Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he plans to continue paying the homelessness prevention grant to local authorities when the local government grant is phased out.

We want a radical reshaping of the relationship between central and local government, ending the merry go round of clawing back local taxes into Whitehall and handing them out again in the form of grants. We will do this by giving local government full retention of its Business Rates by 2020, meaning all income from local taxes will go towards funding local services. We will work closely with the sector over the coming weeks and months to ensure local people have more control over how their money is spent. This will mean looking at the grants that currently go from central government to local authorities, and the range of responsibilities central government asks local government to deliver. There will still be redistribution between councils so that councils don’t lose out just because their area starts from a weaker position. We will set out more detail at the Spending Review.