Today the Hampshire Council considered our Labour Governments offer to be included in the priority group for devolution in the geographical area covered by Southampton, Portsmouth, Isle of Wight and the Hampshire County councils. The government also recommended that council in the program consider requesting a twelve-month postponement of elections so that they had the time needed to work on complex plans.

I am pleased to say that the Hampshire County Council agreed to make a request along with all other three unitary councils to be included in the priority devolution group.

That request will be made along with a request to delay the 2025 elections that were due to be held in the Isle of Wight Council and in Hampshire County Council. Elections are not due to be held in Southampton or Portsmouth. This delay will enable the organisations to jointly undertake the significant work of developing, negotiating, and implementing the proposals. It will also enable time for a public consultation once the proposals have been developed and for a Mayoral election to be organised.

If the government does not accept the application to be in the priority devolution programme there will still be devolution for the region but at a slightly later date, and elections will go ahead in 2025 as normal. We hope to have confirmation of acceptance or not in the next few weeks, but we strongly expect to be included as the minister Jim McMahon has said that the government doesn’t see any reason to decline any credible application.

Devolution is about creating a regional Strategic Authority with an elected Mayor that will receive significant powers normally exercised by national government along with extra funding for these important strategic matters for the benefit of our region. The Strategic Authority will have elected representatives of councils from the region forming the cabinet.

This will benefit our area enormously. We will not have to competitively bid against each other for small pots of money from national government but will be able to work together to develop a strategy and funding for the whole area. No more bidding against each other for funding for things like public transport, economic growth, or tackling deprivation. This competitive bidding often means some parts of Hampshire lose out while others gain, and our governments devolution plan will enable us to create a joined-up strategies and deliver them.

At the same time as devolution is taking place, the government is reorganising local government so that all the current district, borough, unitary, and county councils amalgamate into new principal regional authorities. You can read more about Local Government Reorganisation here.