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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has set a (a) maximum and (b) minimum population size for areas and regions that wish to secure devolved powers.

We have been clear that devolution is a bottom-up process, and so we welcome local ambitions to boost growth and productivity where there is agreement between local partners. We hope to be able to provide local areas with more clarity on how best to take forward these ambitions as Government sets out the next stages of its developing Industrial Strategy and our Framework for Devolution.