2 weeks Ago
The House of Lords has voted down calls to annul the "cancellation" of this year’s county council elections in East Sussex. On Monday (March 24), the House of Lords debated three motions connected to the postponement of elections for East Sussex County Council and eight other local authorities, as part of the government’s programme of devolution and local government reorganisation. The government postponed the elections (following requests from the councils) earlier this year through the use of a statutory instrument — a form of secondary legislation, which allows government departments to make changes to the law without passing an act in Parliament.
The three motions, from Conservative peer Jane Scott, Green Party peer Jennifer Jones and Liberal Democrat Peer Kathryn Pinnock, all related to the use of this statutory instrument. Read more: Sussex set to get a mayor as devolution plans approved Both Lady Jones and Lady Pinnock’s motions called on the House of Lords to annul the statutory instrument, a measure which would have effectively cancelled the postponement of elections. Lady Scott’s motion did not call for the statutory instrument to be annulled but asked the house to place its "regret" for the decision on record.
In introducing her motion, Lady Scott highlighted how it was "convention" in the House of Lords for the main opposition party not to lay motions to annul. Opening the debate, Lady Jones said: “It is always a bad idea to cancel elections at the best of times and this is clearly not the best of times. In fact, one could say it is the worst of times.
We have more cuts to services at the moment than we have had for some time; they are already on their knees. We’ve got council taxes going up again, as people pay more for less.” She added: “People have a right to vote, that is what being in a democracy means and the timetable is set out and understood by the general public and so actually changing that seems to be a little bit unprincipled.
” Lady Pinnock said: “Elections are the bedrock of our democracy and should not and indeed must not be cancelled. 5.6 million people are being denied the right to vote this May in elections to seven county councils and two unitary councils.
” She added: “The nine councils with cancelled elections were assessed by the secretary of state to be more prepared than most in their reorganisation plans and that therefore — and I quote — ‘it would be an expensive and irresponsible waste of taxpayers’ money to hold elections to bodies that will not exist and where we do not know what will replace them’. “However ..
. it became clear that the reason for elections being cancelled is that the first step in consulting residents as interested parties had begun in February and would continue until April, during the election period. This rightly was not acceptable.
“The option that does not seem to have been considered was to delay the elections until June. Now that has occurred in the recent past on more than two occasions. That would accommodate both the need to consult and enable a new mandate to be given to decision makers.
” Lady Scott criticised the way the government’s programme has been carried out. She said: “The entire exercise has been rushed. Rushed from the publication of the devolution white paper to a minimal feedback period of only four weeks, which included the Christmas break.
District councils were never properly consulted either and residents have not been asked for their views. “Local government experts have warned that we are dealing with, and I quote, ‘the worst white paper for local government in living memory’.” She added: “This is far more than a postponement.
We believe it is an outright cancellation for these councils, specifically: East Sussex; Essex; Hampshire; The Isle of Wight; Norfolk; Suffolk; Surrey; Thurrock; and West Sussex. All under the guise of the Devolution Priority Programme.” The motions saw pushback from Labour peer Sharon Taylor, a parliamentary undersecretary with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and and Local Government.
Lady Taylor said: “In our white paper, we were clear that strong, decisive and collaborative leadership locally will be met with an active partner nationally. We were also clear that we would take decisions to postpone local elections where this will help to smooth the transition process. “We will follow through on these commitments and we will not miss this opportunity to deliver the benefits of mayoral devolution and fit and stable unitary local government to the people we serve as quickly as possible.
“We have taken the step to make this order to help those areas who have expressed their firm commitment to deliver to the most ambitious timeframe. We are now working with those areas to prioritise, in parallel, the steps necessary to develop plans for new unitary government and to consult widely on the proposals to establish the new mayoral authorities in time for May 2026 mayoral elections. “If successful, both fatal motions would impact councils’ ability to deliver those elections in 2026 and deprive the people in those areas of the powers and funding that they should have.
It would not be possible to do this at such a pace when also holding the 2025 local elections in those areas.” Lady Taylor also said it was the government’s "starting point" for the postponed county council elections to go ahead in May 2026, alongside the new mayoral elections. She also pointed out the motions were being heard on "the evening before the last day that elections must be called", so had the potential to cause "chaos" in the affected areas.
This argument saw criticism from Lady Jones and others, who said the motions were being heard on “the government’s timetable”. Following the debate, Lady Jones chose to withdraw her motion, saying she would support Lady Pinnock’s motion instead. In doing so, she criticised the Liberal Democrats for not supporting her own motion, accusing the party of "game-playing".
The two remaining motions were both defeated when put to the vote. Lady’s Pinnock’s motion was defeated by 63 to 163, while Lady Scott’s motion was defeated by 139 to 152..
