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

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to set out a time-bound and resourced route by which foundation strategic authorities may progress to the full devolved settlement; and what steps they are taking to ensure that areas without a mayoral strategic authority are not left with materially weaker powers and protections.

Our ambition is that every area in England has, or is in the process of establishing, a Strategic Authority by the end of 2027, with Strategic Authorities in place everywhere by the end of 2028. The Government recently wrote to all areas without a Strategic Authority seeking confirmation of their devolution ambitions, including their preferences regarding mayoral or non-mayoral devolution.

Where an area favours a non-mayoral Foundation Strategic Authority, and for existing Foundation Strategic Authorities, we will work with them on potential future mayoral devolution. The Government will not impose mayors on areas that do not want one, but we do consider that directly accountable mayors represent the strongest form of governance available, and so the suite of powers available to areas with mayors will be commensurately greater. However, we will consider what powers should sit at the Foundation Strategic Authority level, and recently government confirmed that Foundation Strategic Authorities will be able to raise an Overnight Visitor Levy in their area.