Tory MPs set for pre-election campaign boost with levelling up cash in Spring

Yorkshire has been allocated over £200 million which has been earmarked by the Treasury from the Government’s flagship levelling up pots.

This will see MPs in key areas for the Conservatives to hold at the next election, such as around Kirklees, Doncaster and Wakefield, given a boost to campaigning locally.

Candidates in as many as 10 marginal seats in Yorkshire are set to be given a pre-election campaigning boost, with local battles set to see the Tory MPs focus on local issues and delivering funding against the backdrop of national issues such as the cost of living crisis and the NHS.

These seats include Don Valley, Colne Valley, Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, as well as new seats such as Doncaster East and Axholme, Rother Valley, Dewsbury and Batley, Spen Valley, and Wakefield West and Denby Dale.

Alex Stafford, the Tory MP for Rother Valley, said: “It is great that the Government is being true to its word and investing heavily in Rother Valley, with a £4.5 million investment in Maltby and £12 million in Dinnington.

“Only the Conservative Government cares about improving our local areas.”

“It’s really positive news that the Conservative government is investing so much in Yorkshire communities,” said Jason McCartney, the Conservative MP in Colne Valley, adding that his patch had received around £55 million of Government funding, in addition to the £11 billion TransPennine rail upgrade.

South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire are set to have their £80 million investment zone funding made available for the 2024/25 financial year, focusing on growth in key areas such as advanced manufacturing parks outside of Sheffield.

The Department for Levelling Up said it was making “rapid progress” to establish investment zones in the region.

In addition, regeneration projects totalling over £45 million for Kirklees, Rotherham and North-East Lincolnshire are likely to be given the green light by April.

Levelling Up Partnerships, which have been billed as bespoke “deep dive” initiatives into Doncaster, Wakefield and Hull, will get their share of £400 million split over 20 areas in the country.

Though the funding will be negotiated and approved on a case-by-case basis, several of these could be green-lit before voters are expected to head to the polls.

The Yorkshire Post understands that Dehenna Davidson, the levelling up minister, has held talks with backbench Labour MPs to get their recommendations on how the money is spent.

Further details on the third round of the Government’s flagship Levelling Up Fund are expected to be announced in the next few months, which is anticipated to take around six months from applications opening to the winners being announced.

The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt revealed in his budget that the fund will open “later in 2023”, with a further £1 billion on offer to local authorities.

It comes after Sky News revealed that Rishi Sunak had scrapped the second round of Boris Johnson’s Towns Fund, with the £300m earmarked for the competition rolled into the next round of the Levelling Up Fund.

Lisa Nandy, Labour’s shadow levelling up secretary, said: “Despite all their rhetoric, under the Tories regional inequality is getting worse.

“Things can be better if we stop writing off most people in most parts of Britain.

“People are proud of the places they call home and the contribution they made to building our country. What they need is a government that shares the huge ambition they have for themselves, their families, their communities and their country.

“The vague promise of a partial refund on the money they’ve stripped out of our communities won’t cut it.”