2021 Tees Valley mayoral election

The 2021 Tees Valley mayoral election will be held on 6 May 2021 to elect the mayor of Tees Valley on the same day as other local elections across the country. The mayor will be elected by the supplementary vote. The election was originally due to take place in May 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1]

2021 Tees Valley mayoral election

6 May 2021 For details of all candidates see the article

Candidate Ben Houchen Jessie Joe Jacobs Party Conservative Labour Co-op

Map of the Tees Valley authorities

Incumbent Mayor Ben Houchen Conservative

Conservative incumbent mayor Ben Houchen will be seeking re-election, with Labour candidate Jessie Joe Jacobs challenging him.

Background

The mayor of Tees Valley serves as the directly elected leader of the Tees Valley Combined Authority and has powers considered lesser than those of other mayors such as Greater Manchester and the West of England. The mayor has power over an annual £15 million investment from the national government over a 30 year period, as well as control over adult skills training, social care and a consolidated transport budget- giving the ability to acquire bus services.[2] The mayor does not supersede or overrule the five boroughs within the Tees Valley city-region.[3][4]

At the previous and first election for the mayor of Tees Valley in 2017, the Conservative Party candidate Ben Houchen won with 51.2% of the vote in the second round, with a turnout of 21%.[5] This victory was seen as a surprise since Tees Valley has traditionally been seen as a Labour stronghold.[6][7] Some saw Houchen's victory as evidence that the Conservatives were going to do well in the following election,[8][9] others described it as a "warning shot" at Labour from their voter base.[10]

The urban think-tank Centre for Cities looked at the results of local elections in Tees Valley for 2018 and 2019 to make a prediction of the result and found Labour had suffered considerable losses, giving the Conservaties an advantage.[11] Following the 2019 general election, the Centre for Cities also assessed the Tees Valley constituencies results and found the Conservatives polled 44% across all Tees Valley constituencies, whilst Labour polled 41%.[12]

It was announced in March 2020 that the mayoral election will be delayed to May 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.[13]

Electoral system

The election will use a supplementary vote system, in which voters express a first and a second preference for candidates.[5]

• If a candidate receives more than 50% of the first preference vote, that candidate wins.
• If no candidate receives more than 50% of first preference votes, the top two candidates proceed to a second round and all other candidates are eliminated.
• The first preference votes for the remaining two candidates stand in the final count.
• Voters' ballots whose first and second preference candidates are eliminated are discarded.
• Voters whose first preference candidates have been eliminated and whose second preference candidate is one of the top two have their second preference votes added to that candidate's count.

This means that the winning candidate has the support of a majority of voters who expressed a preference among the top two.[14]

All registered electors (British, Irish, Commonwealth and European Union citizens) living in Tees Valley aged 18 or over on 7 May 2020 will be entitled to vote in the mayoral election. Those who are temporarily away from Tees Valley (for example, away working, on holiday, in student accommodation or in hospital) will also be entitled to vote in the mayoral election. The deadline to register to vote in the election will be announced nearer the election.[15]

Candidates

Conservative Party

Ben Houchen, the current mayor, launched his re-election campaign on 6 January.[16]

Labour Party

Jessie Joe Jacobs was announced as the Labour Party candidate for the city-region. Jacobs is the founder of the charity A Way Out in Stockton[17][18] and created a media project that taught ordinary people skills to report news called “We Are Our Media”, which created a citizen newspaper called the Eclipse.[19] Jacobs received endorsement from all seven local parties in the area, five trade unions and the Co-operative party.[20]

Dan Smith, an engineer and staffer for Paul Williams, Labour's former MP for Stockton South, also applied; however, he was not shortlisted.[20][9]

Liberal Democrats

Though the Liberal Democrats party has stated they planned to announced a candidate in mid-January, no one has been declared yet.[10]

Campaign

The incumbent mayor Ben Houchen launched his initial campaign for this election - prior to its delay - in January 2020, emphasising on investment in the steel industry in Tees Valley.[21] On 9 February it was revealed Houchen was in talks to purchase the former steelworks site in Redcar, which closed in 2015 when Sahaviriya Steel Industries's UK wing went out of business.[22]

Labour's candidate Jessie Joe Jacobs launched her campaign at the Hartlepool College of Further Education. Her core pledges for this election are to tackle mental health across the city-region where suicide rates are high, to build a new vocation centre in all five boroughs, start a high street innovation fund to help fill closed down retail spaces[23] and to improve transport. She advocated expanding bus and rail services in the city-region over the next ten years. This include restarting the Tees Valley Metro project, which was stopped in 2010.[24] Additionally, she is supportive of building a new bridge to improve transport between Hartlepool and South Teesside to help relieve pressure on the A19 and A66.[25][26] Jacobs has planned to bid to host the Festival of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a government proposed festival with £125 million prepared for it, in 2022, branding it as the "Festival of Teesside". [27]

On 10 November 2019 Jacobs was critical of the price Houchen arranged for Teesside Airport, which Houchen's administration had taken into public ownership, saying that the previous owner received a lot more than she would have allowed, considering they wanted to get rid of it.[18] Furthermore, on 11 February 2020, Jacobs was critical of Ben Houchen's lack of transparency over subsiding flight routes out of Teesside Airport rather than expanding bus routes around the city region.[28]

A hustings organised by Centre for Cities, the Institution of Civil Engineers and Teesside University was due to take place on 23 April but was cancelled due to Covid-19.

References

1. "Local elections postponed for a year over coronavirus". BBC News. 13 March 2020. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
2. "Tees Valley". Centre for Cities. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
3. "What the Mayor Does". Tees Valley Combined Authority. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
4. "Directly elected mayors". Local Government Association. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
5. "Mayor of the Tees Valley". BBC News. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
6. "Labour just lost a previously unthinkable mayoral election to the Tories". The Independent. 5 May 2017. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
7. "Conservatives win Tees Valley mayor race". BBC News. 5 May 2017. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
8. Lynch, Russell (2 February 2020). "Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen: 'Become an MP? I've got much more influence'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
9. Cain, James (2 January 2020). "Details on the two elections being held on Teesside in 2020". Teesside live. Reach plc.
10. Cain, James. "Elections for Tees Valley Mayor and Cleveland Police Commissioner this spring". The Northern Echo. Newsquest. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
11. Jeffrey, Simon; Bell, Owen (10 October 2019). "What do the local elections tell us about the upcoming metro mayor elections?". Centre for Cities. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
12. Jeffery, Simon (17 December 2019). "2020 vision — What does Thursday's vote mean for May's Metro Mayor elections". Centre for Cities. Retrieved 18 December 2019.
13. Metcalfe, Alex (13 March 2020). "Coronavirus sees Teesside mayoral and police chief elections delayed". TeessideLive. Reach plc. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
14. Elledge, Jonnk (2 May 2012). "London Elections: How The Voting System Works". The Londonist. Retrieved 21 August 2015.
15. "What is the Supplementary Vote? | Nudge Factory". Nudge Factory. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
16. Reporter, Staff (6 January 2020). "Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen launches campaign for re-election". The Northern Echo. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
17. Brown, Mike (21 July 2019). "Charity leader wants to be Labour's opponent for Mayor Ben Houchen". TeessideLive. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
18. Brown, Mike (10 November 2019). "How Jessie Joe Jacobs became political after meeting sex worker, 15". TeessideLive. Reach Plc. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
19. Pidd, Helen (6 February 2020). "Labour selects Liam Byrne as West Midlands mayoral candidate". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
20. Rodgers, Sienna (9 October 2019). "Jessie Joe Jacobs selected as Labour's Tees Valley mayor candidate". Labour List. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
21. "Tees Valley Mayor launches re-election campaign vowing to bring back steelmaking to Teesside". ITV News. 6 January 2020. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
22. Pidd, Helen (9 February 2020). "Tees Valley confronts Thailand over future of Redcar steelworks". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
23. Payne, Mark (15 February 2020). "How Labour's Tees Valley Mayor candidate plans to save our high streets". Hartlepool Mail. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
24. Cain, James (2 March 2020). "Labour candidate promises Tees Metro rail and bus system if elected". Teesside live. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
25. Metcalfe, Alex (22 January 2020). "Trio of pledges as Jessie Joe Jacobs launches campaign to be mayor". Teesside live. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
26. Scott, Jim (22 January 2020). "Labour Mayor hopeful pledges better transport links and 'opportunities'". The Northern Echo. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
27. Metcalfe, Alex. "Plans to draw a million visitors to new Teesside festival". The Northern Echo. Newsquest. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
28. Metcalfe, Alex (11 February 2020). "Teesside Airport: Dublin, Belfast and London flights are being subsidised by taxpayers". The Northern Echo. Newsquest. Retrieved 13 February 2020.