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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether it remains the Government's policy to undertake a public consultation on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The Government has committed to create the UK Shared Prosperity Fund as the successor to EU structural funds. The fund will bind together the whole of the United Kingdom, tackling inequality and deprivation in each of our four nations.

The Government recognises the importance of reassuring local areas on the future of local growth funding and of providing clarity on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. Government officials have been working closely with interested parties and will continue to do so as we develop the fund. Officials have held 26 engagement events in total, including 25 across the UK and one in Gibraltar. These were attended by over five hundred representatives from a breadth of sectors and designed to aid the development of the fund.

We will publish a Devolution White Paper setting out our strategy to unleash the potential of our regions, which will include plans for spending and local growth funding.