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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, which local authorities have notional council tax below £2,000 on Band D in 2025-26; and what the value of the notional Band D figure is in each case including the assumptions made on the uniform split in two-tier areas.

As part of the Fair Funding Review 2.0’s reforms, the government will better enable all local authorities to provide the same level of service to their residents by equalising for local authorities’ differing abilities to raise income from council tax.

This includes accounting for the tax base in a local area, not the level of council tax set by each council – this is the same approach proposed by the previous government. The strength of the tax base comes from the number of homes in an area and the 1991 value of those homes. It is not generally a function of local government decision making.

As confirmed in the response to the Fair Funding Review 2.0, within the resources adjustment the government will set the notional council tax level at the national average.

The response also confirmed the government will split or allocate the resource adjustment in multi-tier areas by uniformly applying the average tier split. More detail can be found in the Technical Annex on the Resources Adjustment (measure of tax base).