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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of not facilitating the creation of new directly elected council mayors on mayors for single foundation strategic authorities.

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill makes provision to prevent the creation of any new directly elected local authority mayors, whilst allowing for the continuation of 13 existing ‘legacy’ directly elected council mayors. The English Devolution White Paper made clear that single foundation strategic authorities will be non-mayoral. The Government will consider non-mayoral devolution arrangements for a single local authorities by exception. The Government’s preference remains for strategic authorities which bring together more than one local authority over a larger, strategic geography.