To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether local authorities in devolved areas are eligible to apply for his Department's covid-19 local authority funding scheme in relation to lost income.

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, when his Department plans to publish further details of the process for local authorities to apply for additional funding to help cover lost income as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether lost commercial income is included in his Department's scheme to reimburse local authorities for lost income as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

On 2 July the Secretary of State announced a new component of the Government’s comprehensive COVID-19 councils support package, to address the impact of lost non-tax income from sales, fees, and charges.

The income scheme applies to England only and aims to support local authorities who have incurred irrecoverable loss of income from sales, fees and charges which they had reasonably budgeted for the current financial year. Under the scheme councils will bear the first 5 per cent of losses compared to their budgeted income – reflecting the fact these income sources are by their nature volatile from one year to the next – and the Government will cover 75 per cent of losses beyond this.

A set of principles will be used to define relevant income which is eligible under the new scheme. Further details of the scope of this scheme, including the eligibility principles, will be shared with councils ahead of the start of the process of collecting, calculating, and compensating for relevant losses. Individual local authorities will be responsible for making sure that the claims they make meet these principles. The scheme will not compensate for lost commercial investment income.