To ask His Majesty’s Government, as part of the local government reorganisation set out in the English Devolution White Paper published in December 2024 (CP 1218), whether they plan to ensure that the principle of a broadly equivalent electoral quota per constituent will be applied to local government so that the value of every vote in each local authority area will be broadly similar throughout England.
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for asking an important Question on fair electoral arrangements for local government following the proposed local government reorganisation. Of course, this is a matter for the independent Local Government Boundary Commission for England to consider, but my department is liaising closely with it to ensure that it is involved at the appropriate time to make sure that we have fair electoral arrangements across the area of any new unitary authorities.
My Lords, 10 days ago, I had the pleasure of attending the Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum in Dorset, where I was delighted to see that one of the six core Chartist beliefs was equality of representation across every electoral district. On average, it takes 3,109 electors to select a councillor in London, but the corresponding figure is 15,000 in Essex and 18,000 in parts of Kent. That is a 600% variation. With local government reorganisation on the cards, does the Minister agree that that founding socialist principle of electoral equality should be enshrined in the design principles of the new councils; that is, that the electoral quotient should be broadly similar throughout England, as it is in the other place, where a 5% tolerance is set down by law?
I am delighted to hear that the noble Lord is educating himself on the socialist principle of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. I hope that that will continue; I am happy to help if he needs any support with it.
Basically, I believe that the noble Lord is comparing apples with pears here. The Local Government Boundary Commission for England provides very good guidance on determining councillor numbers. When it is decided where the new unitaries will be, it will look at the overall size of councils and then at warding and divisional boundaries within those councils—I am sure that the noble Lord has been through this process himself. It does that with fairness and equity; it bases its views on electoral equality, reflecting local communities and interests and responding to local views—as it has done for many decades and will, I am sure, continue to do.
Does my noble friend the Minister recognise that, if one simply thinks about numbers, it can end up being a perverse electoral solution that undermines local people’s faith in who represents them? When community cohesion is totally ignored for numbers, many people begin to think, “Well, I don’t know who represents me and what they’re doing”. Will the Minister try to make sure that any guidance for the future takes account of communities as well as of stark numbers?
My noble friend is absolutely correct. There has to be a focus on numbers to ensure that they are roughly equitable, but there are also other important considerations. Reflecting local communities and their interests is part of the boundary commission’s work, as is responding to local views. Whenever we have reviews of electoral boundaries, those local views should be properly taken into account. I will of course try to ensure that this continues.
My Lords, is it not a bigger problem that many local councils are unrepresentative of their electorates? They can even become one-party states, because of the first past the post system entrenching the same party in power for decades. Is it not time that England followed Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in holding council elections with proportional representation so that council composition properly reflects the votes cast?
I have heard this view from the Liberal Democrats for many years in local government. The first past the post system means that the electorate decide who is in charge of our local councils. That is up to them. It is a straightforward system which is widely appreciated by the people who engage with it. That is not to say that we cannot do more to encourage involvement in local elections. We will continue to do so.
My Lords, if His Majesty’s Government do not have any plans to restructure London councils or any other metropolitan areas such as Manchester or Birmingham, can the Minister explain why the Government believe that those living in more rural parts of our country deserve less representation than those living in our cities?
We believe that everybody should have proper representation. While we are undergoing the devolution programme in the rest of England, we will not be looking at those metropolitan areas, but that is not to say that it will never happen.
My Lords, to build on that question, there is a lot of concern in rural areas that where they are to be added to a large unitary authority which is dominated by an urban area, they might miss out. What will be put into the criteria to ensure that there is fairness of services in those rural areas?
It is very important that people do not lose their sense of place as this devolution programme goes forward, and they will not. The places will still exist. I have been talking to the associations that reflect the views of local councils—town and parish councils. We will support them in local areas, so they will definitely have a voice in this new system. The electorate will of course be able to decide at election times whether they are being properly represented.