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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answers by Lord Young of Cookham on 25 October (HL Deb, col 935) and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 26 October, what circumstances would lead them to lifting local authority borrowing restrictions.

As I have indicated on previous occasions, we are continuing to discuss borrowing headroom with local authorities and we will be taking a pragmatic approach to these talks.

It would be unwise to prejudge the outcome of these discussions by attempting to list every circumstance under which we might agree to modify borrowing restrictions.

Fundamentally, the outcome of our talks with councils will depend on the financial position of each authority, the particular pressures in each locality and affordability from the wider national perspective.