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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when he plans to publish the summary of responses to his Department's consultation on 100 per cent business rates retention; and if he will make a statement.

By the end of the Parliament, local government will retain 100% of taxes raised locally, giving councils control of around an additional £12.5 billion of business rates to spend on local services. In order to ensure that the reforms are fiscally neutral, these new powers will come with additional responsibilities, as well as phasing out some grants from Whitehall. This move towards self-sufficiency and away from dependence on central government is something councils have long campaigned for. There were over 450 responses to the Government’s summer consultation. My officials are currently considering all responses and we will publish a summary of the responses and our proposals for the broad way forward shortly.

On 13 January 2017 we introduced the Local Government Finance Bill that will establish the framework for the reformed system. All relevant documents can be found here: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2016-17/localgovernmentfinance.html. We will continue to work closely with local government during the passage of the legislation, to shape the detail of the reforms.