Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to encourage regional growth across the UK.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The Government published its Levelling Up White Paper earlier this month. It sets out our missions as part of a decade long plan to see the potential of every corner of the United Kingdom fulfilled.
It builds on the funding allocated at the Spending Review, for example boosting investment in skills training with a total of £3.8 billion in skills by 2024-25, transforming local transport networks with £5.7 billion investment in five-year consolidated transport settlements for eight city regions in England, including Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region, and supporting local infrastructure through the first round of the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund, which saw 12 places in the North West receive £232 million in funding.
It also provides further detail on the £2.6 billion UK Shared Prosperity Fund, helping people to access new opportunities in places in need.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress his Department has made in levelling up all regions of the UK.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The Government published its Levelling Up White Paper earlier this month. It sets out our missions as part of a decade long plan to see the potential of every corner of the United Kingdom fulfilled.
It builds on the funding allocated at the Spending Review, for example boosting investment in skills training with a total of £3.8 billion in skills by 2024-25, transforming local transport networks with £5.7 billion investment in five-year consolidated transport settlements for eight city regions in England, including Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region, and supporting local infrastructure through the first round of the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund, which saw 12 places in the North West receive £232 million in funding.
It also provides further detail on the £2.6 billion UK Shared Prosperity Fund, helping people to access new opportunities in places in need.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to encourage regional growth across the UK.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The Government published its Levelling Up White Paper earlier this month. It sets out our missions as part of a decade long plan to see the potential of every corner of the United Kingdom fulfilled.
Encouraging regional growth is a key part of our ambition to level up opportunities right across the UK. The Levelling Up White Paper builds on funding allocated at the Spending Review, including ensuring small and medium sized enterprises across the UK can access the finance they need including through British Business Bank programme such as the Start Up Loans scheme and the Regional Angels Fund, and launching the new £1.4bn Global Britain Investment Fund to ensure that economic opportunities are spread more evenly across the UK by supporting investment in the UK’s life sciences, offshore wind and automotive manufacturing sectors.
To improve infrastructure for everyday life, the Spending Review also announced the first 105 places to receive support for regeneration from the £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund, alongside unprecedented investment of £5.7bn in five-year consolidated transport settlements for eight city regions.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to support job creation schemes in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry and (c) the West Midlands.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The focus of Government intervention is to create the conditions for businesses to thrive, grow and create jobs. Local Enterprise Partnerships lead from the Government perspective on supporting businesses to innovate, improve, make progress and create jobs.
For the financial year 2021/22 BEIS has provided £542,000 in core funding to the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP to support its Growth Hub. Between 1 April 2020 and 30 September 2021, the Coventry & Warwickshire Growth Hub self-reported that it reached over 52,000 business individuals (including via digital channels). This included supporting 3,303 businesses, including face-to-face support, of which 402 received high intensity support of 12 hours or more and helped 227 individuals start a business.
In addition, Coventry and Warwickshire LEP has been provided with capital funding for a suite of infrastructure projects aimed at providing the right conditions for businesses to grow.
£131.84 million of Growth Deal funding has been spent on projects that have improved transport infrastructure, improved broadband infrastructure, and provided new R&D business support facilities, and are on track to enable businesses to create up to 4,000 jobs alongside other benefits to the local economy. This has also included building new apprenticeship training facilities at Warwick Manufacturing Group, a new skills hub at Coventry City College, and delivering employment support programmes to ensure local people are able to take advantage of the jobs created by these interventions.
A further £123.8m has been awarded to the regions LEPs and the West Midlands Combined Authority as part of the Getting Building Fund. This funding is now delivering a set of projects predicted to enable businesses to create over 7,910 new jobs and over 2000 construction jobs in the region. In Coventry, this has seen direct investment in the Very Light Rail project.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to ensure that the Government’s Levelling Up agenda is implemented across all parts of the North of England.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Levelling Up is at the heart of the Government’s agenda to build back better after the pandemic and was at the centre of the manifesto on which the Government promised to deliver for the people of the UK.
Levelling Up was the golden thread running through the whole of Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 which funded an ambitious domestic agenda, including an unprecedented investment package of £5.7 billion for eight English city regions to transform local transport networks through London-style integrated settlements, benefitting West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, South Yorkshire and Tees Valley.
We have also announced the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund, which will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, supporting town centre and high street regeneration, local transport projects, and cultural and heritage assets.
At the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021, £519 million from the Levelling Up Fund was confirmed for 27 projects in the North of England from the first tranche of allocations.
Almost half of the towns that will benefit from the £3.6 billion Towns Fund are in the North of England. All Town Deals have now been announced, with those in the North totalling over £1 billion.
The Government will shortly be publishing a Levelling Up White Paper, building on existing action we are already taking across Government and setting out a new policy regime that will drive change for years to come.
Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when his Department plans to bring forward plans for a future city region settlement to include an assessment of the potential merits of re-opening the Leamside Line.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The Integrated Rail Plan published in November 2021 confirmed that the potential re-opening of the Leamside line would be best considered as part of a future city region settlement.
The Government has committed to investing £5.7bn in the transport networks for eight city regions in England, including the North East, through the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements programme. The first settlement period will begin in April this year and will last for five years. As set out at the Spending Review, the North East will be eligible to access this funding once appropriate governance in in place.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of the £226.5 million Bus Recovery Fund has been allocated to (a) South Yorkshire, (b) Yorkshire and the Humber, and (c) all other regions.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Bus Recovery Grant is providing support to the bus sector following the lifting of restrictions in the summer. Most of the £226.5 million funding available has been allocated to commercial bus operators to support the recovery of bus services.
However, £18.3 million of funding has been allocated to Local Transport Authorities to support tendered services. This funding has been calculated based on claims made by Local Transport Authorities under the previous emergency support scheme. The Department does not distinguish between the areas outlined, however the allocations for each Local Transport Authority are below.
Local Transport Authority (LTA) | Total LTA Bus Recovery Grant Allocation |
Bedford Borough Council | £75,840 |
Blackpool Council | £73,460 |
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council | £42,203 |
Bracknell Forest Council | £72,923 |
Brighton and Hove City Council | £42,394 |
Buckinghamshire Council | £120,974 |
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority | £121,838 |
Central Bedfordshire Council | £75,018 |
Cheshire East Council | £202,287 |
Cheshire West and Chester Council | £216,929 |
City of Stoke-on-Trent Council | £56,602 |
City of York Council | £61,461 |
Cornwall Council (including Isles of Scilly) | £855,741 |
Derby City Council | £12,946 |
Derbyshire County Council | £430,469 |
Devon County Council | £432,491 |
Dorset Council | £102,034 |
East Riding of Yorkshire Council | £79,303 |
East Sussex County Council | £116,176 |
Essex County Council | £521,958 |
Gloucestershire County Council | £163,578 |
Greater Manchester Combined Authority | £922,770 |
Hampshire County Council | £418,145 |
Herefordshire Council | £62,511 |
Hertfordshire County Council | £91,881 |
Hull City Council | £136,392 |
Kent County Council | £960,333 |
Lancashire County Council | £268,474 |
Leicester City Council | £261,130 |
Leicestershire County Council | £220,626 |
Lincolnshire County Council | £95,537 |
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority | £718,721 |
Medway Council | £82,842 |
Milton Keynes Council | £240,036 |
Norfolk County Council | £790,615 |
North East Joint Transport Committee | £1,276,314 |
North East Lincolnshire Council | £9,097 |
North Lincolnshire Council | £35,022 |
North Northamptonshire Council | £4,696 |
North Somerset Council | £36,816 |
North Yorkshire County Council | £298,519 |
Nottingham City Council | £167,059 |
Nottinghamshire County Council | £200,360 |
Oxfordshire County Council | £60,294 |
Plymouth City Council | £52,453 |
Portsmouth City Council | £38,965 |
Reading Borough Council | £12,263 |
Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead | £31,640 |
Rutland County Council | £63,898 |
South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive | £1,008,883 |
Shropshire Council | £295,615 |
Slough Borough Council | £128,919 |
Somerset County Council | £158,039 |
Southampton City Council | £163,578 |
Southend-on-Sea Borough Council | £27,203 |
Staffordshire County Council | £62,189 |
Suffolk County Council | £577,446 |
Surrey County Council | £672,362 |
Swindon Borough Council | £13,508 |
Tees Valley Combined Authority | £41,202 |
Telford and Wrekin Council | £46,876 |
Thurrock Council | £15,261 |
Torbay Council | £17,186 |
Warrington Borough Council | £48,219 |
Warwickshire County Council | £202,942 |
West Berkshire Council | £32,156 |
West Midlands Combined Authority | £841,567 |
West Northamptonshire Council | £18,801 |
West of England Combined Authority | £1,057,145 |
West Sussex County Council | £174,223 |
West Yorkshire Combined Authority | £825,071 |
Wiltshire Council | £297,667 |
Wokingham Borough Council | £137,555 |
Total | £18,297,645 |
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans he has to increase investment in jobs, skills and transport infrastructure in parts of the Denton and Reddish constituency; and if he will meet with the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish to discuss plans to level-up communities within the Denton and Reddish constituency.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Spending Review demonstrated Government's commitment to Levelling up by supporting community priorities. £1.7 billion was confirmed for the first 107 successful places within the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund. The Greater Manchester area will receive £112.8 million of this first wave, including £19.87 million to regenerate Ashton Town Hall, bordering the Honourable Gentleman’s constituency.
Government recognises that local transport networks, particularly public transport, have been a weakness holding back the productivity of city regions outside London. That's why we have created City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS), providing major city regions with the freedom to address local challenges and improve services. At the Spending Review, we announced £5.7 billion of CRSTS funding for 8 city regions, with Greater Manchester, including Denton and Reddish, receiving the largest single allocation of £1.07 billion. Over the coming months, Transport for Greater Manchester will begin to develop its programme business cases to confirm how their portion of the fund will be used.
Also announced at the Budget was Restoring Your Railways funding to reinstate a passenger rail line between Ashton-under-Lyne and Stockport, which the Honourable Gentleman personally campaigned for. I congratulate him on the success of this campaign and look forward to seeing these proposals develop over the coming months.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what transport projects in St Helens North constituency are set to receive funding as part of the £710 million planned for the Liverpool City Region.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
As announced at the Spending Review on 27 October, the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements will deliver £5.7bn over 5 years to transform local transport networks in 8 English city regions. This includes allocating £710m to Liverpool City Region. The Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority is now responsible for submitting a programme business case to HMG. This should be comprehensive across local priorities, culminating in a single transport plan and pipeline for the entire city region.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what support he is offering for (a) integrated transport, (b) integrated ticketing and (c) subsidised bus fares in Newcastle; and how that support compares with the support he is offering for the same services (i) in London and (ii) to City Region Mayors.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Officials from the Department are working with representatives from the city regions, including Nexus and Transport North East, to establish options for integrated and multi-modal ticketing.
The City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements and wider Government support for bus services will provide funding in the lifetime of this Parliament to support all eligible city regions. The North East will be eligible for these settlements once appropriate governance is in place. Existing commitments from the Transforming Cities Fund and core local authority transport funding continue to be met.