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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the press release entitled First Freeports launched in major economic boost, published on 7 December 2022, whether his Department is taking steps to measure (a) levels of economic activity created by the new freeports and (b) how much and what proportion of that economic activity is displaced from other areas.

The Freeports programme monitoring and evaluation strategy sets out the approach the Department will take to measure the impact of Freeports, which includes evaluating the overall impact of Freeports on economic growth.