English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill reaches Committee stage in the House of Lords

The Bill began its Committee stage in the House of Lords on Monday 20 January 2026, and has now progressed through 5 of the 7 scheduled committee sittings.

The Bill once enacted will introduce a new category of authority called Strategic Authorities, which will operate at one of three levels of devolution: foundation, mayoral and established mayoral. Strategic Authorities will receive the general power of competence, and have competence in the following areas: transport and infrastructure, skills and employment support, housing and strategic planning, economic development and regeneration, environment and net zero, health and wellbeing, and public safety.

It also provides for new planning powers for mayors of Combined Authorities and Combined County Authorities, including the power to direct refusal of planning applications of potential strategic importance and the power to call in strategically important development applications, and the power to prepare Mayoral Development orders (MDOs) to grant planning permission for particular developments.

This blog post was written by James Neill.