Starmer to lay out Surrey election plan 'shortly'

Keir Starmer answered a concern about the elections at Prime Minister's Questions

Prime Minister Keir Starmer says a timetable for local council elections in Surrey will be laid out "very shortly", amid concerns from a local MP.

Some local authorities across the country postponed polls this year, ahead of a major government shakeup of how they're structured.

This led to the Liberal Democrat MP for Woking, Will Forster, urging the Prime Minister to pledge that local council elections would go ahead in 2026.

Starmer said: "We expect the elections [in Surrey] to be in the new unitary councils and we'll be setting out the planned timetable very shortly."

An article in The Times, by Max Kendix, said ministers were "considering accepting private pleas from Tory leaders of seven county councils" to delay local elections currently scheduled for May 2026 until 2027.

The report alleged that council leaders were "lobbying hard" to move the polls back to avoid potential gains by Reform UK and to maintain stability during plans to reorganise local government.

But senior Conservatives in Surrey strongly denied making any such request, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Surrey County Council leader Tim Oliver said in a post on social media: "Any decision on whether to postpone elections is ultimately up to the government, but we are absolutely not calling for a delay to Surrey's elections in May next year.

"We expect the government to announce their decision on local government reorganisation at the end of October, and elections to be in May 2026 as planned."

Since the story was published in The Times, Mr Kendix clarified on X that although some county councils could have their local elections cancelled, Surrey was on a different devolution timeline so "would go ahead".

Since May, the government has been considering two proposals to reorganise councils in Surrey into either two or three unitary councils.

An announcement on the plans is now widely expected in late October.