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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans he has to allocate matched funding to projects currently supported by the European Social Fund in Northern Ireland during the 2022-23 financial year.

The Government is currently engaging with the Northern Ireland Executive at an official level regarding the concerns raised by some Northern Ireland stakeholders around programmes currently running under the European Social Fund.

UK-wide funding for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) will ramp up to at least match receipts from EU structural funds in Northern Ireland. which on average reached around £1.5 billion per year. Spending Review 2021 fulfils this commitment, with the announcement of over £2.6 billion for the UKSPF over the next three years.

The Government will publish further details on the fund in due course.