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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they maintain a central register of cities and towns in England with international twinning arrangements; if so, whether it shows which cities and towns are twinned with cities and towns in Ukraine; and what discussions they have had, if any, with local authorities in England about encouraging twinning arrangements with cities and towns in Ukraine.

The Government does not maintain a central register of cities and towns in England with international twinning arrangements. Whilst twinning is a matter for councils themselves, the Government has recently used the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities’ daily local government bulletin to highlight the Cities4Cities initiative; an on-line platform, sponsored by the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, that matches the demands and needs of Ukrainian cities with the capacity and know-how of local authorities across Europe, including those in the United Kingdom.