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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, following the Spending Review 2015, they have undertaken any analysis of the relationship between the value of business rates collected by local authorities and the local level of deprivation according to the English Indices of Deprivation.

Under the current rates retention scheme, and under the new 100 percent scheme to be introduced by the end of the Parliament, there is, and will continue to be, a measure of redistribution of local tax income. This ensures that those authorities with higher relative spending needs compared to their tax base will receive additional funding through the redistribution mechanism; and means that any comparison of local business rates income and levels of deprivation would be misleading.