Local elections could be delayed for up to a year for councils that are being overhauled, Angela Rayner has said.
The deputy prime minister made the admission while outlining the government’s devolution plans, which will see some smaller, district councils combined into bigger “strategic authorities” with more sway over their areas.
Earlier in the day housing minister Jim McMahon said some local elections may not go ahead next year for those that have chosen to merge.
Asked whether some elections could be delayed, Ms Rayner told reporters: "We’re asking people to come forward as quickly as possible, and if they’re near enough to a deal and they say: ‘Well, you know, we just need a few more months, and then we can put that system in place’.
“If they came to us and said ‘that’s where we’re at’, then we may look at postponing, but it wouldn’t be for longer than a couple of months, a year.”
Labour’s manifesto promised to “deepen” and “widen” devolution, with more areas expected to take on the mayoral combined authority (CA) model like that headed by Sadiq Khan in Greater London.
Local elections are held every year in May - but Mr McMahon told LBC some councils “essentially won’t exist” if they make a request for reorganisation under the devolution proposals.
“At the moment, the assumption is that elections are going ahead,” he said.
“However, it’s usual in a process of reorganisation that when a council makes a request for reorganisation - that if there are elections taking place to a council that essentially won’t exist within the term of those elections - then you hold off the elections and you elect to a shadow body, and the shadow body basically is a form of the new councils that will follow.”
Some local authorities have already requested reorganisation, he added, saying there will be a statutory consultation before any changes are made.
Asked if some local authorities would be closed or merged Mr McMahon said: “That’s the nature of reorganisation.”
There are 12 areas of England under the CA model, headed by regional metro mayors. These mayors, including Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester* , have more powers than leaders or mayors of local councils.
Speaking later to Good Morning Britain, he said merging councils could bring £2bn in efficiency savings.
He said there are only 21 counties still with a two-tier system of local government - meaning there is a district and a county council - and lots of people “don’t know which council to go to”.
“This is about simplifying the system so that the accountability is strong, but it’s not to diminish the work that district councils and county councils have done in the past,” he said.
In her speech from Leeds today, Ms Rayner vowed to push power out of Whitehall and into the hands of people with “skin in the game” across a range of policy areas including housing.