Andrew Rosindell

Cancelling elections is always wrong, unless there is an extreme situation that necessitates postponement of an election. I cannot think of many examples in recent years in which that was necessary. I remember when Margaret Thatcher abolished the Greater London Council. She extended its term by one year only and then the GLC was, rightly, abolished. I remember that during the covid pandemic, the Greater London Authority’s term was extended by one year, but then it was shortened in the next term, so there was a five-year term and then a three-year term. Cancelling elections—I think, in this case, purely for political reasons—is fundamentally dishonest of this Government. It was only because of the actions of my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who sought a judicial review, that the Government were forced to do another U-turn, allowing the right of the people of this country to vote for their chosen local councillors in the forthcoming elections on 7 May. I would like to make a further point, because democracy is not only about how people vote in local elections and whom they choose as their local councillors; it is also about the structure of local government. My borough is the London borough of Havering, as the Minister knows only too well because I have spoken about it on many occasions. I was rather disappointed that the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) did not acknowledge that the London borough of Havering actually is also an Essex borough. The problem is that the people of my borough have never been given the chance to choose whether we want to be under the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority, or whether we would prefer to be a unitary authority or under the new Greater Essex. We simply do not get given the chance to decide. We are not asked. Our opinion does not matter. We are forced into an artificial Greater London structure that does not suit the interests of my borough. It means that we are paying vast sums of money to, effectively, subsidise inner London. It means that things like ULEZ are imposed on us. It means that planning is taken out of our control, so we are Londonised and are becoming a concrete jungle. All these things have no democratic mandate from the people of Havering. Postponing elections is really just as bad as denying local people the right to choose what kind of structure they would like to be in. My hon. Friend the Member for Clacton was in Romford outside the town hall only last week, and the popularity in my borough of a local referendum on becoming a unitary authority outside Greater London is extremely high. I say to the Minister that if we believe in democracy, we need to be given the chance to make those decisions. The key point here is that we are only debating this issue because of the petition—I commend the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on introducing it to the House. Frankly, it is a disgrace that we have to do this and that so many people had to sign a petition purely to demand their right to vote in a democratic election on 7 May. My borough was voting anyway; our election was not postponed. We are looking forward to quite a big change in Havering—and I think there will be a big change—because people are tired of being governed by City Hall and tired of being governed by a town hall that is not representative of the local community. I firmly believe that we will have the first Reform UK council in the Greater London area. I would like to make a point to the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster). I agree with everything he said. The Liberal Democrats have an honourable position in terms of democracy—I think there was a little issue in Cheltenham, but let’s not worry about that. The Liberal Democrats were very clear that there should have been elections. However, under the restructuring of local government, his new local authority will be called West Surrey. Surely it should be called West Surrey and South Middlesex to reflect the true historic county identity of that area. If we are going to rename local authorities, we should give them names that reflect the geography and history of the area. It is very important that Middlesex is included in the name of the new unitary authority. I hope he agrees.