Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the report by the Select Committee on the Rural Economy, Time for a Strategy for the rural economy, published on 26 March 2019 (HL Paper 330), what plans they have to ensure that each department’s Comprehensive Spending Review settlement will be conditional on ensuring that nobody living in a rural area is unreasonably disadvantaged by where they live.
Answer
As the Chancellor announced in July, a priority of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) will be levelling up economic opportunity across all nations and regions of the country by investing in infrastructure, innovation and people.
At launch, the Treasury sent official-level guidance and templates setting out its priorities for the CSR and the information required from departments to make assessments of funding needs.