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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what his Department's policy is on the creation of new unitary authorities.

Our policy as stated in my Department’s Single Departmental Plan is that we will consider proposals for unitarisation and mergers when requested, and reach a judgment in-the-round as to whether the proposal, if implemented, is likely to improve the area’s local government, commands a good deal of local support in the area and whether the area itself is a credible geography for the proposed new structures.