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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what proportion of local authorities with excess funding under Phase 1 of the Coronavirus local authority discretionary grants scheme scheme (a) kept all their criteria unaltered for subsequent phases and (b) amended the criteria to widen eligibility for subsequent phases of that scheme.

On 1 May, Government announced up to £617 million available in the form of the Local Authority Discretionary Grants Fund to support certain small businesses that are not liable for business rates or rates relief and are therefore out of scope of the Small Business Grants Fund and the Retail Hospitality and Leisure Grants Fund.

Local authorities were responsible for defining precise eligibility for the scheme in their area, subject to businesses meeting the national eligibility criteria set out in the guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-business-support-grant-funding .

We do not receive management information from local authorities on local scheme eligibility criteria over the lifetime of the Discretionary Grants Fund.