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WATCH: Minister denies Labour is afraid of facing the public by postponing elections
Dec 4, 2025
GB News host Stephen Dixon has brutally shut down a Labour MP for defending the Government's decision to delay four mayoral elections.In a fiery exchange on the People's Channel, Stephen told Children's Minister Josh MacAlister that the move is "not democratic" and Labour has had "almost two years" to sort the local authorities out.FULL STORY HERE.
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0:00
What does the government have to say for itself
0:02
Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing is Josh McAllister and he joins us now from Westminster
0:07
Good to see you this morning. Is this government afraid of facing the British public at the ballot box
0:14
Absolutely not. We have got elections that are going to be taking place in May
0:19
We've got areas of the country where they're setting up a new mayor
0:23
and have got unitary local authorities already in place. They'll be going to the polls in 2027
0:30
And then these other combined authority areas have still got county councils and district councils
0:35
They've got to reorganise themselves. That's the reason they're being postponed. But as it currently stands, they're meant to be having county..
0:42
As well as the mayoral ones, which looks like may be delayed, they're meant to be having county councils' elections in those areas as well
0:49
Are you telling us that they too will be delayed? I don't know the detail of that, but basically what we've got the country moving towards now
0:57
is a UK-wide parliamentary elections at a general election. There'll be strategic authority mayoral elections
1:04
covering large parts of England. And then there'll still be councils. So there'll still be unitary local authorities
1:09
that are going to the polls. Some of those will be going to the polls in this coming May
1:14
And then there'll be a combination of local authority and mayoral elections in 2027 and 2028
1:18
I do have to say the hypocrisy of reform and the Conservatives criticising the government
1:23
when it's trying to roll out devolution properly, having blocked Parliament having its say numerous times with prorogation back in 2019 is pretty staggering And we won take any lectures from either of them on that Right So just to just to sort of crystallise this
1:40
And so the so some of the polls, some of the some of the going to the go to the polls will in May next year will not happen
1:50
Is that right? And then the mayoral vote will happen either next year or the year after
1:56
Is that right? Is that what you're saying? Sorry. So we've got new mayors being set up across the country
2:02
Some of those mayors will be in areas where the local authority
2:06
the council that sits below the mayor's role, hasn't yet been reorganised
2:10
because they're still in this old-fashioned system of having a district council and a county council
2:16
Putting reform with a mayor, as in reform of mayors, on top of that would be chaos
2:23
Now, what we see in Lancashire County Council and in Kent, with reform running both of those councils, is they are chaotic
2:30
What we want to do is get devolution right. So, in areas of the country where they've still got districts and counties
2:37
they first of all need to put themselves into a unitary council and then there'll be a mayoral election
2:42
That's the only reason this is happening. And, as I say, it's pretty staggering, the hypocrisy from reform on this
2:48
But forgive me, by the time it gets round to May next year
2:52
you will have been in power for basically two years you've had two years to work on this to
2:58
get you know to get all these reforms through and for these councils to all get chose you saying it going to take and it sorry we got to have another two years to sort it all out I mean some of these people could have been in power for six years
3:11
longer than a parliamentary term by the time the local people get to have their say
3:16
That's not democratic. Well, I really don't agree or accept the premise of that question
3:21
The last government had 14 years to sort devolution out and they introduced a tiny number of new mayors
3:28
They've been really successful, but a tiny number. we are rolling out a revolution in devolution across this parliament but it will take this
3:36
parliament to get those changes rolled out we're doing it in dozens of parts of the country
3:41
sorry i was just going to interrupt josh because i know we're against the time but i was just
3:47
thinking you know if you knew that it was going to be this complicated why on earth say that you
3:52
were going to do it at a particular time why not actually right at the beginning say and it won't
3:56
be happening until we sort everything out and that's possibly going to be 2028. Because if you're
4:02
serious about devolution, part of the deal here is that local areas need to get themselves ready
4:06
and step up with their own responsibilities. That means councils taking their time to figure out how
4:12
they get themselves from being districts and counties into unitary authorities. I represent
4:17
a part of the world where we've been through local government reorganisation in Cumbria
4:22
So split Cumbria into two unitaries That means that there will be a mayor elected in 2027 That right and proper But your viewers would be enraged with me and the government if we rushed this through and caused major disruption to bin collection pothole filling children and adult social care We need to get this right That why we doing
4:45
what we're doing. And the hypocrisy from reform on this is absolutely staggering
4:51
Yeah, but the problem is that people who are going to be absolutely enraged by this are people
4:57
living in areas where they may or may not be happy with their local authority, but they are unable
5:03
to have their say. Their democratic right is being removed. No, that's not right
5:10
Council elections will still happen. What we're postponing are mayoral elections. So that's where..
5:16
But we asked... Hold on. We asked you a minute ago whether the county council elections
5:19
in these areas, Greater Essex, Hampshire and Solent, Sussex, Brighton, Norfolk and Suffolk
5:24
would definitely happen. And you said you can't guarantee that. Well, that's because of..
5:30
Sorry, this is getting really technical, But that's because of district and county councils merging into new unitary authorities and the dates that they pick for those elections
5:40
Like in Cumbria, for example, they had the election, but it operated in shadow form for a year before it was turned on as the new council
5:49
Step back from this for a moment. We're reorganising local government and strategic authorities as a country because everything's too centralised
5:57
that needs to be done with care and it needs to be done methodically that's all we're talking about
6:03
here people are still going to be going to the polls in may next year they're going to be going to polls in may the next year we we have local elections in this country all the time that is
6:10
not changing
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