Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are planning to undertake a public consultation on the future of public health funding in England.

The ring-fenced public health grant for local authorities will remain in place for 2017-18. In 2015, the Government announced that by the end of this Parliament local government would retain all of the money it raises through business rates. The Government consulted over the summer on an option for fully funding local authorities’ public health spending from their retained business rates receipts. We are currently considering the responses to this consultation and will publish a summary of the responses and a proposed way forward in due course.