Local Elections: Cancellation

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government if he will make a statement on the cancellation of scheduled local government elections in May 2026.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. We are undertaking a once-in-a-generation reorganisation of local government. We have now received proposals from all areas, and from councils across the political spectrum. For decades, the two-tier council system, where it still exists, has made local government more complicated and more bureaucratic than it needs to be. This Government are bold enough to change that.

We will put in place single-tier councils everywhere by the end of this Parliament. That will mean faster local decisions to build homes and grow our towns and cities. It will bring services such as housing and social care under one roof, making them more effective and responsive to what communities need, and it will end the duplication that sees two sets of chief executives and two sets of councillors, which creates confusion and waste for local taxpayers. This is a proven model, and when we change to unitaries, we never hear calls for a return to two-tier local government.

On 18 December I updated the House on our plans to seek councils’ views on their elections in May. There is clear precedent for postponing elections due to local government reorganisation—the previous Government postponed many elections between 2019 and 2022 in order to smooth the transition to new councils. I therefore wrote to 63 councils undergoing reorganisations with elections in May to ask them if postponing their elections could release essential capacity to deliver reorganisation and to allow it to progress effectively. It is only right that we listen to councils when they express concerns about their capacity. Local leaders know their areas best and are best placed to judge their own capacity. As we have said, should a council say that it has no reason to delay, we will listen; if a council voices genuine concerns, we will take those seriously.

We are running a legally robust and fair process, and all representations are now being considered before decisions are made. The Secretary of State has written to four councils to ask for more clarity on their position by 10 am tomorrow. These councils are Essex county council, Norfolk county council, Oxford city council and Southampton city council. As I have said, no decisions have been made, but we want to make them as quickly as possible in order to give councils certainty, and we will update Parliament on those decisions in the usual way.

This Government have moved seamlessly from arrogance to incompetence, and now to cowardice. Some 3.7 million people are being denied the right to vote. It was the Government who rushed through a huge programme of local government reorganisation, imposing new structures and timetables, and it is the Government who are failing to deliver them. Rather than take responsibility for their own failure, the Secretary of State has chosen to dump the consequences of their incompetence on to the laps of local councils.

The Government’s own local election strategy said:

“The right to participate in our democracy…should not be taken for granted.”

Cancelling elections was not part of that strategy. The Electoral Commission has been clear that the scheduled elections should go ahead as planned and that capacity constraints are not a legitimate reason for delay. Why was the Electoral Commission not consulted on these cancellations? Why is this being done at the last possible moment? Do the Government accept the Gould principle that at least six months’ notice should be given for any changes to election administration?

Ministers say that they are following the wishes of local councils, and the Minister said at the Dispatch Box that the Secretary of State has written to, among others, Essex county council. The leader of Essex county council has been clear that these elections should go ahead, yet the Secretary of State still cites Essex, among others, to justify the cancellations. It is all well and good for the Secretary of State to write to councils basically to ask them the same question, but they have already given an answer. When does the Secretary of State intend to lay the statutory instruments for these areas, and does he think it is appropriate to use secondary legislation under the Local Government Act 2000? Did Parliament really allow Ministers to run scared and cancel elections at will?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making those points, which I will certainly relay to the Secretary of State so that he can take them under advisement. We wrote to notify the Electoral Commission, and we are grateful for its ongoing engagement. We will certainly have regard to all views and representations made, including those of the Electoral Commission, but this is fundamentally about local councils and their capacity, and that is why we have asked for representations from them.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the Gould principle. That principle is underpinned by the need for certainty, so if there are technical changes, those responsible for the delivery of elections have time to adapt, but this is not about technical changes. We are listening to councils’ views about their capacity in the context of local government reorganisation.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman asked when the Secretary of State will make decisions. We have moved quickly to get these representations from councils, and the Secretary of State will make a decision as soon as he possibly can.

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

I thank the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), for raising this important issue. I accept that the Minister highlighted that there are concerns from councils, but again, we find ourselves in quite a disappointing area. Just before Christmas, the Minister highlighted that councils were asked to delay elections, after the Secretary of State had repeatedly told our Committee that they would be going ahead. As a former election organiser, I know how key dates will be etched in a lot of our minds. It is 108 days until polling day. The deadline for people who have to re-apply for postal votes is 31 January, while the deadline to register to vote is in April. We want people to vote, so I am concerned that we are seeing a postponement yet again. Can the Minister outline when the Government will make the final decisions? Do they plan to reject any of the requests for delays?

The Minister outlined that the Government want councils to be up to date and not have to stress with reorganisation. Reorganisation will take a lot of time and resources, but we are effectively asking councils to choose between running day-to-day services and running an election. It should not be either/or. Councils should be in a state to deliver those services. Can the Minister outline that she is confident that the reorganisation will not distract hard-working frontline staff, impacting residents across the country who rely on the council’s day-to-day services?

My hon. Friend mentions how important it is for elections to take place. As she knows, large numbers of people will be voting in May. We are talking about a relatively discrete number of local authorities undergoing reorganisation. She asked when the Secretary of State will make the decision. He will do that as soon as he possibly can, and we have set out the further information that we have asked for.

My hon. Friend also asked about resources. This is really important, because the whole point of reorganisation is to ensure that we use our resources in the best way possible. It bears repeating, as I have done on many occasions in this House, that local authorities bore the brunt of austerity. We have reconnected council funding with deprivation, and I am anxious to make sure that all local authorities move towards financial sustainability. I look forward to discussing that with my hon. Friend’s Committee further.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I find it really interesting that this urgent question comes from the Conservative party, which sought to cancel local elections this year and last year in Surrey. [Interruption.] Given the professed concern for democracy of the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), I hope that he will commit to supporting Lord Pack’s amendment in the House of Lords, removing the Secretary of State’s power to change the timing of local elections—[Interruption.]

Order. I want to hear what the Liberal Democrat spokesperson has to say, as do all our constituents.

That said, the Labour party is the main offender in cancelling elections, and it appears to be running scared from the ballot box rather than trusting voters. Does the Minister accept that cancelling elections risks setting a dangerous precedent that elections become optional when they are inconvenient to those in power? What message does it send to residents about the value of local government if their right to vote can be so easily set aside? Democracy is a right, not a matter of convenience.

I thank the hon. Lady for powering through, despite commentary from the Opposition Front Bench. She asks about the importance of democracy. It is, of course, very important. The vast majority of elections are going ahead next year. A huge number of people will be voting. It is important that that principle is stuck to. We will take the decisions based on the evidence and the precedent I set out in response to other Members.

As a former leader of a major council and a Labour MP, I find this completely embarrassing. A Labour Government should not be taking the vote away from 3.7 million people. It is completely unprecedented for a Labour Government to do that. There is clearly a vested interest for some councillors who may feel, looking at the opinion polls, that they will lose their seat. Some of those councillors will vote for delay. How will the Minister distinguish between that motivation and whether or not there really is a lack of capacity to carry out the elections? I do not believe that any of those councils are unable to hold those elections.

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for the views he expresses, which I will be certain to pass on to the Secretary of State as he takes his decision. In the statement before Christmas, I set out the kind of evidence we are looking for. That is the kind of thing we will take into consideration.

A year ago, Ministers told council leaders in Essex that it was necessary to postpone elections in order to facilitate reorganisation to “the most ambitious timetable”. A year later, there has been absolutely no progress and we do not even know how many authorities are proposed. Was it not wrong to cancel elections last year and wrong to cancel them again this year?

We have made progress on the reorganisation and I anticipate us making strong progress this year. I hear the points that the right hon. Gentleman makes about his own views. Those will be taken account of, alongside other views expressed.

Local elections will be going forward in full in Milton Keynes this year, and I look forward to continuing to work with my brilliant hard-working Labour councillors. The ongoing process of reorganisation is delaying elections, but it is also delaying the creation of new combined authorities across many parts of the country. Given that, will the Department look again at the fast-track process, and whether places that have already gone through reorganisation and are fully unitarised, such as Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes, should be added to that programme, and that the creation of new combined authorities should be sped up in those places, given that it has taken some time in others?