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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 20 February 2017 to Question 63526, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of collecting data on the proportion of local councillors who are (a) women and (b) black, Asian or minority ethnic.

We do not hold this information, but will consider the data put forward by the Local Government Association as part of our wider Race Equality Audit.