UK Community Renewal Fund

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

No, it is not—absolutely not. A clear methodology has been set out. It will benefit all the regions of the UK pretty much in equal part.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell me how many different pots there are for levelling up for councils to bid for? I was told that there are now over 100. If so, do councils have to spend money trying to fulfil different sets of criteria for each one?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I have some sympathy with the noble Lord’s first question: there are probably too many funding pots. We are doing our best to narrow those down as we move towards the levelling-up fund for capital and the UK shared prosperity fund. We do not want local authorities to become grant farmers. We want them to focus on the vision for their place and then to apply for a limited number of pots. It is appropriate to have deals as well, on the other side, but, in terms of central pots, we are broadly going down to two main ones.