Towns Fund

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

From this towns fund being handed out to Tory seats, to the money being squandered on covid contracts and the ferry contract being awarded to a company with no ferries, this is all part of a very murky picture, is it not? How can my constituents have any confidence at all that public money is being well spent when cronyism, mates’ rates and political manoeuvring seem to be at the heart of so much Government decision making, not to mention downright incompetence?

[Robert Jenrick]

Well, I did not detect a question there, other than a whole series of pointless innuendos. We are going to keep focusing on what the public want us to do, which is investing and levelling up in the communities that need it the most despite all the challenges of covid, and that is exactly what this fund does.