Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 20 January 2026

Debate

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Contribution

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for those additional points. In this Room there are many people from local government, who have spent many years working to make sure that what he called the machinery of state is not interfering with actually delivering at local level. What we are trying to do with the Bill is to make sure that we continue that, but no doubt we will have many discussions about whether or not it is going to work. It is very important that what we do is driven by local people at local level. The Co-operative Councils’ Innovation Network, which I started with my right honourable colleague from the other end, Steve Reed, about 15 years ago now, sets up pilot projects to show exactly how you start with the impact at local level and then work up to what needs to be done in the machinery to make that work. That is what I want to do but on a national scale, and I hope that the Bill will go a long way towards doing so.

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