Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government,whether his Department encourages the use of local authority reserves to pay for the delivery of local services.

Local authorities are responsible for managing their budgets in line with local priorities. They are free to determine the level of reserves they hold and are accountable to their electorate for the decisions they make.

Many local authorities have built up substantial reserves over recent years. It is right that they use them where necessary to protect high quality services for taxpayers.