With a lot happening in politics recently, a major piece of legislation in Westminster is flying under the radar. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill will fundamentally change how local government works in England, paving the way for strategic authorities led by Mayors to take on decision-making powers across the country, beyond the big cities where this approach has already been adopted.  

Beneath this new strategic tier of local Government, further changes from the Bill include the merging of existing district and county councils to form large unitary authorities. The Government has described the overall purpose of this package of reforms as ‘empowering local communities to have a bigger say in shaping their local area’. 

This is a laudable objective, but will the Bill deliver it? 

Local governments are denied the powers needed to respond to change climate and nature loss

There is a gap in the legislation which, unless filled, risks local empowerment being an empty promise. Climate change and nature loss are already shaping local areas for the worse, yet the Bill fails to give local government the powers needed to respond to this.  

The climate and nature crisis is already a reality in England. The impacts can already be seen across communities, from vanishing freshwater fisheries to flooded homes, increased wildfires and falling farm yields. 

What tools does the Bill give to local authorities wanting to take action to address these growing challenges? Zero.  

The new strategic authorities are given set functions by Part 2 of the Bill, covering transport, skills, housing, economic development, health and public safety. This provides a license for strategic authorities to take ambitious steps in each area to make local lives better. There is no such licence for environmental action. A major local government reorganisation at a time of climate change and nature loss fails to speak to this growing crisis. 

This environmental omission is all the more frustrating, as it appears to have been a deliberate decision.  

Promised environmental functions disappeared when the Bill was published

The December 2024 English Devolution White Paper that preceded the Bill promised that ‘strategic authorities will play a crucial role in preparing for the future and tackling climate change and nature emergencies at the local and regional level’. 

It stated that this would be delivered through strategic authorities being given a ‘a clear mandate to take a leadership role on Local Nature Recovery Strategies and wider environmental delivery’. By the time the Bill was published in July 2025, these promised environmental functions for strategic authorities had vanished.  

It seems likely that the Government’s disastrous January 2025 pivot to pretending that nature is a blocker to growth played a role in this scrubbing of the environment from the local government reforms. In addition to environmental degradation and electoral self-harm, diminished local government reforms can be added to the score sheet for No 10’s disastrous foray into attacking bats and newts.  

The Wildlife Trusts are pushing for nature to be put included in the Bill

Since the publication of the Bill, England’s Wildlife Trusts have been urging Ministers to correct this mistake. Suffolk and Norfolk Wildlife Trusts joined forces with local authorities in their counties to write to Government setting out why nature should be at the heart of English devolution, following this up with an in-person briefing for MPs, held with Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.  

Across the Wildlife Trust movement, joint advocacy efforts have seen MPs and peers asked to take action to put nature back into the local government reforms. Parliamentarians have listened and some great amendments have been proposed to improve the Bill. 

Nature amendments debated in both the Commons and Lords include:  

• A duty for both new strategic authorities and existing local authorities to contribute to the achievement of targets in the Environment Act and Climate Change Act (see amendments 241B and 192 at Lords committee stage).
• Allowing communities to buy land that furthers their environmental wellbeing, through an extension of the Bill’s community right to buy provisions (see amendments 225 and 226 at Lords committee stage).
• A duty for strategic authorities to enable community gardening and increase allotment spaces, with a view to boosting public health (see amendment 169 at Lords committee stage).
• A requirement for National Park authorities to be included in the development of spatial development strategies which cover National Park land (see amendment 241E at Lords committee stage).
• A requirement for strategic authority growth plans to comply with the Local Nature Recovery Strategy/Strategies and with the Land Use Framework at a national level (see amendment 65 at Commons report stage). 

 
These amendments have been valiantly argued but, so far, the Government has given way only in one area. The health function given to strategic authorities in Part 2 of the Bill includes a duty to have regard to the need to improve public health and reduce health inequalities. This is followed by a list of ‘general health determinants’, policy areas where improvements could reduce health inequalities. 

The list in the Bill failed to include access to nature-rich space, despite the evidence that increasing access boosts health outcomes and reduces health inequalities. This omission would have seen authorities directed away from using one of the best public health tools available to them.  

The Wildlife Trusts supported Sian Berry MP and other parliamentarians at Commons stages to try and rectify this and in November the Government listened, tabling their own amendments to the Bill to add ‘access to green space and bodies of water’ as a general health determinant. This means that the strategic authorities will have a strong steer to increase access to nature-rich spaces in their area. Wildlife Trusts stand ready to help authorities achieve this. 

A last chance for Ministers to see sense

Ministers would do well to reflect on how this concession has improved the Bill, as the legislation approaches its critical stages. Lords report stage, when peers vote on adding amendments to the Bill, is expected around Easter. 

This is the Government’s last opportunity to accept that local government reforms will fare better if, as originally promised, they include measures to help local authorities respond to environmental decline.  

Devolution and empowerment will ring hollow if they fail to address the powerlessness many feel in the face of climate change and nature loss. Local authorities need strong tools to protect the communities they serve from the consequences of a splintering natural world, not a shrug and a turned back from Westminster.