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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of council tax debt enforcement on the level of demand for local authority homelessness services in (a) England, (b) Thurrock, (c) Basildon and (d) Essex in the last 12 months.

The government expects councils to be proportionate in the actions they take to recover debts and sympathetic to those in hardship.

The government has now published a response to its consultation on council tax administration setting out a package of reforms to the enforcement of council tax debts. These will deliver a fairer and more supportive system for taxpayers, reducing the number of households facing enforcement action. This consultation response can be found on gov.uk here.