and county councils.

As the Liberal Democrat group’s Cabinet Office spokesman, I had not intended to get actively involved in the Bill beyond its constitutional significance for the governance of the United Kingdom – which is almost ignored in the Bill. Sitting alongside our Bill team as we moved from Second Reading through eight days of committee and two days of voting on amendments at report stage (one more to come on April 13^th), I’ve become more and more appalled – like my colleagues – of what it means for local democracy.

Its title itself is fraudulent. It’s about decentralization, not real devolution, and it empowers mayors, not communities. Its underlying assumption is that the minimum size for efficient local administration is a ‘community’ of half a million people, with ‘strategic’ decisions taken above that level by mayors in ‘Combined Authorities’ responsible for 1-2 million or more. Just for comparison, there are two sovereign European states with populations of half a million – Malta and Iceland, each with subordinate tiers of democratic government. Luxembourg is slightly larger. The larger combined authorities cater for populations approaching those of the Baltic and Nordic states. They are to be governed by executive mayors, who will appoint a substantial number of ‘commissioners’ as responsible for specific areas – Parliament is still contesting how many they may appoint. Councillors from the unitary authorities below them will have limited powers of scrutiny.

London is both a model and an exception for this reform. Its 32 boroughs (plus the City of London) range from 150,000 to 390,000 people, with an elected Assembly to counterbalance the executive Mayor and his appointed deputies. But there are murmurings that ministers and officials regard London boroughs as ‘outdated’ and wish as soon as possible to shrink their number to some 6-8.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged local democracy and Local government | 7 Comments

Liberal localism, Labour centralism

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 16th July 2025 - 11:50 am

As Parliament approaches the summer recess, the government is pushing out announcements to set the agenda for the autumn. An ‘English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill’, 300 pages long, was published on July 10th, which according to the Local Government Association ‘signals a significant shift of powers from Whitehall to local leaders – making it one of the biggest changes to local government in 50 years. It will have a profound impact on all tiers of local government’. The government is about to publish a White Paper on Election Regulation, in preparation for the Elections Bill it will bring forward in the next parliamentary session. Both have major implications for British democracy; both take us away from a Liberal approach. Last week the ‘UK Government Resilience Action Plan’ was also published, setting out measures to respond to future epidemics, disasters and domestic emergencies.

Looked at together, these three embody Labour’s approach to Britain’s democracy: a deep commitment to the two-party system, a focus on delivery rather than participation, and an assumption that ‘local’ government is about delivering central government’s priorities. Liberal Democrats will want to argue for a much more open democracy, for relying on local activity to respond to local problems and crises, for allowing and encouraging local initiatives and experimentation in providing public services, and in drawing local citizens in as far as we can to participate in public life.

Liberal Democrat local councillors will have strong views on the weakening of local democracy over the past 30-40 years. Reorganisation has decreased the number of elected councillors and Councils, increasing the gap between ‘local’ government and the people it serves. Council taxes have remained the main source of revenue; transfers from central revenues have been cut back and repeatedly altered from one set of conditions to another, while obligations placed on local authorities have increased. What the Bill now proposes is to extend the elected mayoral model across the whole of England, leading ‘strategic authorities’ which will deliver government priorities, with a single tier of local government below them. There will be fewer local elections, and fewer Councils; ‘local’ government itself will become more remote from England’s towns and villages.

The Elections White Paper will reverse some of the damaging aspects of the Conservatives’ 2022 Elections Act. We expect some tightening of the rules on political finance, although Liberal Democrats will press for these to go much further. The voting system for elected mayors that the 2022 Act changed to First Past The Post will be returned to Jack Straw’s ‘supplementary vote’ in the English Devolution Bill, in the hope of getting it in place for the 2026 elections; the Elections Bill is unlikely to offer any concessions to the transformation of the UK’s political landscape, with ‘the two major parties’ failing to retain the support even of half the electorate between them. There will be nothing to address the depths of popular disillusion with Westminster politics.