Local Government (Hansard, 22 October 2002)

§ Mr. Raynsford

The Regional Governance White Paper,Your Region, Your Choice, published in May. sets out the Government's plans to establish unitary local authorities in place of existing county and district councils in those regions where people vote in a referendum for elected regional assemblies. In any region where the Government decides that a referendum 299W should take place, the Boundary Committee for England will carry out a review and recommend the best unitary arrangements for the two-tier parts of that region. A referendum will then be held to see whether people support the creation of an elected assembly. The new unitary arrangements will be implemented if—but only if—a majority of those voting in the referendum voted for an elected regional assembly.

Where new unitary arrangements are introduced, we would expect that existing police authorities would remain in place. Appointments to these authorities would be made either by unitary districts or by the unitary county council, depending on the new unitary structure.

There are currently combined fire authorities in former county areas which have only unitary local authorities; and also in areas where there are one or more unitaries, district councils and a county council. Where changes lead to district-based unitaries in future, we would expect there to be a combined fire authority, but where they lead to a unitary county with no existing or new district-based unitaries, we would expect the county council to remain responsible for providing fire services. This is without prejudice to our consideration of any recommendations on the organisation of the fire service that Professor Sir George Bain's recently announced review might make.

Waste disposal is currently a responsibility of county councils and would become a responsibility of unitary authorities where these are established in future in regions that have an elected assembly.

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