Local Government Reorganisation: Cambridgeshire
House of Commons · Westminster Hall · 1 Sep 2026 · 29 speeches · Official Report
I will call Ben Obese-Jecty to move the motion and then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.
I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of local government reorganisation on Cambridgeshire. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. Last week I wrote to the Secretary of State outlining my concerns regarding the delayed decision on the future of local government reorganisation in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Thus far we have heard little of her position regarding the criteria under which a decision will be made and how it may differ from that of her predecessor, who decided to delay the decision in the first place. I outlined how the pregnant pause preceding this interregnum is creating uncertainty and instability and affecting the retention of experienced council personnel, investment decisions for local businesses and questions about the viability of local plans crucial to the success of Huntingdonshire. In Huntingdonshire, we fear a local government reorganisation stitch-up. In January, I asked the then Prime Minister whether he could “offer assurances to my constituents and people across Huntingdonshire that the decision is not already a done deal, and that the democratic will of Huntingdonshire district council will not be overridden to satisfy an unelected Labour regional office”. -[ Official Report , 14 January 2026; Vol. 778, c. 928.] He said: “There are no done deals here; we are going through the proper process.” -[ Official Report , 14 January 2026; Vol. 778, c. 928.] In March, I asked the previous Minister for Local...
Cambridge city council has long punched above its weight and has carried much of the rest of the county, but it is a second-tier authority. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a globally recognised city like Cambridge is long overdue unitary status?
Given that Peterborough has unitary status, I agree that it makes sense for a city the size of Cambridge to have that unitary basis. However, I stress that I do not believe that should come at the expense of other regions across the county. The Government splitting Huntingdonshire in two and using the wealthier half to try to prop up their two MPs in the north of the county is going to go down badly. The hon. Members for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) and for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) proposed option D after it was concocted by the Labour East regional office. Nobody in Huntingdonshire was asked or consulted about the proposal, but as soon as it was put forward by those two MPs, it was clear that it would be the one likely chosen by the Government.
I am troubled by the unpleasant allegations the hon. Gentleman is making. It would have been pleasant if he had come to talk to me about his concerns at any point over the last few months rather than he and a member of his staff attacking me on social media about this. It is not great. The hon. Gentleman is raising process concerns. I am sure we all want to see a proper process. Why was it that he went on to social media and made quite a large number of claims about Labour MPs being pre-briefed of an apparent announcement that never happened-claims that therefore cannot possibly have been true, and were not?
I would bounce that back at the hon. Member and ask him why he never came to me or any of the other Huntingdonshire MPs to ask about proposing an option that would split Huntingdonshire in two. The hon. Member told the BBC last summer: “A Mid Cambridgeshire council would allow rural areas across East Cambridgeshire, Fenland and parts of Huntingdonshire to form an authority that can deliver effectively on residents’ priorities, while a Greater Peterborough council encompassing the most high-growth areas of northern and western Cambridgeshire could better regulate and plan that growth.” Nonsense. I am fascinated to know how an almost entirely rural Mid Cambridgeshire county council is supposed to thrive when it has no basis for economic growth. The Greater Peterborough council would encompass “the most high-growth areas of northern and western Cambridgeshire”. I wonder which authority the hon. Member’s constituency is within.
In Northern Ireland some 10 years ago, we had local government reorganisation that promised significant savings and more efficiency. Unfortunately, on neither of those two occasions were they delivered. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when looking at what others have done, as he has outlined, perhaps it is time to see where things went wrong and learn lessons from what we did and did not do right?
I concur with the hon. Gentleman. There is absolutely an opportunity here to learn from previous mistakes and make sure that they are not repeated when we drive this forward in the new year. In early July, news began to leak out from the Local Government Association’s annual conference that Peterborough city council suddenly seemed to be aware that option D was going to get the nod. Word spread quickly among Cambridgeshire senior executives that option D was going to be selected. Who was leaking that information, and why was I left to announce it on ITV News Anglia so that people could see for themselves that the process under this Government was on the cusp of selecting the Labour-proposed option, as has happened in local authority areas across the country? Strangely enough, the response received on Friday to a freedom of information request to Peterborough city council was not able to be answered. I eagerly await the response to my own subject access request in a few days’ time. It is simply a disgrace that the Government would treat Cambridgeshire residents with this level of contempt by leaking the outcome of a decision that appears to have been almost certainly predetermined to a privileged few, allowing those who have been given the information to achieve a head start and for favoured businesses to gain a competitive advantage, and affecting decisions on employment and education opportunities and future investment decisions.
Might the hon. Gentleman give way again?
No, I will carry on. The announcement by the former Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on 16 July therefore makes little sense. He said: “On Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and West Sussex, I am not making announcements today, because further time is required to get the decisions right.” -[ Official Report , 16 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 1097.] Could the Minister outline precisely what was meant when the former Secretary of State stated that further time was required to get the decisions right? Can he state definitively how much time is required, and can he articulate what specifically is in danger of being got wrong?
My hon. Friend just mentioned West Sussex, which has also seen the deferral of any decision and a request for a third option despite the fact that the democratically elected councils had offered up two of their own proposals. We are still waiting for a decision and the way forward is still unclear. Does he agree that in both Cambridgeshire and West Sussex, this Government’s inaction and indecision are causing real harm to our constituents because all our council officers are taking so long to deliver this?
I agree with my hon. Friend. It is absolutely key that we get clarity on the timeline for this decision process-when it will be taken and when we can expect to hear-because there are local elections to prepare for next year and people need to know exactly what is going on.
Local authorities and council leaders were asked to produce evidence-based proposals according to the criteria laid out by the Government, and they did so, but since then, as we have just heard, all we have seen is uncertainty and a vacuum of decision making at a time when councils should be gearing up for the local elections for the new unitary authorities next May. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we would like to hear two things from the Minister? First, in terms of the criteria, will it be the original criteria laid out by the Government that will be used to determine what the new unitary authorities will look like, and secondly, what timeline-
Order.
I agree with the hon. Member. We urgently need clarity. On the statement that was made before recess, we saw a huge amount of discontent across both sides of the House with the decisions that had been taken previously, and it is essential that we get real clarity on exactly what the process is going to be. I appreciate that the Minister has come back into his role having had some time away and may be having to catch up, but I assure him that the strength of feeling is high.
Will the hon. Member give way?
I will make a little progress. Further to this, in his letter of 16 July, somewhat contradictorily, the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), stated: “I have decided that more time is needed to consider which option, if any, to implement at this time in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.” We now have a new-old-Secretary of State. Can the Minister clarify whether the Secretary of State also requires more time in order to make a decision? Whether she does or does not, can the Minister clarify when the Secretary of State plans to have made her decision by? Her Department has held no further discussions with Huntingdonshire district council, so what precisely is in need of further discussion that warrants a delay of two months? Can the Minister outline why there has been a delay? Can he also clarify when Labour MPs were informed of the delay to a decision in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in the first place? I ask the Minister to clarify, on the record, whether his departmental colleague, Baroness Taylor, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, participated in a meeting with Labour MPs and councillors on Wednesday 15 July 2026, during which local government reorganisation in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough was discussed. I ask him to choose his “yes/no” answer to that question very carefully, lest he might later be accused of misleading the House. My position remains extant: I back a Huntingdonshire unitary authority,...
Will the hon. Gentleman give way again?
No, I am going to carry on. The option D business case itself states: “As Peterborough has historically required exceptional financial support and comes from the most financially challenged position, increasing the scale does not necessarily provide the desired resilience. Reserves still remain low. The cost of servicing debt continues to eat into a significant proportion of the net budget and the funding headroom is tight. This could be mitigated by resizing services in line with available funding.” Option D provides a significantly lower level of reserves, leaving it more vulnerable to shocks. The reserves of Greater Peterborough are comfortably the lowest in Cambridgeshire at just 16%, which is again deemed high-risk. By comparison, Huntingdonshire would be 42%. On employment, we need look no further than the percentage of universal credit claimants in the local authority; in Huntingdonshire, it is 2.8%, while in Peterborough it is 8%, which is far and away the highest rate locally; Peterborough has the highest unemployment rate in Cambridgeshire. Greater Peterborough is also projected to have the highest prevalence of education, health and care plans, and the greatest risk of special educational needs and disabilities escalation. At present, Huntingdonshire has the second lowest rate of EHCP prevalence in Cambridgeshire. This analysis strongly suggests that the system would all but immediately collapse. Greater Peterborough will have the highest spend per resident for...
I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a district councillor on East Cambridgeshire district council. One of the other big problems for this proposed Mid Cambridgeshire unitary is that it will have most of the soil-affected roads in Cambridgeshire, which are really expensive to maintain, and most of the internal drainage boards, which need significant funding to keep our market towns and villages dry so that people can live in them. It will be a very challenging unitary to run financially.
I agree. The numbers that I saw were terrifying. I think somewhere in the region of 80% to 90% of Cambridgeshire’s peat roads would be based in the Mid Cambridgeshire authority; the roads budget itself simply would not be able to cope with that. I did not know the point about the internal drainage board and the mid-level commissioners, but having seen some of that infrastructure I can well imagine that the bill for replacing that will be terrifying if it falls solely on Mid Cambridgeshire. The business case also states that Mid Cambridgeshire’s “proposed lower levels of funding may result in difficulty in being able to deliver services to residents within its budget envelope. A significant transformation programme will be required to ensure services are resized accordingly”. We can read that to mean “reduced”. The business case later adds that “Mid Cambridgeshire may face particular challenges in both capacity and funding for high-cost statutory services”, and that Mid Cambridgeshire “in particular, may require additional support to ensure it can participate fully and equitably in regional initiatives”. That is very reflective of the sentiment expressed by the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire about the land grab for high-growth areas that Greater Peterborough is attempting. Mid Cambridgeshire will be set up to fail.
The hon. Member may remember the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough independent economic review, which was commissioned during the time of Mayor James Palmer. That identified three discrete economies within the area. Is that significant to this debate?
I am not aware of that; I have not seen the detail of the report so it would be remiss of me to opine on it, but I have read the business cases in detail. While splitting the county into those three distinct regions may look like it makes sense, the travel regions for those areas are very distinct and do not necessarily reflect the make-up of the option D business case. It is worth highlighting that in the option D proposal the travel-to-work patterns and commercial activity data clearly illustrate that the movement of people within Mid Cambridgeshire is limited to within each of the three component areas of Huntingdonshire, Fenland and East Cambridgeshire. There is little in the way of movement between them, which begs the question of why three distinct areas would then form a viable unitary authority. The evidence clearly shows that Huntingdonshire would benefit from being its own unitary authority, rather than its being split in two, given that there is little in the way of movement from the northern part of Huntingdonshire into Peterborough, and vice versa. When we look at option D further, we see that it does Mid Cambridgeshire no favours when it comes to gross value added per capita. The two councils with the highest GVA per capita are Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire, which are to be combined to form Greater Cambridge. The next two highest are Peterborough and Huntingdonshire, with the wealthier half of the latter to be merged into Greater Peterborough. That leaves...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) on securing this debate on local government reorganisation in Cambridgeshire. I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the Government’s approach, the progress made so far and the opportunities presented by this once-in-a-generation reform. Before I get to the main points, let me say that it is clear from the contributions of the hon. Member for Huntingdon and my hon. Friends the Members for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) that they are passionate about local communities-that is what makes our Parliament great-but that there are sometimes quite different views about how to achieve what they want. Life would be wonderful for central Government if at a local level there was a single answer to the question and our job was merely to say, “Thank you very much for the submission. Everyone agrees on that, and it makes complete sense.” Of course, that is not the position that the Government find ourselves in. We have to arbitrate over many competing views. We receive the proposals without predetermination, on the basis on which they were submitted, and we have to act in good faith. I assure the hon. Member for Huntingdon and others that, as a Minister, I will do that with diligence and in good faith. I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s exact points later, but let me say that it is not helpful to make accusations...
Will the Minister join me in congratulating all Cambridgeshire and Peterborough councils on the collaborative way in which they have worked together on this process? Despite coming up with different options that they may or may not back, they have remained in a position where they have been taking to each other throughout. Those dialogues have been ongoing and I think that is something to be commended.
We have seen that across England in the two-tier areas. In many cases, people have come together across party lines because it is far better to agree a comprehensive proposal locally and submit it to Government than to have it done to them in another way. If there is more local organisation and agreement at that level, it is far better for local people and for the decision made later in the process. Even where there is difference in nuance-there will be differences in some elements-the core fact remains that the two-tier system just is not working. For too long, too many areas have been served by complex two-tier structures that divide responsibilities, duplicate costs and blur accountability. Residents often struggle to know which council is responsible for which services; decisions to build homes or grow our towns and cities take longer than they ought to; and resources can be spread too thinly. The Government’s aim is simple: to have clearer structures, stronger councils, quicker decisions, more homes and better services for local people. As the Prime Minister said, ending the two-tier system of local government “is a nettle…that’s got to be grasped.” If we want to devolve more powers out of Westminster, we need a structure for local government in England that is equal across the board. Reorganisations are the building blocks for devolution, and I am really pleased with the progress made so far. Decisions have been taken in 19 of the 21 areas, and we are now working with...
Should the Government choose an option that sees the Huntingdonshire area split in two between two unitary authorities, what additional support will be given to fully disaggregate the district council’s responsibilities, given the complexity involved? Could the Minister also offer any clarity on local services? For example, the boundary would go in between Huntingdon and Godmanchester, which are separated only by a small bridge-
Order. I call the Minister.
I am keen not to predetermine what decision we may or may not take. It may well be that a decision leads to disaggregation, but equally it may not, and until we get to the point of reviewing the proposals put forward, we are not in that position. However, as a matter of principle, I accept that having a new unitary authority made up of districts in their entirety, where assets, liabilities and workforces are transferred en bloc, is different from having to disaggregate because it is being split in a number of different directions. I will certainly take that away for consideration; it is a fair point. Hopefully the hon. Gentleman acknowledges that this is a comprehensive financial support package, which is about supporting local authorities. We should not lose sight of the fact that reorganisation is a real opportunity not just for more efficient services and a clear line of sight on responsibility, but for devolution and our communities. It is an opportunity to give local leaders the funding, powers and capacity to drive growth, to build the homes their communities need, to deliver better public services and to improve the lives of the people we serve. I hope that, whatever differences of opinion there are, there is the same collaboration at a parliamentary level as I have seen at a local level. I see that local authorities, councillors and officials are working hard and recognising the direction that the Government have set, with many realising the advantages that will come...