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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they are making to establish equivalent rights and responsibilities for local government to be consulted on legislative changes as are currently exercised through the EU Committee of the Regions; and whether they expect that the necessary consultation mechanisms will be put in place before the UK leaves the EU.

The Government is currently having constructive discussions with local government about how the consultative rights and responsibilities they currently have at European level through the mechanism of the Committee of the Regions might be replicated domestically, in a non-statutory way, for when the UK has left the EU. These discussions involve the Local Government Association, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), the Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA) and the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA). Any new consultative arrangements arising from these discussions will need to complement the wide range of domestic processes and procedures the Government already has for consulting local government.