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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the maximum period of years is during which the Government plans to allow some council taxpayers in a new unitary council in England to pay lower levels of band D council tax than others.

The Government would consider its approach to council tax equalisation on a case-by-case basis. The precise level of council tax of any new authority will be a matter for the local councils concerned and the Government does not necessarily set a maximum number of years by which equalisation must be achieved.