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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether future local government finance settlements will increase grants to fire and rescue services in line with inflation.

This Spending Review provides £3.4 billion of new grant funding which will be delivered through the Local Government Finance Settlement within financial years 2026-27 to 2028-29.

Decisions on how this funding is allocated are a matter for the upcoming multi-year Settlement and further detail will be published at the provisional Settlement later this year. The provisional Settlement will be subject to consultation, as in previous years.

The Government has recently published The Fair Funding Review 2.0 consultation document setting out detailed proposals to update and reform the local government funding system through the 2026–27 Local Government Finance Settlement. As part of this, the Government is proposing to update the Fire and Rescue Relative Needs Formula using the most up-to-date data in the fire and rescue relative needs formula.