Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Ministerial Statement of 9 September 2019 on Local Government update, HCWS 1830, if he will place in the Library a copy of the selection criteria by which the 100 places invited to develop proposals for town deals were decided.

As part of the process of identifying the initial 100 places, towns have been chosen on the basis of a robust selection methodology. This took into account various qualitative and quantitative indicators. These included income deprivation, skills, productivity, EU exit exposure, economic shocks, investment opportunities, and policy alignment.