Councils wanting elections postponed will have to meet ‘clear criteria’ – Powell
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Councils wanting to postpone local elections will have to meet a “very clear criteria”, Commons Leader Lucy Powell said, amid concerns changes to local government could cause “democratic outrage”. Reforms to local government, including the abolishment of two-tier council areas, were announced in a White Paper in December.
As a result, some local ballots scheduled for May could be postponed for councils undergoing a process of reorganisation. According to the BBC, at least 12 out of 21 county councils which were due to hold elections that month are poised to ask ministers to delay the ballots.
But Ms Powell told the Commons on Thursday postponement will only be considered if it will help to deliver devolution in “the most ambitious timeframe possible”. During business questions, Conservative former minister Dame Harriett Baldwin called for a debate on the “enormous changes to local government”.
The MP for West Worcestershire added: “It forced a lot of councils to come up with plans at very, very short notice. “There has been very limited opportunity for democratic engagement from our constituents, and it seems to me we ought to at least in this chamber spend some time debating some of the implications of potentially cancelling a series of local elections, and I wondered if she would spare that time?”.
Ms Powell replied: “We have set out in a White Paper, as was described in the statements, some really major reforms around delivering on that devolution agenda, putting power back in to communities that we said we would do. There have been some knock-on consequences of that.
