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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to protect local government finances from the cost of living crisis in (a) deprived and (b) all other areas with high demand for services from local authorities.

The Government is making available an additional £3.7 billion to councils in England in 2022/23, with the most relatively deprived areas having access to 14% more per dwelling in core spending power.

How inflation interacts with local government's finances is not straightforward and we are working with the sector to understand any impacts.