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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he will take to help ensure that all public services run by (a) local authority or (b) contracted by a local authority will have sufficient funding to meet their energy costs in winter 2022.

The Government is introducing a new six-month scheme for businesses and other non-domestic energy users (including charities and public sector organisations) which will offer equivalent support as is being provided for consumers. This will protect them from soaring energy costs. Further details will be published shortly.

More broadly, the department is working closely with councils, as we always do, to understand what the impact of inflationary increases will be on service delivery and budgets.