Mayoral and local elections 2025: The government should hold its course on devolution despite the rise of Reform

The local and mayoral elections delivered a stinging rebuke to both Labour and the Conservatives, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK taking control of two regional mayoralties and 10 councils. ⁶ Reform UK also became the largest party in a further four county councils.  The Liberal Democrats also made gains.

The results pose a set of new challenges to the government and its policy agenda, and could test Labour’s commitment to devolution.

The government will have to learn to work in partnership with an increasingly politically diverse set of mayors  

Since taking office last summer, ministers have engaged closely with England’s regional mayors – with the 12 mayors in post all meeting the prime minister and deputy prime minister in the first week after the general election.

Subsequently the mayors have been invited to meetings of the new Council of Nations and Regions and Mayoral Council, alongside a range of private interactions between ministers and mayors around specific policy areas. This level of engagement with England’s regional leaders has been welcome – and reflect Institute for Government recommendations for how the government should work with devolved leaders from across the UK.

The fact that 11 of the 12 mayors were from the Labour Party has certainly made it easier for ministers to treat these regional leaders as partners rather than rivals, with Ben Houchen alone carrying the flag for the opposition parties. The latest elections mean Houchen is now joined by the new Conservative mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Paul Bristow, as well as the two Reform UK mayors elected on either side of the Humber.  

Next year, the government intends to hold mayoral elections in at least six new regions, which could see opposition mayors taking office in places like Essex, Hampshire, Cheshire and East Anglia. This means ministers must learn to work with a growing cohort of non-Labour mayors, who may be political opponents, but share the same broad objectives of delivering growth, improving connectivity and creating jobs in their regions.

The government faces new obstacles on the path to a complete devolution map  

While devolution was extended last week to two new regions – Hull and East Yorkshire and Greater Lincolnshire – the intake of new councillors and local leaders may yet frustrate government ambitions to ‘complete the map’ of English devolution.

Labour’s poor electoral performance could see local leaders attempt to distance themselves from an unpopular government, potentially making it harder to conclude devolution agreements in the six Devolution Priority Programme (DPP) areas. However, Labour will be hopeful that the promise of further funding, new powers and local autonomy will continue to be sufficiently attractive to the existing set of council leaders, whose jobs were saved by the postponement of elections across the DPP areas.

More uncertain is how the emergence of new leadership in areas outside of the DPP areas will affect the subsequent waves of devolution, with both Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats now controlling a number of county and unitary councils in areas – including across the Oxford-Cambridge Arc research corridor, Lancashire, Kent and Thames Valley – to which the government wants to extend devolution.

Depending on how negotiations in these places proceed, ministers may have to consider using the proposed new “ministerial directive” power to compel areas to establish new strategic authorities, which is due to be part of the forthcoming devolution bill. The Institute for Government has previously noted that some degree of central direction might be required to ‘complete the map’, but ministers will be wary of the optics of imposing devolution from the centre. 

Plans for local government reorganisation may face opposition from many of the new council leaders

The election results may also create new challenges for the government’s programme of local government reorganisation. This will replace county and district councils in 21 two-tier areas – as well as 19 of their small neighbouring unitary authorities – with a single tier of local government.

New council leaders have inherited their predecessors’ interim plans for local government reorganisation and must immediately start preparing full proposals for submission in November. There have already been deep divisions between councils about the preferred way forward in many areas due for reorganisation. Changes of party control may now trigger further disagreements, both about the boundaries of new authorities and potentially with the government’s overall approach.

The Liberal Democrats – who gained control in Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Shropshire – have opposed the government’s approach to local government reorganisation and challenged the government’s criteria for new unitary authorities. The position of Reform UK is less clear at this point, but some degree of pushback on Labour’s preferred approach seems plausible. If the government does not receive suitable proposals for reorganisation, it may need to spend political capital using the secretary of state’s power to implement alternative plans.

Disputes over the government’s housebuilding and green energy plans loom

The government has put housebuilding and delivering net zero commitments at the heart of its policy programme. It has begun to reform the planning system to support its target to build 1.5 million homes over five years and aims to decarbonise the energy system by 2030.

Labour may now face increased opposition to those objectives. Richard Tice – the deputy leader of Reform UK – declared that his party would “wage war” against developers of renewable energy projects in Lincolnshire, ⁸ Heren K, Reform to 'wage war' against net zero 'lunacy' after local elections, LBC, 4 May 2025, www.lbc.co.uk/politics/uk-politics/reform-net-zero-war/  while Andrea Jenkyns – the new Reform mayor of Greater Lincolnshire – has committed to “end the net zero madness.”

However, while Reform will talk tough on planning and net zero, it may not have the levers at its disposal to derail Labour’s ambitions after winning control of only four councils – County Durham, Doncaster, West Northamptonshire and North Northamptonshire – with planning powers.  

Even if more councils decide to be seriously obstructive, the government can designate major new energy infrastructure as “nationally significant” and grant planning permission centrally. And the government’s new mandatory housing targets and reforms streamlining planning processes will lessen councils’ veto powers over new homes.

Finally, while Reform is particularly vocal about its opposition, it is hardly the only party that blocks development. It is unlikely that the Conservative councils that Reform predominantly won would have been strong allies for Labour.

More worrying to Labour for its housebuilding target should be local authorities’ relatively thin planning capacity and the availability of sufficient skilled workforce to actually build the houses. Rebuilding local (and regional) governance capacity could be crucial for the government to make progress in this area.  

As it surveys England’s rapidly changing political landscape, some in government may question the wisdom of further devolution, given that this will increasingly involve the empowerment of local leaders of other political parties. However, to backtrack would be a mistake. Devolution remains a crucial part of the solution to regional inequality and poor productivity in large swathes of England, so the government should hold its course.