Towns Fund

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Once again, the hon. Gentleman seeks to sow discord where there is none. We followed a very clear and robust procedure. The permanent secretary of my Department made that very clear when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee. Again, I think it is disappointing that the hon. Gentleman chooses to cast aspersions upon distinguished civil servants.

With respect to the accounting officer’s advice, such advice is not routinely published. That is a decision not for Ministers, but for civil servants. Once again, the hon. Gentleman is highly misleading in his remarks, because the accounting officer’s advice was shared in full with the National Audit Office when it produced its report for the PAC. The Chair of the PAC asked to see the report and, in line with usual practice, the permanent secretary wrote a comprehensive summary of the advice. I have asked him once again to check that advice, and he says that the summary was comprehensive and covered all the points. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has all the information at her fingertips, as I suspect she knows perfectly well, because she is a highly experienced Member of this House.

With respect to Newark, I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman shows such interest in my constituency. Perhaps he could come up and visit us, but he does not like to go north of the M25 very often. If he did, he would know that Newark was the 16th most highly ranked town in the east midlands to be a beneficiary of the fund, and we supported 19 places in the east midlands. There is absolutely no reason why a Minister should disadvantage their constituency. We are both Ministers and constituency MPs, which is one of the great virtues of our political system, but it is right that those decisions are not taken by that particular Minister and, in the usual way, the decision was taken by a colleague.

With respect to the hon. Gentleman’s question about why I had said on the campaign trail that the fund’s future would be in question if there were a Labour Government, I think he has made that point for us today. He does not support the towns fund. The 101 places that are benefiting from it would be poorer if they had been under a Labour Government.

The message from the Labour party is very clear today: while we want to level up, it wants to score pointless political points. The shadow Secretary of State cannot talk about local government because his own Labour council has gone bankrupt with debts of £1.5 billion. He cannot talk about communities, because the committee on antisemitism has called him out, along with the majority of the members of the community team on the Labour Front Bench, for antisemitic incidents—quite how he can stay in position after that, I do not know. He cannot talk about housing because he has said that his team has no housing policies, and it will be years before he produces any. He cannot talk about housing because we are building more homes than any Government have done for the past 30 years. We will keep on building homes, we will keep on levelling up, and we will keep on investing in the communities that need it.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con) [V]]

The towns fund will help reverse the decline in places such as Ashfield and other ex-Labour strongholds in the midlands and the north, where, during decades of Labour MPs and Labour councils, the only thing on offer was more decline and more broken promises. The £1.5 million accelerated towns funding is already being put to good use in my area. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Labour should be supporting our plans to level up in the old industrial towns in the north, and will he meet me to discuss how I can get the town of Eastwood on my patch to be included in the next round of funding?

[Robert Jenrick]

I have to say that I do not recall my hon. Friend’s predecessor coming to me to lobby for investment in his community. What a refreshing difference it is to have a Conservative MP in Ashfield who is fighting for investment for that community. I would be delighted to meet him and discuss his plans to take Ashfield forward.