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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 9 February (HL5134), what assessment they have made of the cost of publishing and issuing statutory notices to councils and whether this will be included in their consideration of the findings of the pilot programmes.

It is for individual local authorities to negotiate advertising rates with local newspapers. My department has not made a specific assessment of the cost to councils of publishing and issuing statutory notices but findings of the pilot programmes, including about costs, are being carefully considered.