Hyndburn Labour including Haslingden
The Towns Fund scandal that saw £3.6 billion of taxpayer money funnelled to marginal constituencies and including THEIR own areas just months before the 2019 General Election.
It was subsequently revealed that former Communities Minister Jake Berry selected Robert Jenrick’s constituency of Newark to receive funding, while Darwen, a town in Mr Berry’s Lancashire constituency, was chosen by Mr Jenrick. Civil servants had ranked them respectively the 270th and 289th most deprived towns in Britain.
Meanwhile Labour run Hyndburn was missed out one of the top 20 most deprived areas in the country.
Steve Reed MP “There are real concerns that the Secretary of State misused taxpayers’ money to help his own bid for re-election, then tried to cover what he’d been up to just days before a damning report was released.
Hyndburn is being let down. Tories are helping themselves at the cost of our residents.
We look forward to Robert Jenricks pending visit to Hyndburn so we can ask him some questions and to ask him if he will commit to releasing in full, the Accounting Officer assessment of the scheme as requested by the Public Accounts Committee as well as the full criteria Ministers used to select towns against the advice of civil servants.
