Levelling Up

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I completely agree that education is very much the engine of social mobility and addresses the points that were raised. We need to judge our levelling-up agenda against a package of measures that could also support skills development through things such as the new community renewal fund and the UK shared prosperity fund.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm whether the levelling-up fund will accept bids containing social infrastructure elements such as funding to transform family support into a family hubs model? Transformation typically requires revenue funding to redeploy senior staff and backfill their roles, the development of missing services et cetera, as well as capital funding to refurbish buildings. Is this fund open to both capital and revenue funding bids?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, local government does tend to separate capital and revenue, and the UK levelling-up fund will have more of a capital focus. However, this could include community spaces important to local areas that support the family policies that my noble friend has raised.