The second Liverpool City Region mayoral election was held in May 2021 to elect the mayor of the Liverpool City Region, alongside other local elections across England and Wales, to elect councillors, the

mayor of Liverpool The mayor of Liverpool is the executive mayor of the city of Liverpool in England. The incumbent mayor is Joanne Anderson, who was elected in May 2021. The mayor of Liverpool was previously branded 'the most powerful politician in England outs ...

, and police and crime commissioners across the

city region City region is a term in use since about 1950 by urbanists, economists and urban planners to mean a metropolitan area and hinterland, often having a shared administration. Typically, it denotes a city, conurbation or urban zone with multiple admi ...

. The election was originally due to take place in May 2020, but was postponed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

Background

The position of Mayor of the Liverpool City Region was created in 2017 following a devolution deal between the UK government and the

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) is the combined authority of the Liverpool City Region. The Liverpool City Region includes the City of Liverpool local authority area plus the Metropolitan Boroughs of Knowsley, St Helens, ...

(LCRCA). The

Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 The Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 (c. 1) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom designed to introduce directly elected mayors to combined local authorities in England and Wales and to devolve housing, transport, pla ...

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. The Liverpool City Region is defined as having six boroughs which includes the county of

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...

( Knowsley,

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

, St Helens, Sefton, and Wirral) and the

Borough of Halton ("Industry fills the ship") , image_skyline = Runcorn Bridge - geograph.org.uk - 1701094.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = The Silver Jubilee Bridge at dusk , image_flag ...

. In March 2019, Rotheram requested that the police and crime commissioner role for the

Merseyside Police Merseyside Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing Merseyside in North West England. The service area is 647 square kilometres with a population of around 1.5 million. As of September 2017 the service has 3,484 police of ...

be incorporated into the role of the mayor of the Liverpool City Region. The request is in line with the powers the

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...

and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

mayors, who have authority and oversight over

Greater Manchester Police Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England. , Greater Manchester Police employed 6,866 police officers, 3,524 memb ...

and the Metropolitan Police Service, respectively. This was supported by the leader of Knowsley Borough Council. This would require the expansion of Merseyside Police to cover the Borough of Halton, which is in the boundaries of

Cheshire Constabulary Cheshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the English unitary authorities of Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Borough of Halton and Borough of Warrington. The force is responsible for policing an are ...

. However, this did not happen.

Candidates

Conservative Party

Jade Marsden was selected as candidate for the Conservative Party. Marsden was previously the parliamentary candidate for both the

Bootle Bootle (pronounced ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England, which had a population of 51,394 in 2011; the wider Parliamentary constituency had a population of 98,449. Historically part of Lancashire, Bootle's ...

and Sefton Central constituencies.

Labour Party

The incumbent mayor,

Steve Rotheram Steven Philip Rotheram (born 4 November 1961) is a British Labour Party politician who is the Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region. He previously served as the MP for Liverpool Walton from 2010 to 2017. Rotheram was born in Liverpool an ...

, was reselected as candidate for the Labour Party in August 2019 after receiving enough support from local

Constituency Labour Parties __NOTOC__ A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency. In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliamentary constituen ...

. In January 2020, before the

affected the United Kingdom, mayor Rotheram made it a core pledge of his re-election campaign that he would "guarantee a job, training or an apprenticeship opportunity to every young person within six months of them becoming unemployed".

Liberal Democrats

Andy Corkhill, councillor for Oxton, Wirral was originally selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate, but later withdrew because of health reasons so David Newman was selected to stand as the Lib Dem candidate. Andy Corkhill died in October 2021. Newman lives in Southport and stood in Liverpool Walton at the 2019 general election.

Green Party

The

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...

candidate for Metro Mayor is Gary Cargill, an actor who has appeared in several hit TV programmes and Hollywood films.

Results

Results by Local Authority

Halton

Knowsley

Liverpool

Sefton

St Helens

Wirral

References

{{United Kingdom local elections, 2021 Liverpool City Region mayoral election Elections in Merseyside Mayoral elections in England 2020s in Merseyside