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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much (a) North Hertfordshire District Council and (b) East Hertfordshire District Council received in New Homes Bonus in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.

New Homes Bonus has been allocated to East Hertfordshire and North Hertfordshire councils in the year 2014/15 as follows:

East Hertfordshire £2,190,429
North Hertfordshire £1,982,455

The total New Homes Bonus allocated since April 2011 is as follows:

East Hertfordshire £7,628,975
North Hertfordshire £7,503,553

The Bonus ensures that local authorities who promote and welcome growth can share in its economic benefits, and build the communities in which people want to live and work. Councils are free to spend the Bonus as they choose, including on front-line services and keeping council tax low.

Fundamentally, the New Homes Bonus reverses the perverse situation under the last Labour Government, where councils were effectively penalised for building new homes; councils with a larger council tax base from house building found that the amount of formula grant they received from central Government was reduced during the equalisation process.