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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the agenda was for the meeting between the Minister of State for Local Government and the leader of Somerset County Council in July 2018.

The Leader of Somerset County Council, Cllr. Fothergill, accompanied by Cllr Harvey Siggs, Leader of Mendip District Council, Cllr Faye Purbeck, Cabinet member for Education and Council Transformation at Somerset County Council and Patrick Flaherty, Chief Executive of Somerset County Council, met me on 11 July. Cllr. Fothergill arranged this meeting to let me know his and his colleagues’ thoughts about future reorganisation in Somerset, to which I responded by outlining the Government’s position on such unitarisation, which I had set out earlier on 22 May in the Westminster Hall debate on Somerset County Council’s Plans for Unitary Status (Hansard ref Volume 641 Column 335WH).