To ask the hon. Member for Gosport, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission what involvement the Electoral Commission had in the recent local government restructuring proposals. (134875)

The Electoral Commission informs me that it had no involvement with the Government’s original invitation to local authorities to bid for unitary status, nor with the drawing up by the Government of a shortlist of local authorities that it considered likely to meet the criteria. However, as with a number of other organisations, the Commission has since been consulted by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government over the shortlist.