§ Mr. EvansTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the future of local government in the north-west. [44045]
§ Dr. WhiteheadThe recently published Local Government White Paper, "Strong Local Leadership, Quality Public Services", sets out the future of local government in England.
In addition, the forthcoming Regional Governance White Paper 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".