Four mayoral elections due to take place in May 2026 are set to be postponed by two years, Sky News understands.

Elections for the new mayoralties of Essex, Hampshire and the Solent, Sussex and Brighton, and Norfolk and Suffolk will be pushed back until 2028.

The decision, first revealed by The Sun, is due to be announced by ministers on Thursday.

This is the second time elections are being delayed in these areas. Local elections due in May 2025 were delayed by then communities secretary Angela Rayner for a year in order to convert them into combined authorities led by mayors.

However, it is understood that these councils need more time to complete their reorganisation.

The news has sparked accusations Labour are delaying the elections for political purposes.

Reform UK’s head of policy Zia Yusuf said: “This is a blatant attempt to stop big Reform wins next May.

“It’s an act of a desperate government who are clinging onto power by any means necessary.

“Labour has proven time and time again that they’re not beyond denying democracy to millions of people in order to maintain their cosy status quo.”

The Tories’ shadow housing secretary James Cleverly said it was a “scandalous attempt to subvert democracy by a Labour government whose credibility and popularity are already in tatters”.

“The Conservatives firmly oppose this decision to delay the mayoral elections, especially when candidates have been selected and campaigning is well under way,” he added.

“Democracy is being denied yet again after the council elections cancelled by Labour this year.

“There is no credible justification for this move. The Labour government must reverse it immediately.”

The reorganisation is part of Labour’s manifesto commitment to widen devolution, which it argues will improve local economies.

The government wants to abolish the two-tier system of county and district councils and merge them together to create larger unitary authorities. It also wants more areas to have regional mayors, like Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham.

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Reform UK enjoyed success in the local elections in May, winning more than 600 seats and taking control of 10 councils stretching from Kent to County Durham. The party also toppled a 14,000-strong Labour majority in a parliamentary by-election.

The Liberal Democrats’ local government spokesperson Zoe Franklin called the postponed elections “a disgrace”.

“Democracy delayed is democracy denied,” she added. “We are fighting to end this blatant stitch up between Labour and the Conservatives over local elections.”

A nursery worker has pleaded guilty to 26 sexual offences against children following one of the Metropolitan Police’s most harrowing and complex child sexual abuse investigations.

Vincent Chan, 45, of Finchley, worked at a nursery in north London between 2017 and 2024.

The offences include five counts of sexual assault of a child by penetration, four counts of sexual assault of a child by touching, 11 counts of taking indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child, and six counts of making indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child.

The latter offences involved images across categories A, B, and C, with category A depicting the most severe abuse.

Chan will be sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court on 23 January.

The Met said this was one of its most harrowing and complex child sexual abuse investigations.

Chan was unmasked as a paedophile after a nursery staff member reported that he had callously filmed a child falling asleep in their food with a nursery-issued device and set it to music for “comedic purposes” before sharing the video with his colleagues, the force said in a statement.

He was subsequently arrested in June 2024 on suspicion of neglect and officers seized 25 digital devices from his home and three from the nursery. Chan was released on bail, but lost his job at the nursery.

Three months later, his devices were submitted for analysis by police, which was completed in July 2025. Forensic teams found substantial amounts of indecent images and videos of children, including evidence of contact sexual offences against children, according to the police statement.

Chan was arrested in September this year on suspicion of sexual offences. Officers seized another 26 devices from his home as well as 15 from the nursery, a since-closed branch of Bright Horizons in West Hampstead.

Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford, who led the Met’s investigation, said: “Child sexual abuse is one of the most horrific crimes imaginable, and Chan’s offending spanned years, revealing a calculated and predatory pattern of abuse.

“He infiltrated environments that should have been safe havens for children, exploiting the trust of families and the wider community to conceal his actions and prey on the most vulnerable.”

DCI Basford added: “We recognise the member of staff who raised their concerns, as without that first report of child cruelty, Chan’s abuse could have continued unchecked, putting countless more children at risk.”

At this time, police identified four children as Chan’s victims.

The families of the victims have been contacted directly and are receiving specialist support, while the NSPCC is running a helpline for all 700 families of children who attended the nursery during the time Chan worked there between 2017 and 2024.

In a statement issued through legal firm Leigh Day, some of the families affected said: “As parents, we are still trying to process the sickening discovery that our children were subjected to despicable abuse by Vincent Chan at the nursery.

“We trust the judge to pass the strongest sentence to fit the crimes Vincent Chan has committed against young children, innocent victims who could not fight back.”

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A spokesperson for the nursery said following Chan’s guilty pleas: “This individual’s actions represent not only a violation of the victims, but also a profound betrayal of the trust placed in him by families and colleagues.”

They said the company has extensive safeguarding practices in place, including rigorous vetting and DBS criminal record checks.

The company has commissioned an external expert in the field to undertake a full review of its safeguarding practices after Chan “was able to commit these crimes despite our safeguarding measures”, the nursery spokesperson said.

Anyone who wants to make a report to police about Chan can contact OpLanark@met.police.uk, or call 101 from within the UK, quoting the reference CAD3697/1DEC.

The family of teenager Harry Dunn, killed by a former US spy, said a damning report into the UK government’s handling of their case was “incredibly painful” to read. 

American driver Anne Sacoolas left Britain with diplomatic immunity 19 days after the head-on crash that killed motorbike rider Harry, 19, outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire in August 2019.

The report into the government’s handling of the case, chaired by Dame Anne Owers, marks the end of a six-year struggle for justice and accountability.

It highlights the point at which Sky News first broke the story of Harry Dunn in October 2019 as a key moment when attention on the case escalated at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

“There was in fact no direct contact between the FCO and the family until 4 October, the day before the Sky News interview was due to go out, when the family was offered a meeting with the foreign secretary himself,” Dame Anne said.

“The family drew the conclusion that this rapid escalation to a very senior level was a direct result of the spotlight of media coverage.”

The report lays bare layer upon layer of failings within the UK government that compounded Harry’s parents’ grief and anguish.

Former foreign secretary David Lammy officially launched the review into the case in July, with the report’s author highlighting “failings and omissions” in the department when dealing with Harry’s death.

It is understood Dame Anne told the Dunn family it was her “strong view” the then foreign secretary Dominic Raab should have been involved “far earlier in the process”, with his private office being copied into a note three days after the crash expressing concern over potentially “unpalatable headlines”.

Harry’s mother Charlotte Charles, a campaigner for road safety, said it was “incredibly painful” to read.

“The report confirms what we have lived with every day for more than six years, that our family was not treated with the honesty or urgency that any grieving parent deserves,” she said, welcoming the findings.

His father Tim Dunn said: “We knew our own government would be useless to us and this report confirms what we knew in those early days. The UK was no match for the US.”

Dame Anne criticised the UK government’s initial handling of the case and subsequent years.

“This issue was not recognised as a crisis and escalated to a sufficiently high level at an early stage, losing opportunities to influence, rather than respond to, events,” she said in the report.

Dame Anne said the US showed “immediate high-level interest” and took “an inflexible approach” after Sacoolas had flown back to America.

“On the UK side this was initially treated as business as usual,” Dame Anne said in the report.

In 2022, Sacoolas admitted causing death by careless driving, but she remained in the US and appeared in a UK court via video link, something the report described as “unprecedented remote proceedings”.

The former spy refused to return to the UK for sentencing. In her absence, she was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence and driving ban.

The diplomatic loophole that Sacoolas and the US government exploited when she left, claiming immunity, has since been closed.

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Driver safety initiatives at US bases in the UK have also been improved.

Dame Anne also made 12 recommendations to improve communications and support for families, as well as transparency around complex diplomatic arrangements at military bases like RAF Croughton.