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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to provide additional long-term support to local authorities facing funding shortfalls.

Councils across the country are supporting communities, protecting the most vulnerable and helping the NHS in our efforts to combat Covid-19. In order to meet additional cost pressures, the Secretary of State announced further measures as part of a comprehensive package on 2 July. The package included an additional £500 million of support for councils for the coming weeks and months of recovery. This is in addition to the £3.2 billion already announced, taking the total unringfenced funding given to councils to help with the additional costs of coronavirus to over £3.7 billion. In total, the Government has provided £5 billion in cashflow measures and almost £28 billion in additional funding to councils, businesses and communities to ensure they can meet the unique pressures that the Covid-19 pandemic has placed upon them.

The Secretary of State has also announced measures to address lost income, including:

• a co-payment scheme to cover irrecoverable Sales, Fees and Charges income in 20/21 with the Government covering 75 per cent of losses beyond 5 per cent of planned income;
• phased repayment of Collection Fund deficits over the next 3 years; and
• a commitment to determine what support is needed to help councils meet the pressures of irrecoverable tax income at the Spending Review.

The Spending Review, later this year, will be the opportunity to look at funding for local government in the round, and we will communicate our plans for 2021-22 as early as we can through the provisional local government finance settlement. We will continue to engage councils on our approach to the next financial year.