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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to ensure that local authorities which have only one local newspaper in their area for the purposes of publishing statutory notices will be protected from uncompetitive practices, such as high increases in the cost of publishing those notices.

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.