Charlotte Cane MP Calls Out Government Chaos on Local Government Reorganisation

Charlotte Cane, MP for Ely and East Cambridgeshire, has today rebuked the Government’s latest announcement that a decision on local government reorganisation in Cambridgeshire will be postponed once again, subject to legal reviews. 

In a statement to the House of Commons today (7 September), Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Angela Rayner MP, announced that the Government would “conduct a full review of the local government reorganisation programme … and ask that reorganisation activity be paused”, after receiving legal advice. 

This latest disruption to local government reorganisation comes after the Government announced in July that it needed more time to deliver a decision for reorganisation in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. 

In response, Charlotte Cane MP and Ian Sollom MP wrote to the Secretary of State on 30 July to criticise the delay and the Government’s conduct throughout the process. The MPs also argued that if the Government cannot reach a decision that is demonstrably in the best interests of local people, it should retain existing local government arrangements rather than press ahead with a flawed option.

Speaking after today’s statement in the House of Commons, Charlotte Cane said: 

“What a farce! After years of work by our local councils and years of uncertainty for local residents, the Government now tells us that they’re going back to the drawing board, because they haven’t done the job properly the first time. 

“It’s absolutely unacceptable that councils, communities, residents and businesses should be kept in the dark about such a consequential decision for the future of our area, only now to be told that the uncertainty and confusion will continue. 

“In July, I wrote to the Secretary of State to say that, if the Government could not arrive at a decision on local government reorganisation which puts the interests of local people at its core, they should leave council arrangements in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough alone. Rather than getting it right first time, the Government have followed up a bad process with an even worse outcome: yet more chaos and delay. 

“We have no clarification on what legal advice has prompted this latest decision, how this will impact final decision-making, nor how long this whole process is going to take. Ely and East Cambridgeshire residents deserve answers, so I’m urging Ministers to engage with our communities and councils now to deliver necessary assurances and a workable solution for the future.”