Speeches by McMahon.

“I will put the right hon. Gentleman down as undecided.”

“I know many Labour and Co-operative Members of Parliament have been campaigning hard on the extended community right to buy. That is about giving communities the power to take over those important community assets on their high streets and in their town centres in a meaningful way. The Minister for local growth, my hon…”

“The forthcoming election for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will go ahead as planned. There is no proposal to change the boundary of what is currently a combined authority that will move to being a strategic authority. Local government reorganisation where there is an existing mayoral combined authority, providing tha…”

“This was one of the reasons why we were so keen to complete the map of the north of England. Most would accept that strategic transport, certainly, crosses county boundaries. If we think about connectivity in the north of England, how Lancashire, Greater Manchester, the Liverpool city region, Cheshire, Cumbria and the …”

“Local government reorganisation is a statutory process, so it requires local areas to produce plans, as does devolution. Both are required to go to public consultation to solicit views—that is part of the process. When the formal process starts, the Government’s role is to assess the proposals and the consultation as s…”

“Obviously, we inherited the plans for Norfolk and Suffolk from the previous Government. I will be clear that we could not progress with that deal because it would have seen directly elected council leaders assume the role of a mayor, but without the framework in place to support that, which we did not support. We have …”

“Only this week are we seeing a genuine redistribution of money in the local government system so that it goes to the areas that need it the most. For far too long, the funding formula did not recognise deprivation or that some tax bases are weaker at a local level than others. The £600 million recovery grant is intende…”

“It was previously very difficult for the Government to have an honest conversation with local government about what an adequate level of public service provision should be in a given place, because they knew full well that they were not providing the resources to enable that to happen in a fair way across the country. …”

“I would not characterise the hon. Gentleman’s party as a threat to democracy, but it might be a threat to sanity. We are all tested on a too-regular basis by fairly ridiculous statements that try to drive a wedge and divide people instead of bringing them together. One thing about devolution is that, regardless of part…”

“I remember when the Greater Manchester devolution deal was signed in 2014. Its principles were to reform public services, so we could focus on prevention rather than crisis management, which is more expensive and has worse outcomes, and grow the local tax base, because the area would become more productive through inve…”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is my predecessor, for his question and for the tone with which he dealt with us in opposition; I honour that in return. The fair funding review is absolutely critical. We are committed to a multi-year financial settlement, which is about giving security, but we all know there is no secu…”

“When Labour was last in government, we brought forward landmark legislation to create the Mayor of London, Parliaments in Scotland and Wales and the Assembly in Northern Ireland. The quality council status was introduced for parish and town councils, and powers on wellbeing and other matters were given to local governm…”

“That is a fair point. I am losing track of the number of MPs who are standing up to declare they are still councillors, although I recognise there is a transition—I went through it myself—and there may be an overlap between being a councillor and a Member of Parliament. On the detail of individual counties, it is for l…”

“Again, we say in the White Paper—I also referenced this in my opening remarks—that it was a Labour Government who introduced quality status for parish councils to recognise that that tier of government has a very important role to play and can do far more if trusted and given the power to do so. We see that town and pa…”

“That question was raised earlier, and I apologise for not addressing it. The Government will provide capacity to enable both devolution and local government reorganisation through discussions with local authorities. Some of that might be funding, and quite a lot might be support through workforce development. Last week…”

“There were three types of programme on the transition to the new Government. The first were the legacy devolution agreements that were agreed under the previous Government but had not yet passed through Parliament, which we wanted to reconcile. The second were the areas that we wanted to target—by and large, areas in t…”

“There is nothing in the White Paper that is about decrying the work that has gone before. In fact, there is a great deal that celebrates the work done by local government, such as the community leadership provided by frontline councillors, council leaders and council executives on a range of issues. They are the builde…”

“On the question of whether we will reduce the number of Ministers, I can easily answer that by saying that that is well above my pay grade, but I hope there will always be a need for a Local Government Minister to oversee, to hold people’s hands and to be a well-wisher. The identity question is really important, and an…”

“In all things I try to be direct, and I have been direct in saying that if those councils that come to the Government with a request for reorganisation meet the test and have a credible programme in place, the elections will likely not take place until the year after, because they will be postponed to elect the shadow …”

“I thank Members in Cornwall and the leaders in Cornwall for the discussions that we have had. I know that devolution is an issue that is strongly felt, and that identity in particular is an issue that is strongly felt. We recognise that we need to strike the right balance, so the White Paper will point to a population …”