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Secretary of State answers the public's #AskPickles questions

22 January 2014

On Wednesday 22 January the Communities and Local Government Committee held its much anticipated #AskPickles session with Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Click on the links below to see Mr Pickles' answers to particular questions

Local Democracy

Localism

Local Government Finance

Funding for local services

Local Government Management

Planning

House building and housing markets

Housing standards and building regulations

Management of the Department

Background to #AskPickles session

MPs on the Committee wanted to ensure that their questions reflected pressing concerns in the world of local government and asked people to submit their questions via Twitter between 28 November to 4 December 2013.

During this period, the hashtag #AskPickles appeared in 1600 tweets. The original session had been planned for 9 December but unfortunately Mr Pickles was unwell.

Time restrictions limited the number of subjects that the Committee was able to address and there are therefore many important issues that were not raised with the Secretary of State.

The headings outline the broad areas of questioning covered; the links correspond to the relevant point of the #AskPickles recording. The questions listed are either those that were asked directly to the Secretary of State or examples of the kinds of questions that inspired the Committee’s lines of questioning.

Further information