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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether a bid for the Housing Infrastructure Fund that has been ranked lower by a local authority than a bid that is ineligible or has been rejected will still be considered.

The £2.3 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund, extended by an additional £2.7 billion at Autumn Budget 2017, will unlock homes in areas of greatest housing need. It is an open and competitive fund, available for all local authorities to put forward their ambitious plans for housing growth.

We want the Housing Infrastructure Fund to support the delivery of as many homes as possible. Therefore, we are not prescribing the final split between the two funding streams, or pre-determining the distribution of funding according to region. We are currently assessing bids from local authorities. However, if higher ranked local authority bids are ineligible or have been rejected, we will consider the local authorities lower ranked bids.