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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the spending power of local authorities in relation to the level of demand for their statutory services.

Councils are responsible for balancing their budgets, and every one of them issued a balanced budget for 2014-15. We have increased councils' flexibility by removing ring fencing from many local government grants. This gives them freedom to work with their residents to decide how best to meet on local priorities.