My Lords, Amendments 1, 17, 304 and 305 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, are all linked to a proposed new requirement for government to lay a statement detailing the application process for round 3 of the levelling-up fund. That has already happened in the first two rounds of the fund. We published information on the impartial assessment and decision-making process, alongside a full list of successful applicants. We have also provided feedback to unsuccessful applicants in both rounds. We will continue to improve the process used to award funding, taking on board the feedback we have received, which will be reflected in our approach to the next round of the fund.
We have also published our monitoring and evaluation strategy, which makes clear how the fund will evaluate impact against a range of criteria, including healthy life expectancy, well-being and pride in place. On the timing of the statement of the levelling-up missions, which is mentioned in Amendment 1, we have committed
in the Bill to publish this within one month of Part 1 of the Act coming into force. We argue that this is already an appropriate and prompt timescale.
Amendment 3, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, looks at how levelling-up funds are supporting the levelling-up missions. This Government are committed to transparency. The Bill will place a duty on the Government to publish a clear statement of their levelling-up missions and to report annually on their progress against them, including, where relevant, the contributions made by particular projects and programmes. We have also already published transparent criteria for assessing projects and initiatives to be funded via key levelling-up funds and have published all funding allocations made to places.
In relation to the levelling-up fund specifically, in round 2 of the fund we asked applicants to set out which of the 12 levelling-up missions their bid supported. Several of the criteria used in the levelling-up fund evaluation strategy align closely with our missions, including pride in place, health and well-being. Alongside that, transport forms one of the three investment themes, and more than £1.1 billion has been awarded to improve transport infrastructure in the first two rounds.
It might be useful to give some examples of what has happened. Torridge District Council made a bid for the Appledore Clean Maritime Innovation Centre. That will create North Devon’s first university research centre, which will help regional skills by providing a regional skills base, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said. It will also establish the area as a leading research and development destination for clean maritime. Another example—I will not go on, because I could give noble Lords a large number—is the Porth transport hub, which will open later this summer. It will improve transport connectivity by providing seamless public transport connectivity for that town. These are the things that are happening.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, also asked about the rest of the money that the Government are spending and whether it will be spent in connection to the missions. I can say that £40 million from the DfE has gone into education investment areas, one of our priorities in the missions, while £2.5 billion has been allocated to the transforming cities fund and many billions more to the city region sustainable transport settlements and the bus service improvement plans. There is also £125 million from the Home Office for the safer streets fund. These are all connected to our very important missions.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Hayman of Ullock, quite rightly asked about simplifying the funding landscape. We have already made significant progress in streamlining funds. Between them, the levelling-up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund consolidate what was previously a complex landscape. We are committed to publish a simplification plan setting out how we will go further, immediately and at the next spending review, to simplify the funding landscape far more.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, also talked about evaluation. We have an overall departmental evaluation strategy, which was published last November. Over the past 18 months, the department has significantly increased the resource dedicated to local growth
evaluations, and that will continue—so we are looking particularly at including towns funds, the levelling up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund.
The noble Baroness also asked why it has taken so long to share information about the levelling up fund round 3. It is important that we have taken the time to reflect on the first two rounds, which is why things are changing. We have learned the lessons from those two, and we wanted to do that before committing to round 3. We will talk about it further in the near future. The Secretary of State signalled at the LGA conference last week that he intends to bring a completely new approach to the levelling up fund round 3, reflecting on everything that has happened up until now.
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I move on to Amendment 11, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I must apologise to the noble Lord: when he tabled his amendment, I thought it was about planning and did not realise that it was about the Scilly Isles in particular. I will give the answer that I have, because the amendment mentioned planning, and I think it is important that noble Lords have the answer —but I will then say something about the Scilly Isles.
The noble Lord’s amendment would enable local planning authorities to refuse development when it would adversely affect the benefits of the levelling-up missions and where they are in receipt of levelling-up funding. Section 70 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires local planning authorities to consider all material considerations when determining a planning application, which expressly includes local finance considerations, so far as they are material to that application. Where levelling-up funding has been granted to local planning authorities for a scheme, we would also expect that this has the wider support of the council, including in relation to the planning policies of the area. Local planning authorities can already take such matters into consideration when considering planning applications—but I do not think that that was what the noble Lord was getting at.
The Isles of Scilly project is being led by the Department for Transport, and the noble Lord brings up some very pertinent questions. I am really pleased that Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly have £48 million from the Government to make sure that there is good accessibility to the islands, but I am very happy to talk further and to bring colleagues from the DfT to talk about that matter. We will do that as soon as Report is over.
I hope that I have given the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, enough reassurance that her amendment will not be pushed to a vote and that others in this group will not be pressed either.