3 July 2025The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government’s key-note speech to the Local Government Association annual conference in Liverpool is now available on the MHCLG website.
SLCC Chair Adam Keppel-Green and Vice Chair Helen Ball have attended the conference with Chief Executive Rob Smith as part of a joint promotion of the local council sector with NALC.
In her speech, the Deputy Prime Minister confirmed that the anticipated local government bill will be called the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. She introduced factors that will be under consideration as part of the fair funding review including the ‘varying ability to raise tax locally with lower house prices impacting on councils budgets’.
Above all, she stated that the government would be making devolution the default setting, ‘so that (at) all levels and in everything we’re doing – whether through devolution, fairer funding, trusting local government in-house, or giving authorities the certainty and freedom to deliver on what really matter; we’re handing power back to where it belongs – to people with skin in the game.’
Read the speech here.
