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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will allocate funding in Budget 2021 to local authorities to cover costs and funding shortfalls incurred as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government has allocated over £8 billion directly to councils since the start of the pandemic. According to our monthly financial monitoring returns estimated expenditure pressures for the financial year are £7.3 billion. Furthermore, the Chancellor already took action at the Spending Review to provide local authorities with over £3 billion of additional support for COVID-19 in 2021-22, taking total COVID support to over £11 billion.