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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will meet the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish to discuss the level of consultation by Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council with Members of Parliament on the formulation of UK Shared Prosperity Fund bids.

The Department has set out that Members of the UK Parliament should be closely engaged in the design and delivery of the Fund.

In most cases, all MPs in the area should be invited to join a local partnership group for UKSPF. Where an authority or strategic geography is so large that this is impractical (in places like Greater Manchester), the Department has indicated that lead local authorities should invite all MPs for the place to a convened engagement group, and ensure their views are represented on the local partnership group.

We have delegated responsibility for designing the fund to each lead local authority. For Tameside, this is the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which will be able to provide you with greater detail around the level of consultation and ongoing involvement in fund delivery.

I would be delighted to meet to discuss this further.