Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Porter. He has a great deal of experience in this area, as I know only too well. The funding reforms are part of a comprehensive set of reforms for public services to fix the foundations of local government. We are working with the sector on that, and the principle of giving forward notice and certainty and allowing time for councils to plan for the future is now baked into the way we are doing this. In 2025-26 we will begin targeting additional funding to places with the greatest need and demand for services. We have used deprivation as a proxy for that, for those areas that have less ability to raise income locally. That is the new recovery grant that I spoke of. Broader redistribution will follow from 2026-27 to provide long-term certainty and enable local government to focus on its priorities. We are inviting views from the local government sector through the local authority funding reform objectives and principles consultation, which is open from today until 12 February. It seeks views on all aspects of local authority funding reform, including aspects of rurality, the new homes bonus and anything else that people want to send views in on. I hope people will contribute to that, because we will have a better spending review the more input we get. I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this and all those who have spoken to me outside the Chamber about local government finance. It is always a pleasure to work with so many experienced noble Lords who have years of experience in local government, and local government finance in particular, so I welcome that. I extend my good wishes to all the officers and councillors across the country, as well as to all noble Peers. I wish them all a very happy Christmas. I am sure we will be back to do more arguing after a bit of rest at Christmas, but for now, a peaceful and happy Christmas to all.