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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent discussions he has had with local authorities on including relevant Members of Parliament on local panels responsible for making decisions about how to spend their share of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

Under the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), it is for places to decide how they use their allocation and this will depend on locally identified priorities. Each place was tasked to work with local partners choosing from a range of interventions to develop an investment plan. Pre-launch guidance was published in February 2022 followed by the UKSPF Prospectus in April 2022. Updated guidance is available on Gov.uk.

Members of the UK Parliament play an important role in representing the views of their constituents, working collaboratively with local authorities and other local partners to work for the good of local places. They should be closely engaged in the design and delivery of the Fund. In most cases, all MPs in the area should have been invited to join the local partnership group.