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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many Parish Councils in which areas have been established since 2010; and how many new expressions of interest for creating new Parish Councils are under consideration; and if he will make a statement.

The decision to create, modify or abolish a parish council was devolved to principal councils through the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. The process for creating new town or parish councils does not require an expression of interest to be submitted to government as such the Department for Communities and Local Government does not maintain a definitive list of new Parish councils.

A local community may petition their local authority to carry out a community governance review to consider the creation of a new parish council; we do not record or receive details of these petitions.

Principal councils have responsibility for undertaking community governance reviews and deciding whether to give effect to recommendations made in those reviews. In making that decision, they are expected to take account of the views of local people.