Towns Fund

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

As I have already said, a fair and robust procedure was used to determine the places, and many places adjacent to the hon. Lady’s constituency have benefited. I think of Blyth, for example—a community that needed investment. It saw very little of it under the last Labour Government and will now, I hope, be benefiting. She represents a great city. That was not the primary focus of the towns fund, as the name rather suggests.

With the UK shared prosperity fund, we will be ensuring that each of the nations of the United Kingdom receives the same funding as they did under the EU structural funds. We fundamentally believe that we can design better, more outcomes-focused funding streams than the European Union was ever able to do during our long years of membership. We will bring forward more details on that very soon.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

May I ask my right hon. Friend to comment on the element of the Public Accounts Committee report that says his Department misrepresented the National Audit Office by falsely asserting that it had concluded that the selection process had been robust? I ask that because it is important, surely, that the Government respect the work of the National Audit Office—now more than ever, when we are in an enormous public expenditure crisis. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that he and other Ministers will respect the work of the National Audit Office?

[Robert Jenrick]

As a former member of the Public Accounts Committee and a former Treasury Minister, I hold our colleagues at the National Audit Office in the highest esteem. They prepared a report that informed the hearing that was held by the Public Accounts Committee. At the Committee hearing, the permanent secretary of my Department gave evidence, answered questions and made it very clear that, in his opinion, a robust procedure had been followed. In my opinion, it was disappointing that the Chair of the Committee chose to give comments even before she had held that hearing, as that rather suggested that her approach was more partisan than one would expect from the Chair of that Committee.