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

To ask His Majesty's Government whether additional funding and support is available to local authorities in drawing up draft boundaries in response to the Government’s proposals for local government reorganisation.

£7.6 million will be made available in the form of local government reorganisation proposal development contributions, to be split across the 21 two-tier local government areas which the government has invited proposals from. This is the first time that capacity funding has been made available for reorganisation proposals, recognising the priority that this government attaches to this. Further information will be provided on how this will be allocated and we intend to make payments as soon as possible.