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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the Devolution White Paper on the provision of local authority children’s services.

My department works closely with the Department for Education and partners across the country to ensure local authorities have the right tools and approaches to deliver high quality children’s services. The Devolution and Local Recovery White Paper will set out government’s place-based regional economic strategy to move us from recovery into levelling up.

Where any devolution involves proposals for local government restructuring, these should be locally led by those who best know the area; and any such proposals would need to demonstrate that the services to be delivered by new organisations, including children’s services where appropriate, would be improved.