Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she plans to take to merge (a) the 8 Devon districts and (b) Devon County Council into unitary councils with Torbay and Plymouth.

Following the publication of the English Devolution White Paper on the 16 December, I wrote to all councils where there is a two-tier structure of local government and to their neighbouring unitary councils, to set out further details on the Government's ambitions for local government reorganisation. Within that letter I set out my intention “to formally invite unitary proposals in January 2025 from all councils in two-tier areas, and small neighbouring unitary councils.”