Katie Lam: Angela Rayner’s U-turn shows Labour is putting political power ahead of the people

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Shadow Housing Secretary Katie Lam writes for GB News about Labour's latest U-turn

This week, the Government announced a pause on their plans to reorganise local government.

It’s the latest embarrassing U-turn for this Labour Government, and the latest reminder that Andy Burnham’s devolution agenda has nothing to do with giving people more control over their own lives or their own local areas.

The services that councils provide are usually the way that people engage most directly with the state in their day-to-day lives.

Given that almost everybody pays council tax, we all have an interest in those services being provided in the way that makes the most sense.

So you’d expect any proposals to redraw council boundaries to be subject to proper scrutiny, and to be informed by people’s opinions about their own areas.

Yet from the outset, ministers have ignored local opposition to their proposed boundaries.

They’ve refused to publish the guidance that shaped their plans for the new council areas, or the legal advice that they’ve taken along the way. Instead, they’ve tried to draw council boundaries in the most politically convenient way for themselves, gerrymandering the boundaries to ensure that people end up with a Labour council whether or not they want one.

It's no wonder that, when announcing the pause, Angela Rayner referred to "legal advice" which had prompted her to do so.

And when they announced the new boundaries for Kent, before Parliament’s summer break, I was one of more than 100 MPs who were given no warning whatsoever, as the result of an “admin error”.

At 3.44pm, we were invited to join a video call 45 minutes later. Apparently, this was “an opportunity to hear from a minister about these changes directly”.

And having been given just 45 minutes’ notice, the call itself lasted just 15 minutes.

There was no opportunity for questions and we were told that, if we had concerns, we should write to the department for answers.

In a pre-prepared speech, the minister listed off the changes that the Government had already announced, and ended the call.

It has been, top to bottom, a complete farce. MPs, elected by the people, should have an opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s plans.

Ministers should, at very least, have the decency to explain what they’re doing, and why.

But for all their talk of "empowering people", this contemptuous approach to scrutiny and to those who disagree with them has characterised Labour’s approach to local Government at every step of the way.

Thanks to their ‘Fair Funding’ review, low-tax councils will be punished with funding cuts.

Their plans for local mayors will allow them to raise your taxes, but never to reduce them.

Taking more of people’s money, and drawing politically motivated local government boundaries, is the furthest thing imaginable from ‘empowering people’.

When Andy Burnham talks about devolution, what he really means is more politicians, able to raise our taxes even more, and given the power to interfere even more in our lives.

For Labour, local government isn’t about providing the services that people need.

It’s yet another tool to be used in service of their high-tax, low-accountability politics.