Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that successor funding to the European Social Fund enables women to access formal education.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is the domestic successor to the EU Structural Fund programme. It will maximise the benefits of leaving the EU through quicker delivery of funding, better targeting, better alignment with domestic priorities and by cutting burdensome EU bureaucracy.

The department is working closely with other government departments including the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Work and Pensions on the development of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. As set out in the heads of terms published at Spending Review 2020, a portion of the fund will be targeted to people most in need through bespoke employment and skills programmes that are tailored to local need. This will support improved employment outcomes for those in and out of work in specific cohorts of people who face labour market barriers.

The government will set out further details of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund in a UK-wide investment framework published in the spring.