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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of (a) inflation and (b) trends in the level of energy costs on services delivered by local authorities.

The Government use a range of forecasts and indices to estimate demographic and unit cost pressures facing local government when determining the additional resource required to fund the expenditure needs of local authorities. We ensure the assumptions underlying our modelling are robust by holding in-depth financial conversations with local authorities and regular conversations with treasurer societies.

As a demonstration of Governments recognition of the additional pressures facing councils in 2023/24, the final Local Government Finance Settlement made available up to £59.7 billion for local government in England, an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £5.1 billion or 9.4% in cash terms on 2022/23.