Labour to turbocharge decentralisation with ‘devolution by default’ plan

Mayors will be handed a suite of new powers to allow more decisions on planning, housing, and transport to be made locally, while district councils are to be scrapped as part of deputy prime minister Angela Rayner’s plan to allow towns and cities outside London to “take back control”.

Labour’s devolution white paper, due to be published later today, sets out ambitious plans to give local leaders more control and put England’s regions “centre stage” in the government’s growth mission, which includes building 1.5m homes over the course of the parliament.

“Our English devolution white paper will be a turning point when we finally see communities, people and places across England begin to take back control over the things that matter to them,” Rayner said.

Plans to give mayors more powers are good news for the North, which has mayoral combined authorities in West Yorkshire, York and North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Tees Valley, the North East, Liverpool City Region, and Greater Manchester. A deal for Hull and East Yorkshire is in the works but not yet approved.

The white paper also sets out Labour’s intention to shake up local government by abolishing the England’s 164 district councils and creating what Rayner calls “strategic authorities”.

This means that 12 of the 14 councils in two-tier Lancashire would be scrapped and merged into a unitary authority in a bid to streamline decision-making.

Lancashire’s devolution journey will see a non-mayoral combined authority created with representatives from Blackpool Council and Blackburn with Darwen Council, the county’s two unitary authorities, alongside Lancashire County Council.

Rayner said the strategies set out in the white paper are aimed at giving “proud towns and cities… the powers they need to drive growth and raise living standards”.

She said: “It’s a plan for putting more money in people’s pockets, putting politics back in the service of working people and a plan for stability, investment and reform, not chaos, austerity and decline, that will deliver a decade of national renewal.

“Devolution will no longer be agreed at the whim of a minister in Whitehall, but embedded in the fabric of the country, becoming the default position of government.”