Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I certainly can give the hon. Member that assurance, but equally, I would be more than happy to meet her and her right hon. Friend. She raises a number of different points. Her local council has received a great deal of money from the Government over the course of this year. It has received almost £50 million in covid-19 expenditure alone so far, in addition to the schemes I have already referred to, which will no doubt amount to many further millions of pounds. The Government have provided the council with £56 million to support 4,000 of her local businesses. She also mentions homelessness and rough sleeping, on which we have worked very closely with Newham Council—I visited a brilliant move-on accommodation site in her constituency earlier this year with the mayor—and we will be providing it with further funding next year, thanks to the £750 million that we are investing in our campaign to end rough sleeping.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

Madam Deputy Speaker, may I wish you, as my brilliant constituency neighbour across the border in Epping Forest, a happy Christmas?

My right hon. Friend knows that we are in the process of bidding for the £25 million towns fund to regenerate Harlow. Coupled with the recently announced £50 million Harlow investment fund, does he agree that this regeneration money will completely transform our town to build an even better Harlow? Does he also agree that these regeneration funds are all the more important given the struggle that local businesses and shopkeepers have had to face because of the coronavirus pandemic, and will he confirm that every possible financial support will be given to the residents of Harlow to help us through this pandemic?

[Robert Jenrick]

Can I thank my right hon. Friend for his hard work over the course of this year and for the campaigns we have worked on together? Not least of those is the decision he campaigned on for many years to institute national space standards for new homes built under permitted development rights, which I think will make a great deal of difference in Harlow, as across the country. He is right to highlight the many ways in which the Government are supporting Harlow—through the towns fund, which is bringing forward very exciting and welcome proposals, and also through the work of Homes England in my Department, which is putting £240 million against the new garden village to provide much-needed housing and further town centre regeneration for his local community. I look forward to visiting Harlow, I am sure, next year and seeing the results.