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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will publish an authority-level assessment of the 2026 business rates retention reset, including (a) the financial implications of increasing the Safety Net to 100 per cent of Baseline Funding Levels before tapering back to existing levels, (b) the effect of the redesigned levy rate on local authorities with differing growth profiles, (c) the modelling behind the proposed approach to tax policy changes affecting specific property cohorts, and (d) the expected timetable for consulting Mayoral Strategic Authorities on the proposed new offer granting them a direct share of business rates growth to support Local Growth Plans.

Local authorities’ new allocations, accounting for the impact of the Reset, will be published at the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement in December. The government has recently published plans for delivering the 2026 Reset: Resetting the business rates retention system from 1 April 2026.

As this sets out, raising the safety net will provide increased certainty when authorities’ budget for business rates next year. Protections will be scaled back gradually to smoothly transition back to the standard levels of protection that the system has provided since 2013-14. To ensure safety net protections are affordable, a newly designed levy will continue to be applied to business rates growth, now applying to all local authorities proportionally as new growth builds. Again, as we have set out, the outcome of the 2026 business rates revaluation will be incorporated into the remeasurement business rates each local authority expects to collect from 1 April 2026.

As confirmed in the Budget, the government will work with Mayoral Strategic Authorities to co-develop a new offer, starting in the coming months.