Local government minister Jim McMahon laid an order earlier this week to postpone elections in nine council areas – across East Sussex, West Sussex, Essex and Thurrock, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Suffolk and Surrey.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced the delay to elections across the nine areas earlier this month, when she told the Commons: “We’re not in the business of holding elections to bodies that won’t exist and where we don’t know what will replace them.
The move would affect Mrs Badenoch’s North West Essex constituency, where Essex County Council and the Chelmsford and Uttlesford district councils are expected to be scrapped and replaced.
The Government could now find time for the “prayer” motion to be debated by a committee or in the House of Commons chamber, where MPs could vote to keep elections in the diary.
Kemi Badenoch has launched a formal bid to keep local elections scheduled for this May, as her shadow business secretary warned cancelling them was “entirely wrong”.
