10 July 2025, 17:50

By Angela Rayner

Just over a year ago, this government was elected to deliver change – real change for working people.

After years of broken promises, failure and decline, many will wonder whether that’s even possible. I get that.

For all the talk of levelling up, they’ve seen the good jobs, secure homes and strong communities that our parents and grandparents relied on – that I relied on as a young mum – fall by the way side.

It’s my mission to rebuild these foundations of a good life for all communities in all parts of our country.

From my frontline experience of local government and seeing it change not just my life but many others, I know we won’t achieve this unless we fundamentally change the way our country is run.

Nothing less will do. That means handing power back where it belongs: to local leaders with skin in the game, so they can make decisions on what really matters to their communities.

This is what our landmark English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, being introduced to Parliament today, aims to do – drive the biggest transfer of power out of Whitehall to our regions in a generation and make devolution the default setting.

Through this, we’re ending a begging bowl, micro-managing culture and........

© LBC