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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effect of charging business rates for properties with solar panels on state schools in England and Wales.

Business rates are based on valuations from the Valuation Office Agency, made independently of ministers, and we do not intervene in their independent assessments. We have put in place a £3.6 billion transitional relief scheme for England to support those rate payers facing increases at the 2017 revaluation. Business rates policy in Wales is devolved to the National Assembly for Wales.