Stronger Towns Fund

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

Absolutely. I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. Towns such as Paignton and Torquay are great places, but they want more to be done for them. We have the opportunity to consider options such as town deals so that we can advance the agenda and my hon. Friend’s constituents can feel the benefit.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

It is clear that the level of the stronger towns fund—whenever it is announced for Scotland—will not make up for the fact that Scotland is now in danger of losing £840 million in EU structural funds between 2020 and 2027. In response to my question to the Prime Minister on 5 December, she told me that a consultation on the UK shared prosperity fund, which is supposed to replace EU structural funds, would be held by the end of 2018. Given the importance of the EU funds to my constituency, will the Secretary of State update the House on the progress of that consultation?

[James Brokenshire]

I can say that we have already begun to engage with officials and external stakeholders in the devolved Administrations and discuss their experience of current European funding programmes and priorities for the design of the UK shared prosperity fund. We have repeated our commitment to respect the devolution settlement, and we intend discussions between Ministers in the UK Government and the Governments of those nations to begin before the consultation. Obviously we will take a specific approach in the case of Northern Ireland, in the absence of a sitting Executive, but we are advancing the work on the prosperity fund, and I can assure the hon. Lady that we will work with the Scottish Government in that regard.