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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their latest estimate of the effect on London local authority budgets of the proposed retention of business rates.

By the end of the Parliament, local government will retain 100 per cent of taxes raised locally, giving councils control of additional £12.5 billion of business rates to spend on local services. To ensure the reforms are fiscally neutral, new responsibilities will be devolved to local authorities. We recently conducted a consultation on our approach to the implementation of 100 per cent Business Rates Retention. There were over 450 responses, including 26 from individual London boroughs and a joint response from the Greater London Authority and London Councils. My officials are currently considering all responses and we will publish a summary of the responses and our proposals for the broad way forward in due course.

In the meantime, we will continue close collaboration with local government in taking this work forward, including through the Business Rates Retention Steering Group, which is jointly chaired by the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). The Steering Group was established to consider the mechanisms needed to set up and run the new business rates system, as well as the timetable and implementation of the reforms. It oversees the work of a set of technical working groups, each looking at particular aspects of the reforms. The Group meets on a regular basis and has done so on 7 occasions since April 2016. All papers for meetings are published here:

http://www.local.gov.uk/business-rates