English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill: Motion relating to Lords Amendments 94B and 94C

Parliament voted on 27 April 2026 to accept the government's motion relating to Lords Amendments 94B and 94C to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, passing by 269 votes to 170. The motion was part of a series of votes that day resolving disagreements between the Commons and the Lords over the shape of the bill, a process known as parliamentary ping-pong, in which the two chambers exchange amendments until they reach agreement or one side prevails. The vote matters because it determines how the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill handles specific provisions that the House of Lords had sought to amend. The bill is the Labour government's flagship legislation for restructuring local government and expanding devolved powers across England, and the outcome of this motion shapes the final statutory framework that councils, mayors, and communities will operate within. Whatever the Lords amendments 94B and 94C proposed to change, the Commons majority voted to resolve the disagreement on the government's terms, keeping the bill on the trajectory the government designed. The division followed strict party lines. All 266 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted backed the government, while Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Greens, the Democratic Unionist Party, and smaller parties voted against. No Labour rebels appeared in the tally. The result mirrors three other divisions held the same day on related Lords amendments, each of which the government also won by comparable margins, suggesting a coordinated government effort to clear the bill of Lords changes before sending it for Royal Assent.