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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of collection levels for (a) council tax and (b) business rates by local authorities for the financial year 2020-21.

Information about the receipts of council tax and business rates in England in the first quarter of 2020/21 has been published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-local-government-finance#receipts-of-council-taxes-and-national-non-domestic-rates.

The Government continues to work closely with local government to monitor the collection of business rates and council tax as part of its assessment of the impact of Covid-19 on local authority finances. This additional monitoring data is published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-covid-19-financial-impact-monitoring-information.