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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to financially support local councils ahead of the 2020 spending review.

On 2 July, we announced a further £500 million in unringfenced grant funding for local authorities to meet pressures they are facing in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Alongside this, we announced a co-payment scheme to cover irrecoverable sales, fees and charges income in 2020-21 and confirmed that we will extend the period over which councils can manage shortfalls in local tax income relating to 2020-21, from 1 to 3 years. This is on top of £3.2 billion of unringfenced funding already provided, together with various measures to support councils in meeting cashflow issues, and takes the total package of support across Government for councils, communities and businesses to nearly £28 billion.