§ Mr. DrewTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the Government's proposals regarding unitary local authorities. [8488]
§ Dr. WhiteheadWe have no plans for moving now to more unitary local authorities. As previously announced by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, we intend to publish a Regional Governance White Paper, and this will set out how we plan to take forward our Manifesto commitment that
provision should be made for directly elected regional government to go ahead in regions where people decided in a referendum to support it and where predominantly unitary local government is established".