Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 5 March to Question 130545 on Local Government: Dorset, whether the financial estimates to which he referred in his Answer have been adjusted since their production to take account of (a) changes in Government policy and (b) savings made between August 2016 and 8 January 2018.

Whilst the financial estimates in the Dorset councils’ proposal have not been adjusted since their production, the representations received from councils, and which I have placed in the Library of the House, set out the councils’ views of the impact of changes in circumstances on the case for the unitary proposal.