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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 11 December 2024 to Question 17560 on Local Government Services: Rural Areas, whether her Department has carried out an environmental principles assessment on repurposing the Rural Services Delivery Grant.

The provisional settlement, published on 18 December, increases the total additional grant funding which will be made available to local councils in England through the settlement to over £2 billion. This Government is absolutely committed to tackling the issues that matter to rural communities. Places with a significant rural population will on average receive around a 5% increase in their Core Spending Power next year, which is a real terms increase. No council will see a reduction – and new funding will be available to rural areas in 2025-26 through guaranteed EPR payments.

The government intends to include a summary of the equalities impacts of its proposals as part of the response to the consultation on the provisional local government finance settlement 2025 to 26. This will be published alongside the final settlement, as usual.

The government considered the implications of all decisions made through the provisional Settlement and is of the view that the Rural Services Delivery Grant does not properly account for need. It is important also to note that the Rural Services Delivery Grant was not paid to all local authorities delivering services in rural areas, as such it did not do as it suggested.

As set out in the Environmental principles assessment guide, decisions around the spending or allocation of resources within government are exempt from the duty to give due regard to the Policy Statement on Environmental Principles.

Annex A of the Rural Services Delivery Grant Determination 2024-25: (No. 31/7256), sets out allocations in 2024-25. The total allocation of Rural Services Delivery Grant 2024-25 to local authorities in England was £104,645,256.