The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)

My Lords, I will speak to both this draft order and the draft Cumbria Combined Authority Order 2026, which were laid on 18 December 2025. For both the Cheshire and Warrington combined authority and the Cumbria combined authority, I will use the term “strategic authorities” hereafter, unless there is a reason to be specific in the debate. These orders provide for the establishment of two new strategic authorities and provide for their mayoral elections, as part of the Government’s commitment to widen and deepen devolution across England. This commitment is being delivered, in part, through the devolution priority programme, which provides a fast track to establish a new wave of mayoral strategic authorities. Cumbria and Cheshire and Warrington are two of the areas on the devolution priority programme, and taking forward these statutory instruments represents substantial progress towards fulfilling our commitment to move power out of Whitehall and back to those who know their areas best. The Government have worked closely with the constituent councils within Cheshire and Warrington and Cumbria on these instruments. All the respective constituent councils have consented to the making of their instrument, and I thank the local leaders and their councils for their support. The instruments will be made, if Parliament approves, under the enabling provisions in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. Both strategic authorities will be established the day after the day on which the instruments are made. The inaugural mayoral elections are due to take place for both on 6 May 2027, and their elected mayors will take office on 10 May 2027 on a four-year term. The instruments make provision for the governance arrangements of the strategic authorities. In each case, each constituent council appoints two of its elected members to be a member of the strategic authority, with the mayor also a member once in office. The strategic authority can also appoint non-constituent and associate members to support its work. Each voting member is to have one vote, and the vast majority of decisions are to be determined by a simple majority of the members present and voting. Once the mayor takes office, that majority must include the mayor, or the deputy mayor acting in place of the mayor. The instruments provide some functions in relation to transport and economic development, but there is a strong interrelation here with the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. Subject to Royal Assent to that Bill, these strategic authorities will be classed as mayoral strategic authorities, and the functions reserved for that tier will automatically be conferred to the strategic authorities. Even before the mayor is in office, these strategic authorities will be able to exercise mayoral strategic authority functions, with the exception of those that are specifically reserved for the mayor.