Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether any ministers, special advisors or other political appointments were involved in setting criteria for areas eligible for funding from the Youth Investment Fund.

Ministers are advised by civil servants and special advisors before making decisions on how public money is spent.

In the case of the Youth Investment Fund, ministerial decisions regarding which areas would be eligible to apply were taken on the basis of high quality, robust and publicly available data. The methodology used has been published on GOV.UK.