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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the evidential basis is for the statement in his letter of 27 March 2018 to the hon. Member for Christchurch that the draft of the Dorset (Structural Changes) (Modification of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007) Regulations 2018 have been developed and worked up with all nine councils in Dorset; and if he will make a statement.

Officials in my Department have worked closely with Dorset councils, since the Secretary of State's statement, HCWS486, on 26 February 2018, to take forward the implementation of unitarisation in Dorset.