Oldham MP and former local Government Minister Jim McMahon has criticised the Government after it announced it was postponing four Mayoral elections for two years
The Government said that previous plans to hold inaugural mayoral races next year did not make sense while councils had not finished reorganisation.
The inaugural mayoral elections for Sussex and Brighton, Hampshire and the Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Greater Essex have been postponed until May 2028. Originally these were planned for May 2026.
McMahon, who was sacked in Kier Starmer’s reshuffle after the resignation of Angela Rayner saidthat the plans came out of the blue and disrupted plans drawn up by councils for the rollout of devolution. “I need to be blunt”,
He told the House of Commons. “We need to be better than this. Local leaders across the political spectrum worked in good faith. They put aside self-interest and differences, and they did everything asked of them to secure a better settlement for the people that they represent. They reasonably expected the government to do the same.
“Labour and other parties have already selected their candidates. The government had a moral and a legal obligation to honour its side of the bargain. All involved had a reasonable expectation that these elections would go ahead. And the government knows that trust is hard won but easily squandered.”
