Stronger Towns Fund

Matt Warman Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I do not want the hon. Lady to doff her cap in any way, shape or form. This fund is part of a package of measures that we will be bringing forward. That is why I have highlighted the UK shared prosperity fund. She talks about European money. That fund is part of the replacement for those funds post-2020. I recognise the passion and ambition and the sense of identity of people across Yorkshire, which is why I had that meeting at the end of last week with Yorkshire leaders. I cannot take the Yorkshire deal forward in the way that she and some of her colleagues may wish, but I certainly have that ambition for Yorkshire, which is something we discussed positively last week.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

Boston and Skegness are proud and ambitious towns that, frankly, have been frustrated because we have not been spending money like this for many years on our great towns. I welcome enormously what the Secretary of State is doing today. He is extoling the virtues of a plethora of different funds. It should be for towns to come up with their own ambitions and perhaps for the Department to help them in saying how best they can be put together and allocated from different pots of money.

[James Brokenshire]

That is why we want to see the development of what I might categorise as town deals, whereby we can bring different funding streams together to support that positive sense of how towns can fulfil their potential. This firmly forms part of that, but, as I have indicated, there are other sources of funding, and bringing those strands together will add that further leverage. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend as we seek to establish more of those town deals.