Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what advice they have given to local authorities in counties which have both a county council and county districts on (1) the desirability, (2) the criteria, and (3) the preferred timescale, for reorganisation of local government in those areas.
The Government has set out a clear commitment to level up all areas of the country by empowering our regions through devolving money, resources and control away from Westminster, and will set out its detailed plans in the Devolution and Local Recovery White Paper that will be published this Autumn.
The Government believes that areas moving to unitary status with more sustainable and efficient councils can have significant benefits for local people and businesses; and a number of councils have requested from the Secretary of State a formal invitation to submit proposals for unitary local government.