Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment he has made of progress of the Freeport East project.

Freeport East is fully operational with both tax and custom sites designated. The Department is now working with the Freeport to secure final approval of the Freeport's Full Business Case, which is expected shortly. As part of this process, the Department has considered the potential economic benefits to the Freeport East outer boundary area.

The Freeports programme monitoring and evaluation strategy sets out the approach the Department will take to measure the economic benefit in the wider Freeport area.