Towns Fund

Dehenna Davison Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall try to be swift. As I said in an earlier answer, the question of Barnettisation will be settled at the spending review, and hon. Members do not have very long to wait for the answers there. On the hon. Gentleman’s broader point, he is absolutely right. The challenges facing smaller cities and towns are consistent across the whole of the United Kingdom. That is the reason we set up the towns fund, and that is why we having been doing town and city deals in all parts of the UK, including a large number in Scotland.

[Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)]

I think it shows how far Labour has fallen from its natural home that it is essentially condemning funding going into some of the most deprived communities in our nation. That is absolutely astonishing to witness. The residents of Bishop Auckland are incredibly grateful to have been shortlisted not only for the towns fund but for the future high streets fund, and to have received £750,000 of accelerated funding. We are doing some incredible cross-party and cross-community working on our towns board to secure that deal, and I look forward to that bid going in. My question to the Secretary of State is: if the towns fund is opened up in future, will he seriously consider including Spennymoor in that, because Bishop Auckland is a tale of four towns, and Spennymoor deserves its fair share?

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my hon. Friend, who has been a fantastic champion for her constituency since she was elected just a short time ago. As she says, it is a reflection on the Labour party—at least in Westminster—that it wants to pour cold water on a fund that is doing so much good work in communities across the country. Fortunately, that is quite a different picture from what we are seeing from local councils of all political persuasions elsewhere, which really want to get on board and make a huge success of these proposals. We will be doing a competitive phase next year, and I look forward to an application from the other parts of my hon. Friend’s constituency.