2021 United Kingdom local elections
Local elections in the United Kingdom are expected to be held on 6 May 2021 in English local councils and for thirteen directly elected mayors in England and 40 police and crime commissioners in England and Wales. There are also elections in the parliaments and assemblies of Scotland, Wales and London, the last in conjunction with the London mayoral election.
In March 2020 the government announced that the elections originally scheduled for 7 May 2020 would be delayed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. They are now expected to be held at the same time as the elections previously scheduled for 2021.
The seats up for election are those last contested in 2016 and/or 2017. New unitary authorities to replace the county and district councils in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire are due to hold their inaugural elections this year.
Background
The local elections in May 2019 across a majority of councils in England saw the ruling Conservative Party suffer significant losses to the Liberal Democrats, who regained councils they lost to the Conservatives in 2015. The Labour Party, despite making some gains, had a net loss of over eighty seats in areas that had traditionally voted for them, particularly to independent candidates. Local elections also took place at the same time in Northern Ireland, which saw a rise in the Alliance Party's representation across the region. At the 2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom, a few weeks after, the Conservatives had their lowest share of the vote in a nation-wide election in their history, with the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats coming first and second, respectively.On 12 December 2019, the UK had a snap general election that led to the Conservative party winning a majority of eighty in the House of Commons, while the Labour Party achieved their worst share of the seats since the 1935 general election. Following the election result the leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn announced he would be stepping down from his position, though remain an MP. The result of the leadership and deputy leadership were unveiled on 4 April. Keir Starmer was elected leader of the party and Angela Rayner was elected as deputy. The Liberal Democrats will also have a leadership election after Jo Swinson lost her seat in the general election. During this period, the party's Deputy Leader Ed Davey and party President Mark Pack will act as co-leaders. Though the election was supposed to take place in July, because of the COVID-19 outbreak they delayed it till May 2021.
Postponement to 2021
From December 2019 a pandemic of a new strand of coronavirus began in mainland China and spread across the world from February 2020. On 1 March Health Secretary Matt Hancock issued a warning that "all options" were being considered for handle the quarantine in the UK if the virus spread further, including delaying the local elections, for the first time since the 2001 elections which were delayed by a month due to the foot-and-mouth outbreak. On 12 March, the Association of Electoral Administrators asked the government to consider postponing the elections should the situation in the UK get worse coming close to May. The same day, the Electoral Commission recommended that the elections be delayed till the autumn.A day later, Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided to postpone the 2020 UK local elections until May 2021. This decision was legislated for in the Coronavirus Act 2020, which was enacted on 25 March. The bill gave the government the power to postpone any elections, such as by-elections. To preserve the four-year electoral cycle, those elected in 2021 will serve three-year terms.
Voters and voting systems
In England, all residents of the areas covered that are 18 years or over and are a British or Irish citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen, or a citizen of the European Union would have been eligible to vote. A resident can be registered to vote in two different local authorities, such as a student, they may vote in both. In Wales, all residents that are 16 years or over and are registered to vote, regardless of citizenship, will be eligible to vote.Because this wave of local elections incorporates different positions, voters will use different voting systems to elect politicians. Councillors will be elected using First Past The Post, meaning that the councillor with the most votes in a ward is elected. Councils having "all-up" elections will have block voting, where voters have a vote for each seat the ward represents and the top councillors are elected. All mayors of England and Police and Crime Commissioners of England and Wales are elected using the supplementary vote system, which means voters select a first and second choice when they vote. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote, all except for the top two are eliminated. If your first choice candidate is eliminated, and your second choice is for one of the top two, then your second choice is counted.
The Welsh and Scottish parliaments uses the Additional member system, or AMS. This means voters vote once in single member constituency and once for party representation in the electoral region they are in. London uses two election systems, the Mayor of London is elected using the supplementary vote system, the London Assembly uses the AMS.
England
On 13 March 2020, the Government announced that the 2020 elections would be postponed until 2021 in response to growing concerns about the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.County councils
County councils are elected in full every four years, with the last election having been in 2017. County councils are the upper part of a two-tier system of local government, with the area each covers subdivided into district councils with different responsibilities. These are first-past-the-post elections with a mixture of single-member and multi-member electoral divisions.There were previously twenty-six county councils, but there will only be twenty-four by the time of the election. Buckinghamshire County Council was replaced with a unitary authority, Buckinghamshire Council, on 1 April 2020. Northamptonshire County Council "declared itself effectively bankrupt" in February 2018 and two new unitary authorities, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire, are due to replace it on 1 April 2021.
Metropolitan boroughs
There are thirty-six metropolitan boroughs, which are single-tier local authorities. Thirty-three of them elect a third of their councillors every year for three years, with no election in each fourth year. These councils hold their elections on the same timetable, and were due to hold an election in 2020 but not in 2021. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the May 2020 elections were postponed to May 2021. The remaining three metropolitan boroughs elect their councillors in full every four years. Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council was due to hold an election for all councillors in May 2020, but this was postponed to 2021. Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council was due to elect their councillors in 2021. Birmingham City Council holds its elections on a four-year cycle from 2018, so is not due to hold an election until 2022.Due to boundary changes, Salford City Council is also to elect all of its councillors in 2021, before returning to the thirds schedule. The remaining thirty-two metropolitan borough councils that elect their councillors in thirds will do so as usual at this election.
Elections for all councillors
Elections for one third of councillors
Unitary authorities
There were previously fifty-five unitary authorities, but three more are due to be created by the May elections. Buckinghamshire County Council was replaced with a unitary authority, Buckinghamshire Council, on 1 April 2020; the first election to the new unitary authority was scheduled for May 2020, but due to the coronavirus pandemic was rescheduled for May 2021. Subsequent elections are due to be held every four years from 2025. Northamptonshire County Council is due to be replaced with two unitary authorities, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire on 1 April 2021. The first elections to the shadow authorities were planned to be held in May 2020, but due to the coronavirus pandemic have been rescheduled to May 2021. Subsequent elections will be held every four years from 2025.Of the resulting fifty-eight unitary authorities, thirty elect all their councillors every four years on the cycle from 2019, so are not due to hold elections until 2023. Six elect their councillors every four years and were originally planning to elect in 2021. The three new unitary authorities were scheduled to hold their elections in 2020 and then every four years from 2025, before the 2020 local elections were postponed to 2021. Two unitary authorities were scheduled to elect all their councillors in 2020 but these have also been postponed to 2021. Seventeen unitary authorities elect a third of their councillors every year for three years including 2020 but not 2021, and these elections have been postponed to 2021. Two of these, Halton and Hartlepool, have had boundary changes that mean they are electing all of their councillors in 2021.