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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if his Department will take steps to ensure that councils are provided with additional resources to support their communities and prevent significant job losses in the context of the omicron variant.

Councils have been essential to the national response to COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic, we have committed over £13 billion to local authorities to tackle the impact of COVID-19 on their services, over £6 billion of which is un-ringfenced in recognition that they are best placed to decide how to meet the major COVID-19 pressures in their local areas, as well as providing compensation for lost income.