Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Liz Twist Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The resettlement programme is resuming early in the new year after an understandable pause as a result of covid-19, and we will ensure that it is properly resourced so that it can continue to fulfil its important function. With respect to local councils, it is important that they apply for the funds that are made available to them. We have produced a number of schemes over the last couple of years, including the towns fund and the high streets fund. Next year, we will be bringing forward the £4 billion levelling-up fund, and it is my intention that we make the application and competition procedures as simple as possible so that local councils can succeed. My hon. Friend has a good council in his constituency, and I have worked closely with Damian Allen, its excellent chief executive. It has benefited from the towns fund on two occasions, and I hope to support it in future.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I want to start by thanking all the staff at Gateshead Council, who have done an absolutely magnificent job in responding to the pandemic and being hugely flexible, so thanks to them. I also want to return to the theme of public health that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) raised, because this year more than any other has shown the importance of public health services. They have been vital in helping to limit the spread of covid-19 and responding to the pandemic. We know that the pandemic has exposed the impact of health inequalities on those who contract covid-19 and on their response to it, yet there is nothing in the statement about public health. Can the Secretary of State tell the House what conversations he has had with Cabinet colleagues about public health funding for next year?

[Robert Jenrick]

The question that the hon. Lady asks is primarily for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, but what I would say, building on my remarks of a few moments ago, is that public health has been significantly invested in over the course of this year as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. The public health grant provided to local councils has to be viewed in the round, including the sums of money that we have been providing to directors of public health for infection control, for personal protective equipment and for support for care homes across the country, including in her own local council, which has received £28 million of covid-19 expenditure already.