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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of inflation on local authority budgets for the next 12 months.

The Local Government Finance Settlement makes available £54.1 billion in 2022/23 for local government in England, an increase of up to £3.7 billion on 2021/22. The additional funding, we have made available is the largest cash-terms increase in grant funding provided through the settlement in the past 10 years.

We do, however, recognise that inflation forecasts are higher than they were at the Spending Review. Local authorities will benefit from the new Energy Bill Relief Scheme. Through this we will provide a discount on energy prices this winter for local authorities whose bills have been significantly inflated by the global energy crisis. The Government is also launching a £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund, which is the first step and will inform further action from next year to rebalance funding across health and care.

Beyond these steps, we are working closely with the sector, as we always do, to understand what the impact of cost and demand pressures will be on service delivery and budgets. We will set out more details later this year at the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement.