Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the implications for his polices of the conclusions of the Centre for International Competitiveness's report, UK Competitiveness Index 2019, published in March 2019.

The UK Competitiveness index benchmarks the performance of different regions and nations across the UK. To tackle regional disparities, we are committed to levelling up opportunity across every nation and region. This includes, a £5bn package of investment for buses and cycling, a consultation on Freeports, and we will proceed with HS2 to deliver essential North-South connectivity, greater capacity, and shorter journey times. We will continue to build on this to deliver on our ambition to level up the whole of the UK.