Election in the West Midlands
The 2024 West Midlands mayoral election was held on 2 May 2024 to elect the mayor of the West Midlands. The election took place on the same day as other local elections across England and Wales. Richard Parker of the Labour Party won the election, narrowly defeating incumbent Conservative mayor Andy Street, who was running for a third term.
Background.
The West Midlands is the second most populous city-region of the United Kingdom, after Greater London. The position of Mayor of the West Midlands was created in 2017 following a devolution agreement between the UK government and the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA). The Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 required a directly elected "metro mayor" for combined authorities to receive additional powers from central government. Under the terms of the devolution deal, the first mayoral term was set to last until 2020, followed by elections every four years. In the inaugural election in 2017, the Conservative candidate Andy Street defeated Labour's Siôn Simon in the final round with 50.4% of the vote. Street was subsequently elected to a second term in 2021 (the election having been delayed a year in the COVID-19 pandemic), defeating Labour candidate Liam Byrne in the final round with 54.0% of the vote.
Electoral system.
This election was the first to use first past the post to elect the mayor as a result of the changes made by the Elections Act 2022, with previous elections in 2017 and 2021 using the supplementary vote system.
All registered electors living in the metropolitan boroughs of Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall, and Wolverhampton aged 18 or over were entitled to vote.
Candidates.
Conservative Party.
Andy Street, the incumbent mayor and former managing director of John Lewis &amp; Partners.
Labour Party.
The incumbent West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster, initially sought selection before dropping out after receiving only three nominations from local Constituency Labour Parties, while the former accountant Richard Parker received seventeen and the councillor and victims' commissioner Nicky Brennan received eight. Parker went on to be selected on 14 April 2023 following a ballot of Labour members in the region.
Parker worked at PwC from 1989 to 2015, leading on housing and communities and managing the company's relationship with the Labour shadow cabinet from 2010 to 2015. After leaving PwC he started a business "working with SMEs and social enterprises on green investment, housing initiatives and the Birmingham Commonwealth Games". He said that if elected mayor, he would take public control of the bus network, only give combined authority contracts that pay their staff well, and move the net zero deadline from 2041 to 2035. He had been endorsed by most Labour MPs and senior Labour councillors in the region.
Green Party.
The Green Party of England and Wales candidate in the election was Siobhan Harper-Nunes. A local businesswoman, Harper-Nunes previously stood as a Green candidate in the 2022 Birmingham Erdington by-election.
Liberal Democrats.
The Liberal Democrats chose barrister and mediator Sunny Virk as their candidate. Virk stood in the 2023 Tamworth by-election. If elected, he promised to focus on the transport network and attracting investment to the region.
Reform UK.
Reform UK announced Elaine Williams, a solicitor as their candidate in March 2024.
Independent.
Akhmed Yakoob, a criminal defence lawyer, stood as an independent. He was endorsed by George Galloway. The majority of his campaigning occurred on social media, in particular TikTok. His campaign focused on the Israel–Hamas war and various local issues.
Campaign.
Prior to the election, the Labour-run Birmingham City Council, the local council for the most populous metropolitan borough within West Midlands, declared bankruptcy. The situation was criticised during the campaign by the incumbent mayor, Conservative Andy Street, who said that the Council had "let down" citizens and services. However, he also distanced himself from the incumbent Conservative government led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, urging voters to "focus on him and his record, not the performance of the Conservative party nationally". Street also highlighted his record in office, saying that "an extra £10 billion pounds has come to the area as a result of the mayoral system" and that his mayoralty had "delivered 16,000 more houses a year, 33% of them affordable", which according to him was "one of the best records of any region".
Amongst his other policies, Street pledged to treble the amount of social housing within the West Midlands to 1,700 new social homes per year, using powers newly devolved to the combined authority in 2023, with the city region receiving a single affordable housing settlement from central government after 2026. Disappointed with the central government decision to cancel the northern leg of the high-speed rail project HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester, Street outlined plans with the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham to revive the high-speed rail project with private investment.
The Labour candidate for Mayor, Richard Parker, pledged to "create 150,000 new jobs for the region" by focusing on raising the skill level of the workforce in the region with the mayor's adult skills budget and by creating a taskforce to help support businesses in the region to stay and grow. He has also pledged to bring the region's bus services into public ownership. Parker also said that he doesn't believe people will blame Labour for the Birmingham's Labour-led city council declaring bankruptcy, instead commenting that "the Conservatives have cut £1 billion from the council's budget during the past decade" which has been "incredibly damaging" to the "poorest communities at a time when they've been suffering most" according to him. Parker has in his campaign also pledged to "offer real help with the cost of living crisis" and deliver more affordable and reliable public transport for the region.
Both Street and Parker, alongside the Liberal Democrat candidate Sunny Virk, backed the proposed light rail system in Coventry, with Street saying that he has "ring-fenced £72m in government money" for the system. Parker has promised that if elected he would "revisit the scheme to make sure money was available more quickly". The Green candidate, Siobhan Harper-Nunes also backed the system, but criticised 
central government for "refusing to fund VLR in full". In contrast to the others, Elaine Williams of Reform UK, branded the proposals "a vanity project" and said that "Coventry could and should spend a fraction of this amount on increasing the number of buses, security on its buses, remove restrictions and welcome cars back into its city centre".
The role of the Police and Crime Commissioner for the region was set to be abolished and its functions transferred to the Mayor in time for the next mayoral term following the election, however the incumbent Labour PCC Simon Foster took legal action against the process and the High Court ruled in his favour, preventing the scheduled merger of the roles prior to the election. The roles in question are already merged in London, Manchester and West Yorkshire, with the Mayor of South Yorkshire scheduled to have the PCC powers merged into the offices functions coinciding with the election. Street continued to support the merger of the functions to the mayoral powers, saying that the success of the model was "already evident" in the aforementioned city regions. Street had previously accused his Labour opponent of "refusing to come clean on his views on the future of policing and crime" in the region and had said that "it was surprising the candidate did not appear to have a view on the future of policing governance in the region", after Parker had said that "he did not wish to comment yet" on the proposal prior to the completion of the consultation process on the issue by the government.
Results.
The Labour candidate, Richard Parker, narrowly won the election by 1,508 votes, defeating the incumbent Conservative mayor, Andy Street, by just 0.3 percentage points.
References.
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