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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many of the organisations that submitted a bid for proposed freeports were (a) asked for, permitted to submit and (c) encouraged to submit additional submissions in relation to their bid between the deadline for bids on 5 February 2021 and 3 March 2021.

Site operator contact details were sought from all bidders to assist HMG in checking customs site authorisations. No other information was requested or encouraged from bidders as part of the bid assessment. All information that was assessed as part of the Freeport selection process was received by 12 noon on February 5 2021 or within a grace period of a few minutes after this deadline to allow for technical issues.