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MP says option D splits Huntingdonshire

2 min read

12:41UTC

Ben Obese-Jecty told a Westminster Hall debate the Government had settled on option D, dividing his district between two unitaries and tying part of it to a council geared at 91%.

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Key takeaway

Obese-Jecty alleges option D splits Huntingdonshire and joins part of it to a council geared at 91%.

Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative member of Parliament for Huntingdon, told the Westminster Hall debate of 1 September that ministers had settled on "option D", splitting Huntingdonshire between a Mid Cambridgeshire unitary and a Greater Peterborough one⁠¹. That is his account, not a Government announcement. The minister did not confirm the option, and no Structural Changes Order, the statutory instrument that legally creates a new council, was laid during the window⁠².

Obese-Jecty quoted the option's own business case against it. Peterborough City Council carries debt worth 91% of its assets, measured against a national gearing benchmark of 50%, and holds a high-risk resilience rating from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy⁠³.

A new unitary inherits every predecessor's borrowing and every predecessor's assets, and the ratio between the two governs what it can borrow next. Attach a district to a council already geared against 91% of what it owns, and the successor authority opens with almost no headroom. Borrowing headroom is what pays for school places, road repairs and housing, so the constraint reaches residents through services rather than through the council tax bill, which is where they would look for it.

The department withheld a decision on the county in July, because the 500,000-population threshold was hardest to defend there, and every option drawn up since has involved dividing something that currently sits together. Huntingdonshire's own politics have not waited: the Liberal Democrats took St Neots Eynesbury from Reform UK in the district in August.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, told a Westminster Hall debate that ministers have privately settled on option D for reorganising Cambridgeshire and Peterborough's councils, which would split his own Huntingdonshire district between two new unitary councils. He cited Peterborough City Council's debt gearing, a measure of how much of its assets are funded by borrowing, at 91% against a 50% national benchmark, as a reason to worry about the plan. The minister did not confirm his claim, and no formal order has been made.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Debt gearing measures how much of a council's asset base is funded by borrowing rather than reserves or income; Peterborough's 91% figure, against a 50% national benchmark, means most of its asset value is debt-financed.

Folding Peterborough into a single new unitary, as option D's Greater Peterborough would, concentrates that borrowing cost onto whichever area's council tax base ends up carrying it, which explains why the Huntingdon MP objects to this specific boundary rather than to reorganisation as such.

What could happen next?

Risk
Whichever unitary inherits Peterborough's debt burden faces a structurally weaker starting balance sheet than one that does not.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: Thurrock is this topic's own precedent for a council whose debt problems constrained an elected administration: MHCLG commissioners still hold legal control of its £1.5bn Section 114 budget, leaving the council Reform UK won 41 of 49 seats on in May without spending authority over its largest budget line.

Counter-parallel: Peterborough has not been placed under Section 114 restriction the way Thurrock has; CIPFA's high-risk rating is a forward warning about its resilience, not a declaration of lost budgetary control, so the comparison is anticipatory rather than a like-for-like case.

Immediate: Peterborough's 91% debt gearing, against a 50% national benchmark, means the council would enter any merged unitary already carrying roughly double the borrowing load considered sustainable.

Structural: that is a liability any new authority absorbing Peterborough would inherit regardless of how the boundary is drawn, which is why the funding formula in the preceding event, up to £1m per new unitary rather than per area, matters to how the risk gets spread.

Sources:Hansard, House of Commons

Mentions:Ben Obese-Jecty →Huntingdonshire →Mid Cambridgeshire →Greater Peterborough →Peterborough City Council →Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) →Parliament →Liberal Democrats →St Neots Eynesbury →Cambridgeshire and Peterborough →Westminster →Reform UK →

First Reported In

Update #17 · Reform's £4m arrived as cash, not crypto

Hansard, House of Commons· 3 Sept 2026

Read original →

Different Perspectives

Rhun ap Iorwerth / Welsh Government (Plaid Cymru)

Ap Iorwerth presented six priorities to the Senedd on 22 September without numeric targets or a named partner party, promising to work across the chamber where there is common ground. He says his government will be judged on results.

Michael Marra / Scottish Labour

Marra won the leadership on 19 September, and three days later his 17 MSPs backed Swinney's right-to-decide motion once their child-poverty amendment was written in. He says Scottish Labour's task is to tell voters what it stands for.

Andy Burnham / Labour Party

Burnham told conference in Liverpool on 29 September that Labour's next manifesto will commit to changing the electoral system, and invited every party into a National Commission on Electoral Reform. He has not named a replacement system, and no chair or remit has been published.

Conservative Party (frontbench peers and Kemi Badenoch)

Conservative frontbench peers argued against retrospective rules at the Lords Second Reading on 14 September, a position that protects gifts made before any cap. Kemi Badenoch rejected Burnham's electoral reform commission on 2 October, accusing him of using it to entrench the left.

Reform UK

Reform denied wrongdoing after the Channel 4 News programme, called the sting a hoax by climate activists and said it would cooperate with the Metropolitan Police. In the same month it announced £36m gifts from Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne.

Steff Aquarone / Liberal Democrats (North Norfolk)

Aquarone told Rayner in the Commons on 7 September that North Norfolk District Council had spent money preparing for a reorganisation the Government has now withdrawn. He puts the cost of the cancelled merger on districts in the four areas.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.