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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assumption they have made of the level of funding to be provided for public health in the context of plans for councils to retain 75 per cent business rates and of the Fair Funding Review of councils’ funding baselines.

The assumption of the level of funding to be provided for public health in the context of plans for local government to retain 75 per cent of business rates is based upon the indicative public health grant allocations for 2019/20. This was published by the Department of Health and Social Care in December 2017, and outlines the total value of the public health grant in 2019/20 as £3.1 billion. The exact funding level for 2020/21 will be determined by the next Spending Review, due in early 2019, ensuring budgets can be set out in advance for 2020 onwards.

Our Fair Funding Review of relative needs and resources is determining a new, up-to-date funding distribution for local government finance settlements, with a target implementation of 2020/21. Whilst we are committed to a simple and transparent formula, we are working closely with local government representatives to determine which services require a more sophisticated approach, including Public Health.