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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to his Depatment's press release of 3 July 2013, entitled Government removes volunteering tax on councillors, what progress his Department has made in implementing the proposal set out in that press release.

My Department has been working with the Ministry of Justice, who in turn have been working with the Information Commissioner, on changes to the rules about local authority members' notifying the Information Commissioner's Office that they are data controllers, to ensure that any new rules both remove bureaucratic burdens whilst ensuring that local authority members who are data controllers remain aware of their duties and obligations as data controllers.