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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether it is her policy to introduce increased roles for parish and town councils.

Local authorities act independently of central government. Town and parish councils can work with other tiers of local government to determine how they can best serve their communities in their area. The English Devolution White Paper was clear that we know people value the role of governance at the community scale, and that this can be a concern when local government is reorganised. We will therefore want to see stronger community arrangements when reorganisation happens in the way councils engage at a neighbourhood or area level.