Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many eligible local authorities did not accept capacity funding to support a Levelling Up Fund bid.

To support the development of high-quality bids to the Levelling Up Fund, a one-off payment of £125k in capacity funding was allocated to all category 1 local authorities in England, and all local authorities in Scotland and Wales.

Payment of this capacity funding was made to all the eligible local authorities. In total, 158 payments were made in Round 1 of the Fund and a further 15 for Round 2. No local authority rejected this payment.