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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Greenhalgh on 31 December 2021 (HL4983), whether they considered reactivating section 78 of the Coronavirus Act 2020 for England in light of the Omicron variant; and if so, what were their reasons for not doing so.

We launched a call for evidence on 25 March to gather views and inform a longer-term decision about whether to make express provision for councils to meet remotely on a permanent basis. The call for evidence closed on 17 June.

The Department has considered the responses to the consultation and the Government will respond in due course.