Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the presence of (a) United States visiting forces and (b) their dependents on local government finances in West Suffolk; and if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of direct compensation to affected councils.

The different relative strengths of the tax bases of councils in England are taken into account in the Local Government Finance Settlement through the Settlement Funding Assessment (SFA) formula, which is used to calculate the SFA allocation that each authority is given.

When the Settlement Funding Assessment was last calculated in 2013/14, Class P exemptions (meaning that the property will be exempt where members and their dependants of visiting forces would be liable for council tax if property is occupied or unoccupied) were considered within the calculation.

This led to West Suffolk receiving an increased share of grant and retained business rates to account for the loss in council tax income. From our assessment in 2013 to 2024, the number of Class P exempt dwellings in West Suffolk has increased by 171 to 4,872, an increase of 2%.The Government has committed to updating the approach to funding allocations within the Local Government Finance Settlement.