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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to fully compensate local authorities for costs incurred and revenue lost as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government has allocated over £8 billion directly to councils since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Chancellor also announced at the 2020 Spending Review that local authorities will receive over £3 billion of additional support in 2021-22. The latest data from our monthly financial monitoring exercise suggests that estimated additional expenditure over the course of the current financial year 2020-21 is £7.3 billon

As part of our support package, councils have access to a compensation scheme for lost income from sales, fees and charges, which has been extended to June 2021, through which the Government will support local councils with 75% of losses beyond the first 5%.

We will continue to closely monitor the situation and work with local government to ensure they are managing as the pandemic progresses and we have a collective understanding of the costs they are facing.