Having spoken to numerous people in Westminster and across the country, it is clear that the announcement by Angela Rayner to pause the LGR programme came as a surprise to everyone.
Word on the street is that ministers were in receipt of legal advice that they were “unhappy” about. As this has been deemed protected by legal privilege, and the government immediately pulled the plug on all of the phase one schemes and settled the JR costs of those councils involved, we will never know what was so damning to cause Andy Burnham’s government to notch up its first U-turn.
The government is at pains to say that this is merely a pause, and there is an expectation from those I’ve spoken to that the review will be over by Christmas, at the latest. What is not clear, however, is exactly what will happen next.
So let start off by answering some questions!
Question: Will there be any shadow unitary elections next year?
Answer: Highly unlikely (is the short answer!). It is theoretically possible that the “review” for a number of councils could conclude quite quickly, allowing enough time to process the necessary orders to enable shadow elections in 2027. However, most people we talk to concede that the government is unlikely to try and rush decisions again, especially given how ready councils, Reform UK-led councils in particular, are to press the JR button. Most predict shadow elections in 2028, with investiture in 2029.
Question: What elections will take place next year?
Answer: The government has stated that elections will take place next year on “existing boundaries”, which is slightly strange wording! The common assumption is that all districts councils due to have elections, will have elections. That’s a large number of seats up for election! Indeed, it is the biggest number in the election cycle, with over 8,000 being contested, all last fought in 2023 (watch out for our blog on this in the coming weeks).
Question: Are there any “easy to resolve” councils which could be let through?
Answer: This depends what criteria you use to define ‘easy’! However, there are probably two key elements here.
Firstly, population – whilst initially the government said 500,000 I would suggest this can flex down to 300K in reality.
Second, where districts can be kept together, creating a simple split or merge solution without the need to break up district councils or deal with ward issues that might result, similar to the Surrey decision.
That would produce a list like this (in compliance with the above):
- Gloucestershire
- Staffordshire
- Warwickshire
- Worcestershire
Beyond these areas, all the other proposals include an element of land-grabbing by urban centres from the surrounding rural districts, a complicated strategy that the original guidance issued under Rayner and McMahon (part one) sought to avoid, but ended up being encouraged by Steve Reed.
My own view is that Rayner and McMahon will be keen to salvage something resembling their original flagship policy. Currently, the only council to have successfully passed through the programme is Surrey. I suspect that they will now look to break the programme back up into bitesize chunks. The question is, what chunks?
- Resolving phase one – there has been a lot of political capital expended on these areas already. We are unlikely to see any local consensus here, with a number of the proposals now carrying the “gerrymandering” badge, thanks to Steve Reed’s interventions. These have actually been withdrawn now, and possibly placed in the “too hard” box for now.
- Take the quick wins – Few of the areas named above will back down easily. Most political administrations have got what they wanted, even if they wouldn’t necessarily say that publicly. However, these are not the big-hitting home counties that Rayner and McMahon clearly targeted in their original phasing, and most of them now have big question marks over where they would sit in a Mayoral strategic authority – the very reason unitary authorities were being pursued in the first place.
- Drive ahead with Labour city hubs – This might satisfy some on the Labour backbenches, but does risk more JRs and further derailment of the already slipping timeline. If Burnham’s mission is to create Labour powerhouses that could continue to deliver Labour policies the next general election, which seems to be part of his devolution agenda, then this would tick the box.
Whatever choice they make, the clock is ticking. Already we know (believe) that shadow elections are being pushed back to 2028. One more delay would place these elections at the same time as the next general election – at which point Andy Burnham may call time and kick the can down the road.
So, where does that leave us? Much will depend on what Rayner says next.
How much of her conference speech does she dedicate to LGR? Where does Andy Burnham’s rhetoric on seeking consensus leave us? Time will hopefully tell.