Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much Luton Borough Council received in retained business rates in (a) 2024-25 and (b) 2025-26, and what are the projected figures for each of the next three years under the Local Government Finance Settlement for 2026-27.

Luton Borough Council reported their retained business rates for 2024-25 to the department here in the document ‘Revenue outturn summary (RS) 2024 to 2025’, in the ‘LA Dropdown’ tab line 870. For 2025-26, their estimated retained business rates is here in the document ‘Revenue Account Budget (RA) data 2025-26 (part 1)’, in the ’LA Dropdown 25-26’ tab in line 970.

At the Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement for 2026-27 to 2028-29 the department published local authorities’ baseline funding levels. The baseline funding level does not represent the total amount of business rates an authority will retain in a year but amount of an individual local authority’s Fair Funding Assessment provided through the local share of retained business rates income. The values for 2026-27, 2027-28 and 2028-29 are published here, in column L of the relevant years’ tabs.