Shared Prosperity Fund: Devolved Administrations

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Neil O'Brien

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) on securing this important and timely debate. It was also good to welcome the Minister of State for the Northern Ireland Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), who was listening to all the extremely important points being made as closely as I was.

Given the short time available, I will come directly to the important points made by hon. Members. I am not here to argue the toss with them, but to try to start to set out how we will work together to do all these things. As hon. Members know, the shared prosperity fund will provide £2.6 billion of new funding for local investment by March 2025; it is a significant scheme. It will be provided through a funding formula, rather than a competition, which is important. While there are advantages in funding competitions, because they get people sharpening their pencils, there are a lot of advantages in formula allocations, because people have the same certainty that places used to have through some of the European structural funds.

[Stephen Kinnock]

On the point about funding, the Minister has just mentioned the figure of £2.6 billion. Does he therefore accept that the manifesto commitment has been broken? The manifesto commitment was to match the previous funding, which would mean £1.5 billion per year over a seven-year planning cycle. The comprehensive spending review is only a three-year time horizon, so will the Minister accept that the manifesto pledge has been broken?

[Neil O'Brien]

I will come to quantums later in my speech, but no, we will keep our manifesto promises.

The hon. Member for Belfast South raised really important points, and I hope I can start to set Members’ minds at ease. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), whose health I would have feared for had he not been here today, was right when he said that we are all on this journey together.

I agreed with the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) when he said that we must work with devolved Governments and local people, not over their heads. I also agreed with the sensible speech made by hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), who said that we must use the experience of local partners who know what is needed and how to run these kinds of schemes.

In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland we are very clear that we want local partners, at all levels, to be able to shape what is done to this funding and how it is allocated. In Northern Ireland, we have a unique local government landscape in our work on the UKSPF, so we proposed to deliver at a Northern Ireland-wide scale, which will enable us to have an allocation that is felt to be fair by all communities and that will make the most of all the fantastic opportunities that there are across Northern Ireland.

The development of that single Northern Ireland plan will draw on the insight and expertise of local partners, including the Northern Ireland Executive, local authorities, businesses, the community and the voluntary sector, in order to maximise all the local intelligence, insight and knowledge that they have. We have engaged with the Northern Ireland civil service, the Northern Ireland Local Government Association and Solace on UKSPF.

I have also reached out to the Northern Ireland Executive’s Minister for Finance and I plan to discuss the UKSPF further with him on Thursday. I had a very useful meeting with Minister Lochhead from the Scottish Government on Friday, and I am setting up a meeting with Vaughan Gething of the Welsh Government, as well. We are keen to work with all of the devolved Administrations to shape the way this funding is used.