Ms Polly Billington

Ms Polly Billington

Labour — East Thanet

Speaking in the House of Commons on 27 April 2026

Debate

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Contribution

I am interested to hear the Minister explain how we can ensure that town and parish councils, particularly existing ones, are integrated into the new local government settlement. They are particularly important when unitarisation is happening, increasing efficiencies of scale and enabling more strategic deployment at the kind of scale that is important. However, there is a concern that if those local parish and town councils are not integrated into the local government settlement, we will have a reduction in democratic accountability.

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