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

To ask Her Majesty's Government how they will ensure that the UK Shared Prosperity Fund provides adequate levels of support for people to find work, improve their skills and contribute to their communities.

The government knows the value of projects funded by the European Structural Fund to disadvantaged communities and individuals. We continue to develop the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which will seek to reduce inequalities across the whole of the UK.

In the mean time the UK will remain in European Structural and Investment Funds until the 2014-20 programme closes, under the terms of the Joint Report made in December 2017.

This will ensure that local areas across the UK continue to have access to their notional allocations, providing the projects are aligned to domestic priorities and represent value for money and is subject to agreed performance and spend targets, under a business as usual approach.