Minister defends slurs at 'divisive' Towns Fund

摘要

Local government minister Luke Hall has been forced to fend off accusations of divisiveness and partisanship in the Towns Fund. Opposition MPs rounded on the £3.6bn scheme in a House of Commons debate last week in which Labour's Rupa Huq labelled it a 'dangerous policy' that had the effect of 'demonising our capital' by excluding London, despite being home to some of the most deprived areas in the country. Fellow party member Alex Cunningham described it as a 'wasteful bidding processes that pits deprived communities against each other for scraps from the Government's table' while Lib Dem Sarah Olney criticised the competitive fund's 'winners and losers approach' and pressed the Government to 'reform local authority funding to give all councils more money to spend on investing in their own town centres'.