Levelling Up

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I absolutely reject the noble Baroness’s assertion that this funding has been allocated in an unfair or untransparent manner. Alongside the projects that have received funding, we have published a clear methodology note about how we have approached the allocations. Although I may have heard worries about the pace of delivery and the amount of money available, I think that overall both Front Benches opposite welcomed the announcement that we made on Monday. On the overall approach to local government finance, we have a system at the moment that recognises needs. It means that those councils with the most deprived households within them get 17% higher funding per dwelling than those with the fewest. I recognise the calls for wider reform to local government funding but noble Lords will know that, in the wake of Covid and other uncertainties, this Government made a commitment that while we should press ahead with that, it would not be for now but for the next Parliament.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to her post and I will be quite parochial. As somebody who was born in Huddersfield and now lives in Sheffield, I welcome the allocation that has been made to the Penistone line. But living in Sheffield, which is the fourth-largest city in England, our eyes roll when there is talk about levelling up because in the middle of this levelling-up agenda, our direct train between Sheffield and Manchester Airport has been taken away. How does it contribute to the levelling-up scheme when a train from a main airport to the fourth-largest city is taken away in the middle of that? What pressure will the Minister now put to bear in her new role to ensure that the train is reinstated? The reason for taking it away was because of rail infrastructure issues and it is really important that the train is reinstated, particularly if levelling up is going to take place between those two great, dynamic cities.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

Perhaps, given the strength of feeling that the noble Lord has on this issue, I could undertake to find out more about the rationale for that decision and write to him in particular on it. More broadly, one decision that we have taken recently, which I know has not been popular across the whole House, has been to not continue with the further leg of High Speed 2, to enable us to make sure that we are investing in transport projects that will provide greater connectivity to more people faster than would happen under the plans for the next leg of HS2. That shows this Government’s commitment to levelling up.