Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am very sorry to hear that. That is not an acceptable situation. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the detail he gave in his question and, if he would pass those details to my office, I will raise the matter when I see the permanent secretaries next week.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

We are now less than a month away from a new financial year. Over the past few weeks, councils have been setting the budgets that they have been working on for months now, but we still do not have the public health grant for England allocated to local government. Will the Leader of the House crack the whip with the Ministers responsible and get that information out to local governments so that they can finalise their public health allocations in their budgets, and will she apologise to councillors of all political persuasions for this sorry affair having dragged on for so long?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue. He tried to get an urgent question on it. He will know that I have raised the matter on his behalf with the relevant Departments. I would just say to him that it is not unusual—there are reasons for it—for those funding allocations to be published this month and sometimes later. I will again make sure that the Department has heard his concerns, but it is not an unusual situation. Of course, we want to make sure people have information in a timely way to make those decisions.