Miatta Fahnbulleh

I am disappointed by the hon. Member’s lack of contrition and his failure to say sorry. The Conservatives presided over 14 years of failure, during which, over a period of austerity, local government and local civic institutions were denuded and deprived communities were hollowed out. He says that we are funding areas of deprivation—that is because we actually care about funding those areas. Candidly, if I had the record of the last Government, I would not stand at the Dispatch Box and give us lectures. Let me pick up the specific questions that the hon. Member asked. First, why are we tying this up in process? There is no process, but we have said that communities should be in charge. The difference between this scheme and the things done by the last Government is that we want to put communities in the driving seat and give them power. We want local authorities to enable and facilitate, but we absolutely need our community leaders. Members across the House will know them—the people who are networking, championing and making change happen. We want them around the table, driving the change that their community needs. On the methodology, the Conservative party obviously did some fiddling, but we do not do that. We have focused on two metrics: multiple deprivation and community needs. That is putting investment into the areas that most need it, because they are both deprived and, critically, have low social infrastructure and social capital. That is why we are funding the areas that we are funding. We all remember the Conservatives’ last Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), saying that they actively diverted funding away from areas of deprivation. That is something that the Labour party will not do and has not done. Finally, turning to the funding profile, we are desperate to move with momentum. We want to get the investment out. It is a 10-year commitment—that is an absolute game changer. No Government have ever said to communities, “Come up with an investment plan and we will fund you over a decade.” We think that is game changing for communities on the ground, but we are not going to wait. We are already giving programme capital investment to the 75 places that were in phase 1, in order to start the work of kick-starting that programme, and then their funding will flow next year. For those places in phase 2, capital and capacity investment will be going into them from next year and then flowing in the year after. We are very clear about this opportunity for our communities. This is not about party politics, so I am incredibly disappointed by the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). This is an opportunity to support parts of our country that have been absolutely hollowed out. I would expect a bit more contrition. [Hon. Members: “Why?”] Because of your record. Because you sat—