Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how much and what proportion of her Department's capital grants to local authorities have been spent on internal (a) administration and (b) other management costs in each financial year since 2015-16.

The Department provided local authorities with funding to offer emergency support to eligible businesses in their areas during the Covid-19 pandemic. This support covered the 2020-22 period with £26bn of grant support funding provided.

Local authorities were provided with New Burdens payments totalling £210 million to cover the costs of delivering this support as well as post payment reconciliation and any required recovery activity. This equates to less than one per cent of the grant award payments paid to businesses.

A breakdown of payments made is provided in the table below: