<p>Local Government Reform</p>

Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 15 March 2017.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:41, 15 March 2017

I’m not disappointed, Llywydd, in the sense that the closing date for the consultation isn’t until 11 April. I’m absolutely confident that we will have a large number of responses from right across Wales by the closing date. There were two specific questions that the Member raised. We’ve received no formal request on the voluntary mergers front as yet. Frankly, with local government elections on the horizon, I wouldn’t have anticipated that any local authority would have made such a proposal with only a few weeks still to go. I will repeat what I’ve said in the White Paper—that where local authorities do come forward with proposals for voluntary merger, the Welsh Government wouldn’t look to be neutral on that but would look to support them where we could to try to bring those proposals to fruition. As to the Member’s final point, which I’ve now managed to forget in my answer—.