Tories launch bid to drive native elections to go forward in May after ministers delayed them for tens of millions of individuals
The Tories have launched a formal bid to force local elections to go ahead in May after the Government postponed them for millions of voters in England.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is attempting to annul an order by ministers to delay elections in nine council areas.
These are East Sussex, West Sussex, Essex and Thurrock, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Suffolk and Surrey.
Under Labour‘s plans, polls due on 1 May in these areas will instead take place next year following a reorganisation of local government.
The Government wants to abolish two-tier systems – where voters are represented by both county and district councils – in favour of unitary authorities with populations of around 500,000 people.
There are currently 21 county councils across England that have 164 district councils sitting underneath them. But Labour believes the two-tier structures are inefficient.
Mrs Badenoch this week laid an early day motion in Parliament calling for the postponement order to be ‘annulled’.
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, the Conservative leader, is attempting to annul an order by ministers to delay elections in nine council areas.
Under Labour’s plans, polls due on 1 May in these areas will instead take place next year following a reorganisation of local government
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced the delay to elections across the nine areas earlier this month
Kevin Hollinrake, the shadow housing, communities and local government secretary, was among a group of Tory MPs to support their party leader’s motion.
He said: ‘The Labour Government have massively rushed this imposition.
‘There has been no attempt to gather consensus within two-tier areas. Local residents have not been consulted at any stage.
‘Council leaders have a ‘gun to their head’ from the Labour Government. These elections are not being ‘postponed’ – they are being cancelled.
‘This mass change is unprecedented and entirely wrong.
‘We are particularly concerned about the significant delay of up to three years before the new councils are in place, and existing councillors serving a seven-year term.’
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced the delay to elections across the nine areas earlier this month.
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.
‘This would be an expensive and irresponsible waste of taxpayers’ money, and any party calling for these elections to go ahead must explain how this waste would be justifiable.’
Ms Rayner said she had only signed off on cancellations in half of the areas requesting a reorganisation.
‘The Government’s starting point is for all elections to go ahead unless there’s a strong justification for postponement, and the bar is high, and rightly so,’ she added.
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.
