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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans his Department has to use the methodology for the determination of priority places for the UK Community Renewal Fund to inform the determination of similar areas under the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The UK Community Renewal Fund will help inform the design of the UK Shared Prosperity through funding of one year pilots, but the funds are distinct in regard to design, eligibility and duration. Successful UK Community Renewal Fund bids will be for 2021/22 only.

The UK Community Renewal Fund aims to support our communities to pilot programmes and new approaches, aligning national and local provision. We want to use the UK Community Renewal Fund to test greater integration of types of interventions and greater flexibility between investment themes than under EU structural funds.

A big part of testing and trialling means evaluating what works well and what does not so that it can feed into the development of both the places and people portions of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. Spending Review 2020 set out the main strategic elements of the UKSPF in the Heads of Terms.  The Government will publish a UK-wide investment framework later this year and confirm its funding profile at the next Spending Review