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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to ensure (a) transparency and (b) local accountability in areas where local elections have been cancelled as part of planned devolution arrangements.

Accountability for decisions in all local authorities whose elections were postponed remains with the elected members, whose terms of office were extended by one year.

The government ran public consultations in the areas on the Devolution Priority Programme. We are now carefully considering the evidence collected, in order to decide whether statutory tests have been met to proceed with the legislation required to establish the proposed devolution institutions. Government will share conclusions from the consultation responses once a decision has been made.