Bjørn Arild Gram

From 1996 to 1998 he chaired the Centre Youth, the youth wing of the Centre Party. On the local level Gram served as the mayor of Steinkjer from 2007 to 2020, having formerly been a member of the county council from 1991 to 2000. He was a member of Nord-Trøndelag county council from 1995, and has chaired the county party chapter.[1]

In February 2020, he was appointed the new chair of the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities, and stepped down as mayor the next month.[2]

He served as a deputy representative to the Storting from Nord-Trøndelag during the terms 1993–1997, 2001–2005, 2005–2009 and 2013–2017. From 2005 to 2007 Gram was a member of Stoltenberg's Second Cabinet as State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. In 2013, as Marit Arnstad from Nord-Trøndelag was a member of the outgoing Stoltenberg's Second Cabinet, Gram met as a regular representative during the two weeks before the cabinet change.[3]

Gram was appointed minister of local government in Jonas Gahr Støre's cabinet on 14 October 2021.[4]

Gram told NRK that he would facilitate so that local democracy can take a position on the future of its county. He further said it would take a decision from the Storting to reverse county mergers. He didn’t give an estimate to what reversal of the mergers would cost, but emphasised that the government would have dialog with the counties in question about what would be necessary to go through with the process of reversal.[5]

Following questions from members of the Storting regarding Telenor continuing construction of the 5G network with Huawei equipment in Bergen, Gram answered with a written statement that seemed similar to former Minister of Districts and Digitalisation Linda Hofstad Helleland’s response about the same case a few weeks earlier. Gram later revealed that the similar answers are due to the fact that the authorities' policy is fixed, even after the change of government.[6]

On 29 October, Gram issued a letter where he and the government approved the dissolution of Troms og Finnmark county.[7]

After the government approved for municipalities who were merged by force, to dissolve themselves, Gram expressed that he had faith in local democracy and confidence in the municipalities to listen to there inhabitants in an appropriate way. He further stated that he didn’t want to speculate in local outcomes against forced mergers.[8]

On 13 December, in a Storting question time, Liberal Party representative André N. Skjelstad asked Gram about which tasks would be transferred from the county governor to the county municipality. Gram didn’t ansewer the question directly, but stated that the government would get back to the Storting with a proposal of which tasks should be transferred. He also emphasized that for many years there had been a sneak centralisation of government jobs and this must be taken into account.[9]