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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what comparative assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of Government funding for local authorities and trends in local authority spending on sports and recreation spaces.

The Government understands the important part that sports and recreation places play in local communities.

Over the five year period from 2015-16 to 2019-20 council’s will have access to more than £200 billion after this month’s budget. The Chancellor’s announcement means a real-terms increase in funding for local government in 2018/19 and 2019/20.

The Government has increased local councils’ financial flexibility by removing conditions from many grants. This gives them more freedom over the money they receive and enables them to work with their residents to decide how best to spend it on local priorities.