Chris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)Department Debates - View all Chris Bryant's debates with the Leader of the House
(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. That was an excellent question because often when we talk about international development we just focus on Government money and what is being dished out from the taxpayers’ purse, but our international development relationship across the UK with the rest of the world is much more than that. It is about the money raised at the local pub or at the local women’s institute, and the relationship that those places have with particular projects around the world, which can span many, many years, with deep friendships and partnerships formed. He has given an excellent example of that today and I, too, put on record my thanks to David Hope-Jones for all the work he has done and wish him well in the future.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
In the 18th century, a Government Minister used to stand at the entrance to Westminster Hall at the end of the parliamentary Session and reward MPs who had voted loyally with the Government throughout the year with dollops of cash. Now, I am not trying to give ideas to the Government, and I hope that everybody would accept that that is utterly corrupt. I also happen to think that the operation of the levelling-up fund and of the towns fund is completely corrupt, because it is not based on need, it is not based on the poorest communities in the country and it is not based on levelling up. It is discretionary and it is competitive, which rigs itself deliberately against the poorest communities in the land, as we have seen over the past 24 hours. Can we have a debate in Government time on corruption in the operation of slush funds in this country?
Penny Mordaunt
The hon. Gentleman is the Chair of the Committee on Standards, so he will be very able and equipped to investigate this further.
Penny Mordaunt
It is his Committee; he can do what he likes. I would just say this to him: first of all, we have a number of funds. We have the levelling-up fund, the community ownership fund—
Penny Mordaunt
There are many, many funds. The hon. Gentleman is saying that they are all corrupt. They are all available to view on gov.uk, and you can see where funding has gone.
I would also say to the hon. Gentleman that these bids are not assessed by Ministers; they are assessed independently. They are scored and it is transparent. Good feedback will be given to those who did not progress in this round. Quite often, what happens is that bids that are not successful in one round are successful in successive rounds, because those areas that needed improvement have been done.
Finally, I would say to the hon. Gentleman, because of the way in which he has put his question, that he has slight form in accusing people of doing things that on investigation they have turned out not to have been done. It was very recently that he accused one of my colleagues of manhandling somebody who turned out not to have been handled at all. I would just urge a little caution in how the hon. Gentleman makes such accusations.