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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, when funding from his Department's proposed Shared Prosperity Fund will become available for businesses.

The Government understands the importance of local growth funding to places and people and is committed to creating the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to succeed European structural funds, providing vital investment in local economies, cutting out bureaucracy and levelling up those parts of the UK whose economies are furthest behind.

Leaving the European Union provides us with a fresh opportunity to create a fund which invests in our own priorities and targets funding where it is needed most, whilst maintaining support for our businesses and communities.

Final decisions on the design and operation of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund will need to be made following a cross-Government Spending Review.