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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of trends in the number of local authorities hiring public affairs consultants for lobbying.

Section 26 of the Recommended Code of Practice for Local Authority Publicity (‘the Publicity Code’) states that Local authorities should not incur any expenditure in retaining the services of lobbyists for the purpose of the publication of any material designed to influence public officials, Members of Parliament, political parties or the Government to take a particular view on any issue.

Local authorities are required to have regard to the Publicity Code in coming to any decision on publicity, with is defined as any communication, in whatever form, address to the public or a section of the public.