Written questions by Hollinrake.

Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Council Tax (Demand Notices and Prescribed Classes of Dwellings) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, for what reason the Government is changing the requirements for councils to display information related to the amount of council tax used to fund adult social care services.

Since 2016-17 councils with responsibility for adult social care services have been given additional flexibility to increase their council tax without a referendum, provided this revenue is spent exclusively on these services. This flexibility is known as the adult social care precept.From 2025-26 the council tax charge of social care authorities must be displayed as a single line on council tax bills. This will simplify bills and provide greater clarity on the total annual increases set by these councils.

Communities and Local Government, with reference to the English Devolution White Paper, published on 16 December 2024, whether additional resources will be provided to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England.

The Local Government Boundary Commission for England is independent of Government and accountable to Parliament through the Speakers Committee. The Commission is resourced via that committee on estimates approved by Parliament.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2025 to Question HL4145 on Local Government: Elections, whether (a) county and (b) district council by-elections will take place in areas where elections are postponed.

As set out in my Statement on 5 February 2025 (HCWS418), I will make secondary legislation to postpone elections to nine local authorities from May 2025 to 2026. No further secondary legislation is planned before May 2025.Where elections have been postponed, all by-elections to county and district councils will take place as normal. Where a vacancy would have been filled at an election which is postponed, it will, instead, be filled at a by-election.

How the proposed lower multiplier for hospitality, leisure and retail from 2026-27 will interact with small business rate relief; and what estimate she has made of the impact of the lower multiplier on the cost of small business rate relief.

The government is committed to retaining Small Business Rate Relief, which is a permanent relief set down in legislation. Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR) is available to businesses with a single property below a set rateable value. Eligible properties under £12,000 receive 100 per cent relief, which means over a third of businesses in England (more than 700,000) pay no business rates at all. There is also tapered support available to properties valued between £12,000 and £15,000.Business rates bills are calculated by applying the relevant multiplier before reliefs are applied.

Communities and Local Government, whether the Government has received representations from local authorities to write off the Public Works Loan Board debts of Woking Borough Council.

Previous Secretaries of State used statutory powers to intervene in a small number of councils failing their Best Value Duty partly associated with high levels of unsustainable debt, including Woking. We continue to work with Best Value Commissioners in these councils to support the councils’ financial recovery.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 5 December 2024 to Question 16195 on Right to Buy Scheme, if she will publish figures for the amount of Right to Buy receipts retained by local authorities in each individual year since 2009-10.

The Department does not publish the amount of Right to Buy receipts retained by local authorities in each financial year.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 13 January 2025, to Question 21618, on MHCLG: Staff, how many desks are currently assigned in each of those offices.

Please find a table below of how many desks MHCLG have in each of their offices:- DesksNotesBelfast17 Birkenhead38 Birmingham 76 Bristol66Currently in temporary office space as our new office is being refurbishedCambridge30 Cardiff25 Darlington30MHCLG has use of 30 desk at Darlington Economic Campus and also other non-allocated desks.Edinburgh30 Exeter14 Hastings12 Hemel Hempstead40 Leeds50 London 947 Manchester66 Newcastle45 Norwich10 Nottingham30Currently in temporary office space as our new office is being refurbishedPlymouth30 Sheffield16 Truro13 Warrington42 Wolverhampton58

Communities and Local Government, when she plans to publish the final local government finance settlement for financial year 2025-26.

The final Local Government Finance Settlement for 2025-26 was published on the 3rd of February, 2025. The Local Government Finance Settlement and supporting documents are available here.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 16 December 2024 to Question 16935 on Affordable Housing: Construction, how many homes of each type of tenure will be delivered from the £500 million additional funding; and what the estimated average grant subsidy is per unit required under each type of affordable housing tenure.

The government has made clear that it expects the £500 million in new funding for the Affordable Homes Programme announced in October 2024 to deliver up to 5,000 homes.As set out in my answer to Question UIN 16935 on 16 December 2024, the government will continue to work with Homes England and the GLA to support them to deliver a mix of homes for sub-market rent and home-ownership, with a particular focus on delivering homes for Social Rent.While the funding in question remains open to bidding, the matter of average grant rates per home is a commercially sensitive one.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 3 January 2025, to Question 20228, on Civil Society: Islam, whether her Department has a list of organisations which it does not engage with.

Individual policy teams are responsible for the stakeholder engagements within their portfolio. As such, there is no centralised list of organisations which the Department will not engage with.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 6 January 2025 to Question 20571 on Mayors, who will determine the (a) allowance and (b) salaries of Commissioners; whether they will receive local government pensions; whether they must be Councillors; and whether they will be politically restricted.

As announced in the English Devolution White Paper the Government will give Mayors the ability to appoint and remunerate ‘Commissioners’. They will be able to support in the delivery of key functions, complementing the existing portfolio system by providing additional capacity and expertise. Additional detail will be introduced as part of the English Devolution Bill.

Pursuant to the Answer of 8 January 2025, to Question 21677 on Offences against Children, what funding is being made available to support council-led local inquiries.

In January, the Home Secretary announced to Parliament a raft of measures and an investment of £10 million that will allow us to protect more victims and survivors and drive change at a local level.This includes appointing Baroness Louise Casey to oversee an audit to improve our understanding of the scale, nature and drivers of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse at a national and local level, and to make recommendations on what additional action is needed to improve our response.We will provide stronger support for local areas which are interested in undertaking work to better understand local grooming gang issues and improve their own local responses going forward. £5 million has been made available to support this work.

Whether she has made changes to the level of funding to local authorities for asylum seekers since July 2024.

The Home Office has a statutory obligation to support asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute.In recent years, the Home Office has had various grants through which we provide funds to support local authorities, with responsibilities for housing asylum seekers.Grant 7 was launched in April 2024 to facilitate local authority support of increased dispersal accommodation (DA) accommodation. A £3500 payment was allocated for the net growth of occupancy in each quarter for Home Office Supported Asylum Seeker accommodation within the geographical bounds of the local authority under the following categories; DA, overflow dispersal accommodation (ODA) and initial accommodation (IA).Grant 6 was launched in April 2024 to acknowledge the contribution of Local Authorities to supporting asylum seekers. A payment of £750 was made for each occupied bedspace as of 01 April 2024 and a subsequent payment was allocated for the net growth of occupancy in each quarter for Home Office Supported Asylum Seeker accommodation within the geographical bounds of the local authority under the following categories; DA, ODA and IA and contingency accommodation (CA).All local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales who support asylum seekers are eligible for payment. Similar arrangements are in place for Northern Ireland.

Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Policy paper entitled A review of the increased Right to Buy discounts introduced in 2012, published by her Department on 30 October 2024, if she will publish the unpublished documentation for that Review.

The government does not intend to publish any other documentation in relation to the review of Right to Buy discounts.

Communities and Local Government, if she will publish all correspondence, including electronic communications, between the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and her Department on the planning application for the proposed Chinese Embassy.

The government does not routinely publish correspondence between departments.

Communities and Local Government, what guidance her Department issues on embodied carbon as a material consideration in the planning process when assessing planning applications for the (a) replacement of existing buildings and (b) construction of new buildings.

The government provides guidance on how carbon impacts can be taken into account in the planning process through its Planning Practice Guidance on Climate Change, the National Design Guide and the National Model Design Code. The revised National Planning Policy Framework published on 12 December 2024 makes clear that the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change should be considered in preparing and assessing planning applications.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 5 December 2024 to Question 16199 on Infrastructure: Planning Permission, what steps she is taking to speed up Ministerial decision-making on national significant infrastructure consents.

As part of the government’s Plan for Change, we are committed to fast-tracking planning decisions on at least 150 major economic infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament.The reasons that Ministerial decisions on individual applications can exceed the three-month statutory deadline are varied and complex and include the need to secure additional information on unresolved matters at the point Ministers receive the recommendation of the Examining Authority.The forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill includes measures designed to resolve issues prior to the decision stage. It will deliver a faster and more certain consenting process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) by ensuring that National Policy Statements are updated regularly, streamlining NSIP consultation requirements and reducing opportunities for judicial review.

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to increase the availability of (a) houseboats and (b) houseboat moorings.

It is for individual local authorities to assess whether any existing or new waterway should accommodate houseboats, and to grant such permissions as are necessary to change land-use or authorise access and service connections to boats.However, the National Planning Policy Framework asks local authorities to assess the housing need of different groups in the community and reflect the need in their planning policies, and that could include the need for houseboat moorings.Moreover, the duty under s.8 of the Housing Act 1985 for local authorities to consider the needs of people residing in their district, including those in houseboats, also requires the authority to assess the need for ‘further’ housing, which could include additional houseboats or mooring places.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 12 December 2024 to Question 17554 on Local Government: Working Hours, for what reason her Department did not reissue the Best Value Notice previously reissued to South Cambridgeshire District Council on 8 May 2024.

The department published a letter outlining the decision not to reissue a Best Value Notice to South Cambridgeshire District Council on 8 November 2024.Decisions relating to a local authority’s Best Value Duty are made based on the circumstances of each case and consideration of the Best Value themes set out in the statutory guidance for Best Value standards and intervention: continuous improvement, leadership, governance, culture, service delivery, partnerships and community engagement, and use of resources.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 19 December 2024 to Question 20555 on Elections: Kent, how many local authority areas will participate in the Devolution Priority Programme.

On 5 February, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that Government will be taking forward six devolution areas on the Devolution Priority Programme: Cumbria; Cheshire and Warrington; Greater Essex; Hampshire and Solent; Norfolk and Suffolk; and Sussex and Brighton.